cutting down the springs
 

Ok Guys,
we have taken an 87 NA 5 speed supra and turned it into a 24 hours of Lemons car. It is not particularly fast but at least it runs hard for 16 hours at a time. Last weekend in Houston we ended up 8th out of 97 cars, and Its pretty clear that just about everyone that beat us didn't really follow the spirit of the rules. (you could only spend 500 bucks on the car excluding safety stuff - some of the cars we ran against - spec Miatas, BMW's highly modded mustangs had suspensions alone that cost 10 X what our supra cost.

anyway we gotta get rid of the lean in the corners - we took the hatch back off - and that helped quite a bit - high weight removed! But now we need to cut off and stiffen up the springs. We thought we could just cut them off and add spring rubbers - but the stock springs are tapered - so what are you guys doing to cut down the springs - there must be a cheap straight spring that will fit - so we could cut off a coil or so!

anyone have any experience with this?
Carl Johansson
Auberry California

cutting the springs wont make it any stiffer,
itll just make your ride bouncy and clumsy in the corners

Are you sure of that? have you done it? if so - how did you deal with the tapered springs? besides the cut we add spring rubbers. If this did make the ride bouncy - and not improve the handling -0 this would be the first time we have tried it - and not have it work!

we have cut down springs and added spring rubbers on at least a dozen differenent cars - and without exception - it improved handling - esspecially cornering - so i guess I'm trying to figure out why the opposite would be true on a supra!

Carl "idle prognostications are useless - lets try it and see if it works!" Johansson

Yah,
thats kind of what I thought! Talks cheap!

any one out there actually tried it - or have any information on how to deal with the tapered springs?
Carl

reply
 

dude i cut them and it handles alot better i cut two coils all the way around. worth just tryng. not like there isnt parts cars out there

Now try adding some nice beefy anti-sway bars (which you should have done to begin with). I'd be willing to bet that if you also installed some LINEAR rate springs such as those made by suspension techniques you'd find they're stiffer than the hacked off 20yo springs and rubber spacers... or go with some H&R linear rate springs for an ultra brutal ride.


EDIT: by the way, as long as you make sure that at 100% extension you have some slight tension on the spring between the perch and top mount you should be fine. If not you're asking for big trouble if the suspension should go full extension at any point.