Lowering a 280Z on a budget

[Guest 2adz]

I have a 1976 280Z and would like to lower it about an inch. I have completely rebuilt the suspension with all new urethane bushings and new gas struts and have cut the springs about a coil's worth. The car now sits higher that stock! What is a solution without buying comp. springs or coilovers? Does anyone have a good DYI coilover mod?

[pparaska]

MSA and other's replacement springs should lower you around 1". Sometimes you can find these used.

 

Not sure how much they are and what you have planned for future enhancements, but Mike/scca has coilover kits with springs, top perch, for $400 - check the HybridZ store.

[ZROSSA]

just make sure that the springs don become loose in there mounts if you keep cutting them. When i have done this in the past i would jack the car up and measure the spring fully extended while it was mounted. take the spring out and NEVER cut it shorter than that fully extended length. You also want to cut it a fast as you can so the spring doesnt heat up to much during the process. I used to wrap the spring in wet cloth up to the cut of point.

 

Douglas

[Guest Anonymous]

Problem with lowering a Z with stock springs is the travel goes quicker than the rate comes up.If you have access to a welder and some basic hand tools there are 2 options without spending lots of $.First using a hacksaw(a sharp good quality blade helps alot)cut the perch just above the weld around the entire circumfrence.Tap the perch gently with a hammer to seperate the metal to aviod cutting into the strut body.Any rust in your cut signals you are through.Once you have the perch off grind the old weld smooth and using this as a guide reweld the perch 1 inch lower on the housing(remove cartridge before welding).Or using some 2inch pipe weld a short lenght to the perch, then to the housing leaving about a 2inch gap,a spacer of the aprox length can now be used between to help you set your ride height.Neither of these is very tuning friendly,but are cheap and easy,check for interference between the strut and tire with the new spring position before you start.One other method is what I have on the front of my 510,Instead of spacers I used 1 7/8 muffler clamps.Throw away the U bolts using only the sadle(2 for each strut) and new bolts.This mod gets alot of raised eyebrows,but has survived several Auto-Xs and hard driving on the street with no slipage.

 

[ November 02, 2001: Message edited by: Jason k ]

[Guest Anonymous]

You can get Suspension techniques springs from JC Whitney for like 80 a pair I think, they're 1" lower, but they don't seem like they're spring rate is much higer to me, my V8 car still makes them sit very low. (How low? A floor jack under the crossmember ain't happening at all..).

If your adventurous, you could even check the dimensions, arm yourself with tools and do a u-pull-em run at the wrecker and find a spring off a car that has the same dimensions, you may want to consider the donor cars weight though so you don't get a spring thats has to high a spring rate. Maybe the spring off of some of GM's FWD car

cars maybe? I donno what they're dimensions are like.

You may try and whack off a few more coils off your spring, the rate will get higher, but at some point, it has to start getting lower.

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[Modern Motorsports Ltd]

If it's higher than stock that has to be attributed to major weight loss/non OEM struts I'm guessing?

 

Why not cut more from your current springs? Not uncommon for someone to take out 2.5 coils etc. Thats free parts $, labour as per usual rate