Shortening Struts, on a budget?

[Guest Anonymous]

Ok, I've looked at Ireland's coilover kits and have nothing against them. But I just want to get my car as low as possible safely, and the car is already lowered with shorter springs. Now my question is this, has anyone ever tried or thought of cutting the strut assembly right under the spring perch and taking 2" out and welding it back together to make the car lower, I realize the VW rabit struts will have to be used. The benefit would be, I wouldn't have to buy a coilover kit, or different springs, and it would utilize stock parts still. I have an extra strut sitting around and am going to attempt it whenever I get the time, but any help, advice, input and no no's would be appreciated. Would camber and alignment be effected greatly, to the point that an alinment shop wouldn't be able to set it right for the street.

Thanks,

-Cyrus

[JohnN]

If you're willing to source the parts and do the welding. . . You can buy coil over springs and perches for mid 90's Honda Accords on eBay for about $180 for four (you pick the spring rate you want). Find someone else to split the cost with and you're down to $90 for both fronts.

Cut a 2" hunk out of the strut, reweld the tube together, cut the hunk you took out own the middle to make to halves, pound them to open them up and weld them over the careful weld you made to join the tubes together.

I used 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 galvanized pipe fitting as the perch for the coil overs (figure about $1.50 each for them). You shouldn't weld galvanized so take your grinder and knock it off before you weld it onto the tube.

Good luck!

John N

[Tommy]

You can't cut below spring perch, not much at least I think. Look at the clearance to tire. But the part above spring perch could be cut and you would gain more suspension travel and could use shorter spring without it falling out.

Tommy

[Guest Anonymous]

Thanks John and Tommy for the wonderful input. I was planning on sleeving over the weld anyways like you mentioned to strengthen it up, but as far as the cutting spot where should it be, I've got mixed messages here, Can I cut anywhere below the spring perch or would it have to be above it, where the threaded part is... there isn't much to cut there? Where does Ireland do their cutting/shortening? Oh and you guys opened my eyes to a whole new problem, if I were to cut and weld the spring perch further down, it might interfere with the tire. Looks like I have some more thinking to do while I sit in physics class tomorrow!!

-Cyrus

[peteinjp]

of the fender with a spacer to increase the clearance for the shock. You'd need to reinforce the strut mount and the corresponding fender area and use 6 bolts instead of 3 as teh bolts would be taking the load of the shock. I think it was Tommy who posted pictures of cars eith this setup. In this case you wouldn't even need to buy new struts- really cheap! No need to weld either and perhaps you wouldn't need to remove the struts for the car but you need to drill holes in your car.

[Tommy]

Yep, that's one chance to get something like 20mm. I don't have those pictures anymore, but that's the way it was done. The solution was used in factory racecars. I don't know how the upper spring perch acts there. It may need some tweaking.

Tommy

[john_a]

Here's a layout drawing someone else had shared on the old board, shows one way to shorten strut housings. (Wish I could recall who to credit for the drawing.)

I don't like Rabbit inserts, but they are a simple way to get an short cartridge in there.

The important part is the spacer tube required beneath the insert, that's what is used to get the gland nut to clamp the insert. If the gland nut threads all the way down, you are not holding the insert (need a longer spacer tube.) If the spacer tube is too long, then the gland nut won't catch enought threads to be secure.