I’m currently looking to cut my front coils but was wondering if anyone has similar car and how many coils they cut I have a 4inch drop blocks for the rear and wanna lower the front low as possible with the coils thanks in advance
Not a fan of cutting coils but if you do only cut one turn at a time than drive for a while and see whats up. For short where the coil ends to the next one same place so they fit back in right. Withfront heavy cars it usually only takes one or two.
I take 1 coil off at a time, slap back in and don't hook everything back together. See how it sits and maybe go another 1/2 coil from there. Watch if these is a registry between the top and bottom coil.
Go to people that make springs tell them how much lower you want car to sit, they will build accordingly.... might not hurt to weigh car first..
I am assuming you realize your car will ride terribly with that much drop as you will be bringing the lower A arm to very near the limit of it’s travel at the new normal ride height and little room to cushion bumps before a harsh bottoming out. You can disbelieve or disregard what I am telling you, but it is what you will end up with. Perhaps you don’t care about ride quality, only appearance, in which case, carry on. On the other hand, if you do want to retain some ride quality, consider ‘dropped uprights’ as they change the spindle height, and lower the car, without changing spring travel. The use of the fad ‘go to’, Aerostar coils is not much different than cutting your springs. The only way any spring can lower your car is by either being softer and collapsing more, or being shorter, or a combination of both. Read my signature line below..... Ray
Do a little homework and learn something, there are a few things about springs that you can plug into a simple formula and come up with a rate. Spring outer diameter, wire size and # of free coils. Play with the formula and you can solve for anything you desire. Most spring wire shares the same material constants. Free length and compressed lengths come into play too. The stock rate on my Ford springs was 415 lbs, Took out 1 coil and now they are 496 lbs. Something I could live with it rides well. And it just cost me a little time, biggest expense was a can of paint at Ace Hardware.
Your comments above in general are on point and worth listening to for those doing suspension calculations. However, in the OP's case, as presented, no spring rate formula is going to accomplish BOTH a 4" drop and a decent ride because the A arm position with that much drop has little travel remaining before bottoming out.
As Hnstray said, using dropped uprights help a bunch since it still lets you have suspension movement before bottoming. I used Fatmans product on my 53 Chev with the lowering springs, and got a very nice ride.
I’m aware of how the ride difference will be i had many cars lowered with lowering kits.springs..spindles ...airbags...cut springs....etc I’m not concerned how it’ll ride there are no kits out there for this car as I’ve searched the internet only coming up with lowering blocks and u bolts for rear I don’t wanna cut the car up to bag it so my next step would be to cut a coil or two I was just wondering if anyone had similar car that had cut the coil before I started but I guess I’ll have to just cut one off at a time
On my 48 Plymouth I used Fatman Fab dropped spindle supports and relocated the spring supports on the lower control arms to the bottom of the arms. I'm sure I will have to fine tune the springs when I get it on the road, but in full dress mock up it seems to have plenty of travel. Oh yeah the aerostar springs had way too much drop after the other mods, so the stock springs are in place for now.
So with the spindles you did disc brakes I’m assuming...are the Aerostar coils off the van? If so what year
The rule is cut 1 coil for street driving. The springs no doubt have already sagged from 70 years of use, 1 coil off may even make them too short. 4" blocks in the back are too much, try 2". You can go lower on a show car, or on a street car if you don't care if it drags the ground on speed bumps, when turning into a driveway, bottoms out with a clang on every bump etc. But it gets old pretty quick.
I did swap to disc brakes. not sure what year, but yes ford Aerostar van. I'm not sure that you have to swap brakes when changing the spindle supports. Look up Fatman Fab and see what their site says. http://www.fatmanfab.com/product/dropped-uprights-and-dropped-spindles
Glad you mentioned relocating the spring support on the lower control arm, wasn't sure O.P.s Chrysler was similar to Plymoth set-up.
I put the 4” blocks in back and cut 1 coil off the front it rides just as good as it did before lowering it I’ll post a pic tomorrow cutting one coil off front lowered it about 2”. So it sits 2 and 4 looks good
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