Cutting my springs.......

[Fidhle007]

I hear you on the coils thing. But as for good roads, that's a cop out, roads are pretty terrible everywhere!

I daily'd the last E30 at about an inch to two inches under where you are in your sig for over 20k miles. Just have to pay a little more attention, and know where you can and can't go. E.G. roads under construction, parking garages, any place with speed bumps, detroit, etc. ;)

I live on a dirt road in NH and I've been through five oil pans. Now I have a large skidplate because there is no way in hell I'm replacing the e34 pan anytime soon... I'm lower now with the coils than I was with the eibachs but there's less bounce so I seem to be doing ok for now, I plan to drop the coils all the way down for Bav Auto's show next year but with my splitter setup (different than my sig) I doubt I'll even make it into their parking lot.

[E30SPDFRK]

I would love to see pics of the op's car. How much did 1.5 coils off lower it?

[robspeed325i]

I bought some H&R rear springs (off this board) and am going to cut my fronts to match the rear drop. (Cant cut the rears due to football shape, and i was fortunate to find just the rear pair cheap!)

there is so much bullshit spread and peanut-gallery opinions about this topic. I cut my stock springs on my 02 a million years ago, and paired with Bil HDs, that car rides and handles awesomely. It is true that you should match your springs with shocks, ideally, but a minor drop to match that from sport springs isnt going to hurt anything, even with stock shocks, on a DD. on the other hand, if you rice it up and cut four coils to ride on bumps, then yes that is stupid.

When you cut a spring, you RAISE the rate of the remaining coil because less metal is holding up the same weight. Bimmer magazine did an article on this a while back, and they measured a 20% increase in rate when cutting stock 02 springs to match the drop of $200 (it was a while ago, wasnt it?) sport springs, which also advertized about a 20% increase in rate. strange how that works out, huh?

BTW, the Bimmer mag crew cut 1.5 coils off the front and 1.0 off the rear to level out their car (02s are famous for the "motorboat" look) and boost the suspension stiffness to match their shocks.

Ima do the springs after the melt in spring, by that time i hope to have found a nice used set of Billy HDs to go with them.

Other than supporting spring companies and their retailers, the chief advantage of H&Rs or Eibachs is the progressive wind of the coil they use, which makes a street ride a little softer on minor bumps, and then stiffens up once the suspension is loaded in turns...

[bpui]

i thought we cannot cut the e30 spring because the it wont sit properly with the strut ?

[robspeed325i]

i thought we cannot cut the e30 spring because the it wont sit properly with the strut ?

only the rears cant be cut, due to football shape. although one guy did it anyway.

[bpui]

only the rears cant be cut, due to football shape. although one guy did it anyway.

that's what i was thinking too cause i wanted to try cutting the rear but its impossible lol

[PhillyG]

only the rears cant be cut, due to football shape. although one guy did it anyway.

All you have to do is weld a u shape tab to hold the spring into place on the trailing arm. Works fine.

[dashboardmonkey]

that's what i was thinking too cause i wanted to try cutting the rear but its impossible lol

Not impossible, ask me how I know.

[accident]

Not impossible, ask me how I know.

How do you know?

[Stephen]

How do you know?

He cut his rears ;)

[RickSloan]

so my roomate has the H&R race cup kit and has been running it for over a year now.

So there should be a line of where we can cut the fronts??? with his 17"'s he needs a little more drop up there

[dashboardmonkey]

If you cut this much off they drop the rear about 1.5in

[kylebes1]

What is the big deal about cutting springs? The rate should stay the same, and they become shorter... eibach and regular HandR are not much stiffer than stock springs and are shorter what is the difference?

It is a street car not a freaking race car

[robspeed325i]

What is the big deal about cutting springs? The rate should stay the same, and they become shorter... eibach and regular HandR are not much stiffer than stock springs and are shorter what is the difference?

It is a street car not a freaking race car

Actually the rate goes up in direct proportion to how much coil you remove! Cut em in half and you double the rate (obviously youd never do that, just an example). But remove 10% of the wire, and you get 10% boost in rate. 20%, you get 20% boost, just like with typical aftermarket sport springs.

[Naplm00]

what kind of retainter did you use ? have any pics of the install? before and after?