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I may be able to give you a starting point. As I said before, I'm guessing I shaved 300# off of my car. I then upgraded my sway bar to 1" which in effect stiffens each spring when it is being compressed by it self. I went with 350# springs and my suspension is good but a little soft. I had to adjust my coils up quite a bit to get the correct ride height so I may end up ordering 400# springs in the future. The 350# springs are almost perfect so I have no doubt the 400s would be absolutely perfect but I am happy enough with it now that I may not even change them. Any way my point is, based on what you have said, a 400 or 450 spring might be jut what you need. I know someone else on this forum did the coil overs after I did and I believe they ran 500s because they still had the big block.
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Thanks a lot for the feedback and making the big leap taking this on without certainty. I am pretty sure I will go this route as well. I will need to make sure exactly how much weight has been reduced from stock before making an order.
So, in your case if you wanted to lower your car further, would you be able to? I ask because that is my intention, about another 1.5-2 inches drop. I am concerned about not being able to do so, because from what you described, if your car was lower, the rubber bumper on the LCA starts getting to close to the frame stop. Would a heavier rated spring, such as the ones you suggested prevent this from happening? Thanks again.
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Daze, need your opinion. Getting ready to order the Q1A shock to switch over to adjustable coils so I can get the front end a little lower. I did a bunch of parts weighing and have determined that by swapping to a 4.6 with auto trans, R&P...I shaved off 220 pounds total. Now the front end sits too high. I tried cutting some of the coil, but that didn't work. I was hoping to lower the car so that there is no space between the top of the front tire and bottom of the fender lip. Would the 350 lb spring allow me to achieve this?
If I remember correctly, in the coil install post, you figured you shaved about 300 pounds of weight and have the coils tightened up to almost max adjustment? You felt the 400lb spring may give you more of what you were looking for. So, I am wondering if the 350 spring will allow me to get that front down to where I need it to be, or will that spring be too stiff?
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Are you doing a coil over like I did?? I think the 400# would still be about right
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Yes, same as what you did. I think that is probably the best way to go rather than to experiment with other springs. It was suggested to me to just go with a set of springs out of a Galaxie that had a straight six engine. Problem is, I don't know if anyone has tried that for lowering and then again you don't have any adjustment if it just doesn't sit right.
Thanks for the reply.
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I looked into that and and all the listings I found for y-block or I-6 galaxie springs were the same part number as the springs for the big block.
I am going to change my coil over set up slightly, I currently have the bottom of the coil over mounted in the OEM shock location. I am going to drill out my other two mounting holes to 3/8" and mount the coil over there. By moving it in 1" it will make the coil over more vertical which in turn should make my springs "stiffer". Stiffer is really not the correct word, in actuality when you angle a spring you reduce its rate. As an extreme example mount a 200# spring at a 45º angle and it effectively becomes a 100# spring. I am hoping that since my 350# springs are close that by going with the more vertical mount it will get the rate closer to where I want it.
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A follow up on my coil spring issue. I started out by cutting half a coil on the stock springs as I didn't want to have a gap between the lower lip of the front fender and the top of the tire once the new wheels and tires were installed. When I put the 4.6 and tranny(lighter than the 352) in the car, the springs didn't compress one bit. But, as I started putting the front sheet metal back on, bumper, battery, fluids etc...slowly the front end started dropping. Further, since I have been driving the car a bit, the springs seemed to have settled in a little more. Now, I hardly have any gap between the top of the 18" tire and fender. I just may leave things alone the way they are now?
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When I had my '59 apart in late 2014, I put the short Aerostar springs in, these were like 11" long and a spring rate of 650 lbs. The originals are 16" long with a spring rate of 414 lbs. My car has aluminum heads, intake, radiator and an aluminum case 4- speed. So I knocked some weight off it, all up front.
Took a first drive a month ago and the 15" tire scraped the fender lip on tight turns. I took the old springs, cut 1 coil out of them, the spring is now 13.5" long and I calculated the rate at 495 lbs. No more scrape. Too high for my liking, I'll see if it settles. I can probably cut a 1/2 to full coil more, I'll load the numbers back into my spring formula first.
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I'm starting to understand that cutting springs is more of a trial and error thing. Cut a little and see how it turned out. Want to go lower, cut a little more. You never really know how the springs will respond from cutting because of the unknowns such as: how much weight was shaved off, how soft were the old springs, were different springs put in...I suppose to avoid all of that, a guy could do what Daze did and go with adjustable coil overs. That way, you adjust spring tension till you get the ride height what you want!
Are you concerned about your springs getting stiffer the more you cut them?
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After spending a ton of time trying to figure out the best springs for my car, I am so glad I ditched the OEM stile springs and went with the coil overs, I love the adjustability. The ride height is exactly where I want it and the way the car drives is the best it has ever been since the day I bought it.
