Technical Leaf spring mod

[cinque500]

Hi all. I have a reverse eye leaf spring and I’d like the front lowered more, but the main issue it is rock hard. Standing in the front boot and Jumping up and down gives a few mm movement - it’s bonkers hard. I’m thinking of removing one leaf, the shortest or the second shortest, of the 5 leafs to kill two birds with one stone. Lower and softer. What do you think? Thanks

 

[the hobbler]

Hi all. I have a reverse eye leaf spring and I’d like the front lowered more, but the main issue it is rock hard. Standing in the front boot and Jumping up and down gives a few mm movement - it’s bonkers hard. I’m thinking of removing one leaf, the shortest or the second shortest, of the 5 leafs to kill two birds with one stone. Lower and softer. What do you think? Thanks

Having used a 'reverse-eye' spring on my car for sometime, (and fitted quite few 'lowered' springs in my time at Radbourne Racing) I cannot advocate that move. Yes, whilst the car is static it will feel quite hard, but wait until you have driven it a bit and the spring has settled. If you make it too soft you could end up with ride-height problems. The shortest leaf (the top one) is also the locating-leaf of the spring, having the locating 'bumps' in it, so you cannot take that one out. When all has settled, I think that it will prove to be low enough for normal road use. We have a lot of 'sleeping policemen' up here in North Wales, and for normal use (with 2 people in the car?) I would not have wanted it any lower.

 

[cinque500]

Having used a 'reverse-eye' spring on my car for sometime, (and fitted quite few 'lowered' springs in my time at Radbourne Racing) I cannot advocate that move. Yes, whilst the car is static it will feel quite hard, but wait until you have driven it a bit and the spring has settled. If you make it too soft you could end up with ride-height problems. The shortest leaf (the top one) is also the locating-leaf of the spring, having the locating 'bumps' in it, so you cannot take that one out. When all has settled, I think that it will prove to be low enough for normal road use. We have a lot of 'sleeping policemen' up here in North Wales, and for normal use (with 2 people in the car?) I would not have wanted it any lower.

The trouble is spring has been in for about 5 years and the ride at the front is shocking, it’s just that now I’ve decided to do something about it as I have various mods I want to do. This summer I did fit camber brackets to cure the bump steer, maybe the ride has got worse since. Here’s a pic of the spring - do the numbers mean anything?

 

[cinque500]

The trouble is spring has been in for about 5 years and the ride at the front is shocking, it’s just that now I’ve decided to do something about it as I have various mods I want to do. This summer I did fit camber brackets to cure the bump steer, maybe the ride has got worse since. Here’s a pic of the spring - do the numbers mean anything?

 

[cinque500]

Hi all. To recap, my front suspension was all wrong. Suspension travel with my reverse eye spring was non existent and it rode higher than the rear on std springs. So I bit the bullet, stripped the spring, removed the second leaf, copper slipped it all and reassembled. The I made new rebound clips and some 5mm spacers for the now thinner spring assembly.

No exaggeration, the car is transformed. It now rides well over bumps and ruts and doesn’t run wide on corners, I can really throw it into bends. And it’s sits 30mm lower. Its the win-win I hoped for, very happy. I’ll probably wait for winter to put on lower rear springs for when I convert the rear brakes/hubs to a 126-S2 PCD98 setup.