now i know alot of people dont like the idea but for those who do.....how many coils for a 2 inch drop thanks
this might help a bit
-Josh
hey thanks
this thread should be locked for stupidity
its nothing against you, perhaps you didn't know... but cutting coils is a very bad idea. just buy lowering springs. taking the cheap way out ALWAYS results in failure when it comes to bmw modding/repairing. ask me how I know
Hmmm... Then that would make Herb Adams-who worked at Pontiac as an engineer developing the Firebird Trans Am, later building and driving his own race cars professionally and the owner of VSE a Camaro/Firebird/Corvette/Mustang aftermarket company specializing in handling. NOT likely! Buy his book "Chassis Engineering", it's a good read and you can learn a little from the pro's. He states just the opposite-aftermarket lowering springs are a waste of $$. Done correctly cutting coil springs works just fine.
Cutting coils = bad is a myth perpetuated by people that didn't get it right and didn't understand why.
its nothing against you, perhaps you didn't know...
ken
hence the reason american car companies are garbage.
read bmw magazines. search the forum. search google. you'll quickly see that it is just bad
While you're checking the internet, check out what respected BMW tuner Metric Mechanic says about the ill effects of cutting coil springs. Wait,...wasn't that a Metric Mechanic article that wayfast just posted? Hmmm......
An engineers opinion, or a hobbyists opinion. Who to go with?
--dennis
My Last e21_____________My e21 Before That
1995 Land Rover Disco 5 spd, 2002 Disco Kalahari, 2011 Lexus CT200h
shit there was a misunderstanding as to who wrote this. Now I feel like a dick. I'll admit being wrong on this one
ken's right it's a myth brought on by people not knowing what they're doing...for some reason the people who decide to cut their springs rather than buy aftermarket tend to want the 'slammed' look (perhaps because the younger crowd is the one trying to save money?)...you can't cut 4+ coils out of a spring and expect it to work properly for the same car. but taking one or two coils out, and cutting them at the right spot, will be fine.
now, heating a spring up and compressing it down, that's not a good idea.
every car ive ever owned has had cut springs
bought brand new springs for my e21, they werent low enough so i cut them
nothing wrong with cut springs, it changes the load rating on them a bit, but its not even noticable when your driving
......... 3.8L V6 + T04Z + 15psi + e85 = 500rwhp - 10sec 1/4 mile - Hopefully .........
i do it and have ran that in autocross. no using a torch though, that is asking for trouble with removing temper and fatigueing the metal. use a dremel or a sawzall for ease and no metal damage
No e30s again.
......... 3.8L V6 + T04Z + 15psi + e85 = 500rwhp - 10sec 1/4 mile - Hopefully .........
yup, and you don't even need to disassemble the front end. just put a spring compressor on it, cut, and remove the spring copmressor. 15 minutes and a nice looking lowered car later and there you go
No e30s again.
I took 2 and a half coils off the rear and 2 off the front. It looks FN sweet, and the ride quality improved. Stiffened it up nice. The shocks are holding up for now, they are not bottoming out but im probably going to go with some koni shorts or some thing of that extent when these blow.
Cutting springs is fine, Bmw springs are much higher quality than most of the aftermarket springs, so long as you cut an equal and even ammount off you are fine. As some one else allready stated aftermarket springs are still too high + you waste $200 bucks, coilovers are $400.. All that work when you could of just cut what you allready had. Cutting springs is the fiscally responsible thing to do!
Last edited by brandon11130; 01-01-2009 at 08:53 PM.
This would be one of those examples of doing it wrong. The critical part to doing it right is to close the spring by heating it up and pushing the end closed so it sits in the perch properly.
As the article states, cutting coils increases the spring rate, so you'll be stiffer and lower, for free.
wait a second isn't that backwards? the weight is distributed between the coils, so removing coils would lower their total load capacity..that translates to a lower spring rate, right?
also, does anyone know if the 2nd front bar they mention in that article is the one ken makes? i still need to get one of those from him...
No, spring rate goes up the less active coils there are. A coil spring is just a torsion bar that is coiled. As it compresses, the "bar" twists. Removing coils reduces the length of the torsion bar, thus making it stiffer.
This is how the progressive springs (like the rear eibachs) work. There are 8 active coils but 4 of them are placed very, very close together. All 8 coils compress equally until the 4 that are close together bottom out on each other. After that they are no longer active, and the spring rate jumps from ~90 lbs/in to ~180 lbs/in. A rate of 180 lbs/in means that it takes 180 lbs to compress the spring by 1", 360 lbs to compress it 2", etc.
No, they're talking about an add on sway bar, not a frame rail brace.
Last edited by jrcook320; 01-02-2009 at 03:23 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
yep ill post up a nice pic thread when i get it all together. I still want the front lower its barely tuckin. Coming from the e30 world, e21's are friggen sweet!, the oil pan is super high compared to the m50 in my e30.
I love the setup of the e21, it seams both the front and rear arches are lower in comparison to the rockers, so you get the "slammed" look much easier, with a slammed e30 you are bouncing your midsection and rockers on every drive way even at angles.
if you heat the spring to make the ends closer then you are going to lose temper and fatigue the metal unless you normalize everything. i don't think most people on here know enough about metal work to fix any temper loss and wouldn't know that they fatigued the metal until it was to late because they wouldn't even know what to check for. cutting and setting the new edge in the little groove where the old end went is fine and the spring will conform once the weight is applied to it. it is not going to sit up on one end. i have done this on 3 or 4 cars for people and once on my e30 until i got coil overs. there will be no trouble with just using the spring compressor and popping out the cut off piece and then just removing the spring compressor. this is a tested method with no ill results with some cars running for many years on this set up. it was not just an idea that sounded good.
No e30s again.
What ken makes is a brace rather than a sway bar. I think Addco(adco) makes the add on sway bar(as discussed in the aboveposted spring-cutting article) or used to - http://e21.tricord.be/ has multiple threads discussing this I believe.Bflan2001 -
also, does anyone know if the 2nd front bar they mention in that article is the one ken makes? i still need to get one of those from him...
I would be interested to see a DIY or pictures of this.
Last edited by g323; 01-02-2009 at 11:34 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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No, you lose the temper on the 1" spot that you've heated up, NOT on everything. That's ok since that spot doesn't move or twist as the spring compresses anyway. You are to heat the spring in one spot till it's red hot, then press it closed and let it air cool slowly. If you don't flatten the end the spring will have a lower spring rate because the perch coil will be partially active. Not flattening it will work, but it's not the proper way to do it.
By the way, I cut 1 coil off my front eibachs.
Here's what it comes down to. Everytime this comes up a bunch of uninformed people pipe up and say don't do it, but they have no data, personal experience, or good reasons to offer up to not cut factory springs, only what they've read on the internet.
Trust real engineers with years of real world experience like Herb Adams.
Cutting Springs Thread
Cutting Springs PicsOriginally Posted by g323
Last edited by jrcook320; 01-02-2009 at 02:25 PM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
fronts: e36 m3 stocks cut one link out rears: eibach drag alunch
not on the car but springs compressors on a buddies springs he took out and we cut
we got cut happy once because a buddy wanted all the way down. then we put some stock that we cut only two loops out of
tons of springs all over.
No e30s again.
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