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 Post subject: Lowering the Ride Hieght
PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 8:25 am 
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Small Block

Joined:Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:22 pm
Posts:14
Car Details:1974 Camaro, fitted with a '73 front clip, 302 Engine sprayed in Purple.
Gents, I've just fitted some deep dish five spoke 17" to my Camaro, however, with the lower profile tyre the rolling circumference of the wheel is actually slightly smaller than my small 15" Slotmags (Which are now for sale).
My question is really, what is the prefferred method to lowering these cars - I know with other Axle over Leaf Spring cars you can simply use lowering blocks and longer U-Clamps - Is this the way to go for the rear??
The front however is a different beast - Do I need to use something like spring clamps (Compressors) or simply chop a coil from the spring as you see in so many Car shows on TV these days.

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Lowering the Ride Hieght

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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 8:43 am 
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Big Block
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Joined:Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:00 am
Posts:1158
Car Details:1986 Camaro, bought into Spain by me in 1993.
305 replaced by a 355, 750 Demon carb, RPM AirGap intake, Brodix heads, Hedman Hedders, 3" Flowmaster exhaust.
Wheels are Summit aluminium 5 spokes, tyres are 245 rear 225 front BF Goodrich.
B/M transmission, battery relocated to the rear, GoodMark 4" cowl steel hood.
Location:Spain East Coast
Chopping makes them stiffer.

I did a search at Summit, here´s what you get.
http://www.summitracing.com/dom/search/ ... del/camaro

My third gen is lowered approx. 1.5" and I scrape the exhaust on some car park ramps.
Coming out of an underground workshop I gave the transmission sump a really hard bang,
so be careful how much drop you give the car.


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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 9:51 am 
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Big Block
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Joined:Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:35 am
Posts:2566
Car Details:79' camaro road & track day toy. 383 stroker, 5 speed TKO trans, lots of suspension stuff, 13" Vette brakes, 18" wheels.
Location:Luton
What size tyres have you got as they look a little small, overall rolling diameter ideally wants to be around 26", so with a 17" wheel. There's a few online calculators to work it out - http://www.tyresizecalculator.com/

Your car is sitting pretty high so curious how old the springs on it are.

Lowering the car is usually best done by fitting new specific lowering uprated springs from a reputable company like Moog, Global West, Eibach, Hotchkis, or Summit's own etc....
You can cut the front springs, and even the uprated ones often need a trim (mine did), but it's more trial and error to get it exactly where you want.
Rear leafs:
Can be re-arched - you'll need to find an a place that specialises in this
A leaf can be removed - not ideal, but apparently works, but can be hit and miss.
Lowering blocks - really not recommended, as the axle will suffer more hop as it's moved away from the spring.


(car looks nice and shiny now !!!! :thumbup: )

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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:29 am 
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Big Block
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Joined:Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:40 pm
Posts:3245
Car Details:'79 Camaro, 350 V8
Location:South Bucks
I'll be sending you a PM about the slot mags at lunch, saw your post yesterday but haven't had a chance to reply, am interested :thumbup:

My 2nd gen was riding quite high - new(ish) springs all around and i think they were big block springs at the front and the rears were heavy duty, so there was quite a reasonable gap.

Thanks to the advice of Martin (sportsroof) i took the leaf springs apart and reshaped them with a vice (i can post pics if you like). Just cost a couple of evenings, plus i decided to strip them back, etch prime and paint, as they are notorious for starting to rust quickly. I lowered the back about an inch or so this way. I also did the Herb Adams mod to the front leaf pocket, which moves the bolt hole up by 1/4 of an inch or so, helping slightly lower it too.

You can get lowering blocks, i'm trying to remember what to look out for... It will come back to me at some point during the day. I need to picture it, but there was something about how they are attached that is the difference between them being done well and not. Hmm, need to remember.

For the front springs i trimmed about 2/3's of a coil off. I spent a lot of time reading up on trimming coils, the research ranged from 'you will destroy your car you redneck' to 'ye it's normal to trim coil springs for adjustment'. As 3rdGenMalc says, they will stiffen the ride, and this will be proportional to how much coil is taken out. Detroit Speed / Hotchkis say in their instructions that you may need to trim springs by a 1/4 or so, depending on application, that was enough for me to be ok with the idea. It will stiffen the ride by a % as mentioned, so taking out 3 coils will make a noticable difference, whereas 1/4 or so may be barely noticable. Either way, it won't be like you've replaced a coil with a concrete block lol. I got a spray bottle of water, wet the coil, took it easy with angle grinder - bit of a cut, spray some water, bit of a cut, spray some water, repeat; that way the coil doesn't heat up which is one of the concerns with cutting springs. The coil was barely warm right on the cutting point - about an inch away and it was cold just as the rest of the coil was. If done right, out of the car, using an angle grinder as mentioned and not taking out more than a coil, you'll be fine. I think spring cuitting got a bad name because people would do it on the car with a cutting torch... dangerous and too much heat.

If and when doing this, remember that it's 2:1 ratio i.e taking of 1 inch in height from the coil, restults in a 2 inch drop. Place a block of wood on the top of the tyre, measure from the bottom of the block to the wheel arch lip. Mine read 3.75". Depending how much tyre to arch lip gap you want, you can now work out how much to trim. I needed to trim about 1.9" of the coil to get no gap, but i wanted a gap of about an inch, so i took off 1.5" worth of coil, which results in about 2/3's of a turn. I did 1/4 of a turn first, reinstalled, checked ride height, took back out then cut the remainder. It's actually a touch too low now, would have preferred to cut just half a coil instead.

Or as 3rdGenMalc suggested, you can get new lowering springs, which would be worthwile especially if you have older springs. Bear in mind, they may need adjusting still. I read on the U.S 2nd gen forum about people buying the 2" drop springs and they actually ended up being too low, so from what i've read and experienced, and what Malc said below about scraping issues, better being on the conservative side of lowering. I also learned that lowering one end, also lowers the other end to an extent... I did the rears first had a nice wheel to arch gap, when i lowered the front, the back then lowered a bit too and i kind of wish it was a little bit higher at the back now by about 0.5".

Looking at your pic, front definitely needs to come down. I would initially try taking off half a coil and see how the car sits, including how the back looks. I reckon the back may just be ok. One last thing on the rear leafs... if it's a multipack spring (which it 99% likely is), then you can always take out one of the smaller leafs. This will help lower it slightly, and have the opposite effect of cutting a coil... will give a slightly softer ride, proportinally. You'll have the leafs out at this points, so you could do the Herb Adams front spring eye mod to help get 1/4 -1/2" lower too, plus you can redo all the bushings (if not already).

Sorry for the info overload!! Hope that helps and will PM you shortly.

I can upload some pics tonight if you need about the various different things i did.

Cheers,

Ray

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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 12:21 pm 
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Small Block

Joined:Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:22 pm
Posts:14
Car Details:1974 Camaro, fitted with a '73 front clip, 302 Engine sprayed in Purple.
Cheers for all the input - Its thankfully all been apart reasonably recently, so any removal should be relatively easy - The car used to have a big block installed, so it's possible that the coils in there are for that purpose, although they look incredibly new, so maybe the previous owner simply had them powder coated rather than replacing them with OEM springs for the SBC. The rear leaf spring has recently been apart, painted and refitted with new polybushes, so thankfully no need for rebushing.
I think I'll follow your advice and do the front first then see how it all looks before buying anything for the rears as I'd rather not take it all apart if its not needed.

Also, in case anyone knows what the hell its called. In one of the pics you can see a L shaped device which is bolted to the leaf springs, which I can only assume is to limit the amount of compression the leaf undertakes under a heavy start. I'm going to have to remove them anyway, as Its just not going to make it over any speedbumps, but does anyone know what the hell they are called or if that is even what they are there for?

Thanks


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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 12:39 pm 
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Big Block
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Joined:Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:40 pm
Posts:3245
Car Details:'79 Camaro, 350 V8
Location:South Bucks
Ok cool, sounds like we've had the same spring treatment on our cars then :) Keep us updated on how you get on with the front coils, i would guess that 1/2 should do the trick as mine looked to be at the same sort of ride height.

On the rears, those are known as slapper bars, notthing to do with the types of girls that hang around at bar, but more so to do with what you guessed - it's to help reduce spring compression and in turn wheel hop. Unless you plan on drag racing, then we might see them in the for sale section soon :thumbup:

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PostPosted:Tue Feb 24, 2015 2:11 pm 
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Small Block

Joined:Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:22 pm
Posts:14
Car Details:1974 Camaro, fitted with a '73 front clip, 302 Engine sprayed in Purple.
Indeed - Infact I need to have a good look through all my spares, as I have a fair amount of spares I need to get shot of. Hopefully this weekend I'll have a good dig around and then post up a For sale thread!

Cheers for the replies :thumbup:


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PostPosted:Wed Feb 25, 2015 10:25 am 
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Big Block
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Joined:Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:35 am
Posts:2566
Car Details:79' camaro road & track day toy. 383 stroker, 5 speed TKO trans, lots of suspension stuff, 13" Vette brakes, 18" wheels.
Location:Luton
I thought you popped new springs in yours Ray ... Sounds like you've got the experience with the original springs :thumbup:

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PostPosted:Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:44 pm 
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Big Block
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Joined:Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:40 pm
Posts:3245
Car Details:'79 Camaro, 350 V8
Location:South Bucks
Quote:
I thought you popped new springs in yours Ray
It would have been a lot easier lol. The springs seemed in good nick, the rear leafs still had a sticker on them, so i thought i may as well see what i can do and without having driven it, seems ok so far. Gonna need to the alignment done, camber and castor due to taking it all apart reinstalling, so i'm sure it sits a bit crooked.

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

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PostPosted:Mon Mar 02, 2015 10:40 am 
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Small Block

Joined:Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:22 pm
Posts:14
Car Details:1974 Camaro, fitted with a '73 front clip, 302 Engine sprayed in Purple.
Well I got round to lowering the front yesterday - I took 3/4 of a coil out and that took the front end down 1.5" - I'm reasonably happy with the outcome, although I'd like another 0.5 - 1" drop, but I'll drive it first to see how the ride is affected by the current drop. I've still to drop the rears.

Here are some before and after pics

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