tires and wheels To Cut or not to Cut (Stock Springs)?

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm rebuilding the front suspension of my 74 tii but don't have money to sink into springs. I'm undecided on weather or not to cut my stock springs and need some influence. If you think that I should cut them, how much and where (top or bottom or a little off both). This tii is my daily driver and my traveling car and there are some good curvy roads surrounding me.

New turbo struts, urethane bushings, ball joints, upper strut bearings, 19mm sway bars, 14" bottle cap wheels 195/60 tires

Thanks,

Boris

[Guest Anonymous]

Seem's you have done a good job with setting up your suspension. I would say try it out as-is and once you have some more $$$ go with some H&R....it should be just fine for now. I dont think messing around with the spring's engineering is worth anything.

[Guest Anonymous]

hell, its free, right?? and with the lowered stance you get about a 20% increase in spring rate (cutting 1.5 coils in front and 1 in the rear). this is ideal for uprated shocks. and its free. if you dont like it, you can spend the $200 on H&Rs later. I did it and i love the result. although im planning on spending the $$$ on H&Rs later anyways, for the progressive nature of their product. and thats later. for now im enjoying the FREE aspects of my cut stockers....

-Rob (with '69 that sticks like glue)

[Guest Anonymous]

I think eventually everybody who cuts the springs end up replacing them, but what the hell, like Rob said, you've got nothing to loose.

I rode on cut springs for about six months, it was Ok, obviously I like my Ireland Engineering stage 1 better.

Michael

72 tii (Bacchus)

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

...and for all the hassle involved in cutting the stock springs, just save up and get a $200 set of H+Rs or find some used sport springs.

I cut a set of stock springs and the result was uneven lowering and funky spring rates, etc. Wound up putting stock springs back. Then I purchased H+Rs and things were great...should have done it that way first.

Tim

'76 2002

'03 Golf

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

... it increases stiffness by 10/9 = 111%

[Guest Anonymous]

Do a search on spring rate calculation -you should find it on the web somewhere. Yep, that's all I remember from physics...

[Guest Anonymous]

and the coil that you cut off should be 1000% stiffer than the full

spring?

10/9=1.11

10/5=2

10/2=5

10/1=10

Maybe my math is wrong... I didn't know springs performed that

way. Assuming this is a linear rate spring and I remove 1 coil of

the active coils in a 200lb/inch spring then the spring should still

compress 200lbs an inch as the other coils have not changed.

Please do enlighten me on how this does cause it changes the way

I think about springs and spring behavior

[Guest Anonymous]

Spring stiffness or rate is proportional to the spring wire length. A longer wire is easier to bend than a short one. When you cut off 1 out of 11 coils, you've made the spring wire 10/11 the original length.

All a coil spring is is a wound up torsion bar. Coiling it takes up less space and doesn't require splines and clamps and other expensive hardware to hold it in place.

[Guest Anonymous]

Picture what happens when you compress a spring. Each segment of the spring twists a bit with respect to its neighbor. If you have 10 coils and compress the spring 1 inch, you are changing the spring a fraction of its length. Each coil twists a bit to accomodate the 1 inch of squish. If on the other hand you have only one coil, it is much shorter than the original 10 coils. If you compress it 1 inch, each segment of the spring is subject to much greater torsion, and it fights back harder.

In other words, with 10 coils there's more spring to soak up the inch of deflection. With one coil there's less spring to soak up that same deflection. Because you are deforming the one coil more severely than any given coil of the 10-coil spring, the spring rate of the 1-coil spring is greater.

Mike

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)