Cutting your springs? HAHA

[CalvinGTI]

(under members rides - recent)

Pazz's Ride

RGM side sills, 15" alloys, lower and uprated suspension (cut down the springs even lower!!), sprayed black rear windows.

Errrrrr is it just me or would you keep something like 'cutting' the springs to yourself?

hahah thats nothing to shout about at all ! Especially if you want your mates to get in the car with you !!!!!

Calâ„¢

[Si_GTi]

I suppose its OK if you know what you're doing - its a bit "old-skool" though!

[david burton]

<guilty>

hell yeah - i spent 70 quid on some gmax's just to have it higher at the back? hell no!

nowt wrong with a grinder and half a turn of spring cut off - nothing too drastic

but, there is a difference - i didn't tell anyone....

until now....

[carmadaaron]

hmm sounds like a cheap way to lower the car....

[Tahrey1043]

that's yer old skool "chopper" kind of mod innit?

[toXXin]

Dangerous as anything.

Springs are made with certain tolerances and compressions at certain points. Cutting them totally screws it up, and increases the risk of your going off the road and dying.

[david burton]

i like that quote - going off the road and dying! a bit extreme but point taken.

basically, it's like having 20 kilos in the boot if you take half a turn off. there's no difference in the mounting point, they're shorter but so are lowered springs

it will lock up quicker and hit the bump stops with a lower load. i wouldn't do the fronts, but the backs I have had absolutely no problems with - if anything they're better than before because the car's C of G is lower and the front / rear height matches up

i agree - it's not ideal - but neither is "just" lowering - you should have shocks to match too....

p.s. i did only do about 10 / 15mm. i think any more would be getting past the spring's design limit.

[pazz]

@ calvin gti- perhaps i should explain;

cutting springs on standard suspension is not good, everyone knows that! but if you read the text under the pics. you would have seen my suspension IS uprated and stiffend. so by cutting one loop off this has very little effect other that to lower the car a touch more.
and the rear of the car has been completely stripped out so no problems with that one either.hahah.

i didn't know this forum was soo b***h, from now on i'll think twice about putting any posts on it!

[CalvinGTI]

Take it from me mate, i know people who have cut decent springs and then they have come through the arch when going over a big bump in the road. . anyway you look at it, your taking a risk by cutting ANY spring, uprated or not.

You even said you sprayed your back windows. .need i say any more?

Welcom to the forum though :¬P and dont take everything to heart, if everyone said nice things to everyone all the time, no-one would get a true measurement of how nice there car, dont expect ppl on here to praise you if they dont think its 'praiseable'.

What would be the point?

We're not all saps ya know.

Calâ„¢

[Tahrey1043]

"this forum is so *****"

.... i'm intrigued to know what the word was there

[carmadaaron]

i knew this DIY job had a downside to it

[optima21]

yeah its ok for people to do modifications, but its also ok for people to point out potentially dangerous modifications, as some people dont know the implications of what they're doing.

my GT polo has one major modification and thats a 266mm brake conversion using modified pueugot/citroen disks, and modified brake carriers. now I normally do most of my posting on another polo site, but I wont post this conversion anywhere as its potentially lethal if poeople do it wrongly, as brake components could fail.

[jon_poloV]

cutting springs is one of the most dangerous things , uprated dampers or not. why do you think they offer differnt springs to lower the car different amounts! why dont they just stick ' well stuff it just cut them down as much as you like because the dampers uprated!)

DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME! dont be cheap on things that could risk in serious harm!


also they are often proggressively wound so they are tighter wound at the to and less in the middle .

[david burton]

yep, they're designed at that length. so cutting em does effect things and not for the best.

they will bottom out quicker. but that's it. progressively wound gmaxes are tighter wound in the middle, at the top they're less wound - so you're cutting the stiffer bit.

it's not good to bottom out too quick, and that is the only difference if you cut them - providing the seating point is still the same.

they offer a range of springs because they have different rates to avoid bottoming out and having too much travel. it's not rocket science, you've got to be sensible about these things tho.

the only argument people have against cutting is "they're designed at that length", so you lose some comfort, and risk bottoming when you hit a large bump (which could be bad), but i can't think of anything else...

[retro]

Actually, cutting down a spring does not just lower the car with the same spring rate.

The characteristics of a spring are dependant on several factors, including the number of coils and wether the springs are open ended or the final coil is flat. Changing any of those things will change the behaviour of the spring.

As a general rule, cutting a coil off a spring will actually make it stiffer.