Back in my youth, at the ripe old age of 17 and 18 when I was poor but still wanted to lower my car, i cut the springs on 3 seperate motors. On my mk3 polo 1.0 I did over 50k on the standard shocks and never had any problems whatsoever. U can do it, but make sure u know what you are doing. Anything done badly will cause problems, as is the case with anything ever

LOL

pikeymods@18ftw

dont cut them too short. a friend of a friend had his springs cut and after taking a roundabout too hard, they fell out of place

I work for a classic car restoration company we'v had people bring in cars with chopped springs and then heated the springs up and bent them to re-create the flat spring seat....

correct me if I'm wrong but puttin toughened steel in a major heat cycle actually weakens them.

JRC

I dont advise that either,but its not necessary on a Polo because the spring seat is shaped deep enough for the spring even when trimmed. And cutting a coil off is best done with the thinnest disc possible,also to avoid too much heat.

To me the construction of a car spring is made to carry a load

The length of steel used the distance between each coil and the diameter of the coil and the number of coils in a spring; is calculated to carry a load and return to its original length. Once cut the springs design is deemed useless.

Steel is used because of it elastic properties meaning it can have loads applied and it will return to it's original. when cut you reduced the steels properties and the stress the steel can take. if the stress is to much the steel become plastic and then will never return to original shape then failure occurs.

The worry for me would be under heavy braking were the weight of the car is shifts forward onto the springs. Can the new cut springs take this weight as the original did?

To me don’t F**k with something that’s design to do a specific job unless you know what you’re doing?

READING

http://www.carbibles.com/suspension_bible.html

CALCULATION

http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpspringrate/sp...te_equation.php

Edited 10 August, 201016 yr by residentmelon

^^ That counts for any part of the car then,basically. So all modifications are dodgy.

If you knew more than you speculated,you'd know that a chopped spring has a higher rate of resistance than when it was standard,and is still capable of compressing as much between each coil as it did previously,with no increase in stress.

But yeah,either do your homework so you know what you're doing,or leave it to someone who does.

^^ That counts for any part of the car then,basically. So all modifications are dodgy.

If you knew more than you speculated,you'd know that a chopped spring has a higher rate of resistance than when it was standard,and is still capable of compressing as much between each coil as it did previously,with no increase in stress.

But yeah,either do your homework so you know what you're doing,or leave it to someone who does.

x2

^^ That counts for any part of the car then,basically. So all modifications are dodgy.

If you knew more than you speculated,you'd know that a chopped spring has a higher rate of resistance than when it was standard,and is still capable of compressing as much between each coil as it did previously,with no increase in stress.

But yeah,either do your homework so you know what you're doing,or leave it to someone who does.

This is why we ask questions

All modification aren't dodgy. I was trying to say that modification to things that affect handling etc like caster and camber of wheels you don't go messing with unless you know the effects same as the springs

I was looking at the cut spring in a sort of material analysis.

But everyone seem to come to the same conclusion "if you don't know don't do it"

Edited 11 August, 201016 yr by residentmelon

just a thought on the way home

If you shortern the spring do you need to shorten the lenght of the shock?

just a thought on the way home

If you shortern the spring do you need to shorten the lenght of the shock?

that is where a lot of the issues arouse, if you go too short on standard shocks they can bottom out, if you use uprated shocks then you can run shorter springs. this is the same for lowering springs as well as chopped springs.

my thought aswell was springs need two forces to work the load from the car and the reacting force from ground if you remove the one force. say jacking up the car.

Will the spring come away from the car at the top support as the shock lenght is longer

and this is the other issue you have.

you can normally take a good coil out and the spring will still sit tightly in the cups, if it gets to a point where the spring does fall out of the cup you can always zip tie them to the cups and job done.

although removing the force by jacking the car up will make no difference, because your not driving the car while it's on a jack

True but the force could be removed if you start to practice two wheel driving to get between narrow building.

So in conclusion,

Its a good idea unless youre a stunt driver with mad 2 wheel driving skills

Edited 11 August, 201016 yr by Gageyo

Preload margin,yeah. Chop one coil and the spring is still longer than the damper and will sit tight whilst you're elevated in the air having just jumped a humpbacked bridge.

Chop the spring in half and its not gonna be long enough to hold itself in the damper's reach,hence it can dislodge from the seat under such driving.

So you use a short enough damper to hold the spring at full stroke,or you keep the spring long enough for the damper,which ever way you want to see it,its the same concept and one you should honour if you dont want children and rabbits everywhere to be massacred.

Thats how the billing rabbit was decapitated, some chump chopped his springs more than in half. He jumped the fairground, the spring came loose, chooped through the damper, then through the cars body and finally through the neck of thumper

Tis true :(

Was some dude from the Corsa owners club a few days earlier

let's take a moment to remember thumper the billing rabbit

long may he always be in our thoughts

Thumper done goofed