Lowering my Talon, have a few questions.

[Outrun Talon]

I have a 95 TSi AWD Talon that I would like to lower. I did some research and used the wonderful Search bar and found all sorts of helpful threads. From these I've gleaned quite a bit of info, but I still have a few questions.

Let me start off by saying I do not track my car. I have a pretty dismal budget so I can't afford to do it the right way with some nice $1000 Koni's etc, so lowing is more for useless looks rather then track performance. I would love to put the best of the best on my Talon, but I honestly just don't have the money. I hope you guys can understand that.

I've decided to use lowering springs instead of coilover kits. Lowering springs are cheaper and I have a embarrassingly low budget. I've read many positive posts about H&R Specialty Springs company, so I'm going to buy springs from them. But which ones should I get? They have two options for my car. They have a "Sport Spring" that will lower the Front 1.7 inches and the Rear 1.4 inches. The second option is their "Race Spring" which will drop me lower for the same price. The Race Spring is a drop of 2.0 inches in the Front, and 1.75 inches in the rear. Is 2 inches in the front and 1.75 in the rear too low? I only drive 40 miles a week and I drive alone so if the lower option is going to be a rougher ride or more noisy etc, that's not a problem. Both H&R spring options are going to be around $210 shipped.

I also understand I am going to need an alignment kit. From what I've read if I drop 1.75 inches or so, I should only need an alignment/camber kit for the rear. What if I go with the lower option and drop 2 inches in the front and 1.75 in the rear? Do I need a camber kit or whatnot for the front then?

Also, when/if I install these springs can I use my stock shocks for a little bit while I save more money for better performance oriented shocks or would that totally not work.

And last but not least:

Lowering Springs
Alignment / Camber kit

Do I need anything else?


Thank you in advance and sorry if this is a repeat of all the other lowering threads, I swear I did research first!

 

[TrevorS]

Almost all OE shocks on Mitsus are made by KYB. The only exception that comes to mind are the Bilsteins on Evo MRs. What you have are KYB GR2s that were repackaged as OE for your car.

Very interesting! So, I guess I'm just left with the question of how a 1989 OE packaged GR-2 compares with a 2004 GR-2, since that's what I currently have.

 

[Outrun Talon]

You can cut your springs... Most people don't both to look up how to do it right, and just cut off too damn much to get that "SLAMMED" look. The Complete How To Cut Your Stock Springs Thread - SVTPerformance

I realize... its a mustang forum. But really this guy knows what he is talking about. You can achieve a minimal drop and still retain ride quality. I would even consider those .75 inch drop springs. Not worth the money.

I work for a Mechanic two days a week, so I have a million dollars of top-of-the-line tools and 42 years of experience to help me if I decide to cut my springs. When I am done I can do a real alignment in house for free. Best of all I get paid to work on my Talon

Now all I have to do is some research and see how much I should cut off, and from were.

Edit: Anybody know if a 95 Talon has linear springs?

 

[jtmcinder]

OE 2G springs are not linear. The coils are closer together at both the top and bottom. But that doesn't really matter very much because you have to do the cutting at the top end, because the bottom end has the slowly-changing diameter, coming down to meet the perch. If you cut anything from the bottom end, the spring will no longer fit the perch.

You can spend a lot of time measuring and calculating, if you wish, and I'd be glad to help. We need to know quite a bit to do it right; ask if you want to take that route.

The more-typical approach is to put the car on four jackstands that are under the lower control arms so you can have the weight on the suspension with the wheels off. (Oops: you first decide on an amount of lowering, which is often done with the car sitting normally on its tires. I'm assuming that you've already done this.) With the springs compressed and in front of you, measure the spacing between coils at the upper end. With simple math, calculate how many or much of a coil you need to remove from the fronts and rear. Then move the car to being on jackstands to the frame, instead, and remove the suspension to get the springs off.

Other than making sure that the springs will still fit after cutting (which we did: that's what told us to cut from the top, not bottom), the key issue when actually cutting is heat. Do not cut the springs with a torch. Heating the wire will alter its rate in an unpredictable way. You have to do this with a saw. And you don't want to let the wire heat up too much when cutting. Take your time.

Note that a cut spring is stiffer than a stock spring, but that's what you want, anyway. The problematic issue is that cutting a higher proportion off the front than rear will shift roll resistance forward on a car that is already an understeering pig. Nothing you can do about that, so don't think about it. Cut the springs to get the height you want and deal with consequences. No free lunch and this is a damned cheap mod.

 

[jtmcinder]

One other thing (that's a bit technical).

When you have the shocks and springs off the car, but before you take the top-mounts off (which should be done with a spring compressor on the coils for safety), measure the full-droop height of the springs. In other words, measure the length of the springs when they are extended as far as the shocks will allow. DO NOT CUT THE SPRINGS TO BE SHORTER THAN THIS. You need at least a tiny bit of pre-load on the springs at all times. If you don't have a small pre-load, the spring will become unseated at full droop and, because these are not flat-ended springs and need to sit on the perch in a particular way, they could fail to align correctly when the car comes back down. This would be very very bad.

 

[jtmcinder]

Note: A very careful reader might have the following objection to the easy method.

"Yo, WiseA$$ - I mean Wiseman - if a cut spring has a higher rate, but you estimate how much to cut off with the car resting on the uncut springs, then the car will end up less low that you want."

True, I say. But as long as you're only cutting off a sensible (small) amount, the change in rate will be so small that you won't end up noticeably higher than intended.

But if you want to do the math to get it exactly where you want, we can do that.

 

[Outrun Talon]

OE 2G springs are not linear. The coils are closer together at both the top and bottom. But that doesn't really matter very much because you have to do the cutting at the top end, because the bottom end has the slowly-changing diameter, coming down to meet the perch. If you cut anything from the bottom end, the spring will no longer fit the perch.

You can spend a lot of time measuring and calculating, if you wish, and I'd be glad to help. We need to know quite a bit to do it right; ask if you want to take that route.

The more-typical approach is to put the car on four jackstands that are under the lower control arms so you can have the weight on the suspension with the wheels off. (Oops: you first decide on an amount of lowering, which is often done with the car sitting normally on its tires. I'm assuming that you've already done this.) With the springs compressed and in front of you, measure the spacing between coils at the upper end. With simple math, calculate how many or much of a coil you need to remove from the fronts and rear. Then move the car to being on jackstands to the frame, instead, and remove the suspension to get the springs off.

Other than making sure that the springs will still fit after cutting (which we did: that's what told us to cut from the top, not bottom), the key issue when actually cutting is heat. Do not cut the springs with a torch. Heating the wire will alter its rate in an unpredictable way. You have to do this with a saw. And you don't want to let the wire heat up too much when cutting. Take your time.

Note that a cut spring is stiffer than a stock spring, but that's what you want, anyway. The problematic issue is that cutting a higher proportion off the front than rear will shift roll resistance forward on a car that is already an understeering pig. Nothing you can do about that, so don't think about it. Cut the springs to get the height you want and deal with consequences. No free lunch and this is a damned cheap mod.

One other thing (that's a bit technical).

When you have the shocks and springs off the car, but before you take the top-mounts off (which should be done with a spring compressor on the coils for safety), measure the full-droop height of the springs. In other words, measure the length of the springs when they are extended as far as the shocks will allow. DO NOT CUT THE SPRINGS TO BE SHORTER THAN THIS. You need at least a tiny bit of pre-load on the springs at all times. If you don't have a small pre-load, the spring will become unseated at full droop and, because these are not flat-ended springs and need to sit on the perch in a particular way, they could fail to align correctly when the car comes back down. This would be very very bad.

Note: A very careful reader might have the following objection to the easy method.

"Yo, WiseA$$ - I mean Wiseman - if a cut spring has a higher rate, but you estimate how much to cut off with the car resting on the uncut springs, then the car will end up less low that you want."

True, I say. But as long as you're only cutting off a sensible (small) amount, the change in rate will be so small that you won't end up noticeably higher than intended.

But if you want to do the math to get it exactly where you want, we can do that.

Holy ****! Thank you SO MUCH jtmcinder for all of the wonderful information! This whole thread is incredibly useful for anyone considering cutting their springs.

The only thing I like as much as my DSM, is the community for it. DSMTuners is chocked full of knowledgeable, helpful people and I can't thank all of you enough.

 

[jtmcinder]

You're welcome. But keep in mind that you will be ragged on continuously by the Great Unwashed for cutting stock springs. My suggestion is to name the mod, instead. Call it the "outrun setup" or something.

When I welded tabs onto my front upper arms and then redrilled new holes to effectively shorten the arms to have both more camber and a better bump-camber curve, I was ragged on a lot. People told me it was ghetto and unsafe, and told me that the crappy Ingalls kit or SP offsets would be better. It didn't seem to matter to them that none of the OTS solutions could do what my budget mod did. (It also didn't stop them when I pointed out that my mod was definutely 100% legal for Street Mod while their's was questionable.) So I stop calling them "welded and redrilled" arms and started calling them "Cinder upper A-arms." That, combined with the fact that my 2G could turn inside any other it came up against (assuming equal drivers, since people like Sean Caron could usually finish a run and have lunch before I finished a run, but that was because it was Sean, not because of my car) stopped the comments.

 

[Outrun Talon]

You're welcome. But keep in mind that you will be ragged on continuously by the Great Unwashed for cutting stock springs. My suggestion is to name the mod, instead. Call it the "outrun setup" or something.

When I welded tabs onto my front upper arms and then redrilled new holes to effectively shorten the arms to have both more camber and a better bump-camber curve, I was ragged on a lot. People told me it was ghetto and unsafe, and told me that the crappy Ingalls kit or SP offsets would be better. It didn't seem to matter to them that none of the OTS solutions could do what my budget mod did. (It also didn't stop them when I pointed out that my mod was definutely 100% legal for Street Mod while their's was questionable.) So I stop calling them "welded and redrilled" arms and started calling them "Cinder upper A-arms." That, combined with the fact that my 2G could turn inside any other it came up against (assuming equal drivers, since people like Sean Caron could usually finish a run and have lunch before I finished a run, but that was because it was Sean, not because of my car) stopped the comments.

I love it!

"Hey man, whats your lowering setup? Are you bagged?"
"Nah, I got this sweet setup from Outrun."
"Who is Outrun?"
"You haven't heard of Outrun? Jeez, and you call yourself a racer..."


Then a bunch of hotties climb out of my car and start buffing my windshield. Hey, a man can dream.

 

[96awd]

Hmm that does make sense then. Gives me a new sense of cutting springs when wanting that lower, stiffer stance instead of spending the hundreds of dollars on a budget. Great explanation, sir.

 

[jtmcinder]

You're welcome, but it won't be much stiffer. At most, you'll cut about 10% off the spring, making it 11% stiffer.

 

[Boostinsideways]

Pretty much everything Cinder said is exactly how I have been doing it for years. I always just tried to stay out of the "yo dawg cut springz is unsafe" arguments. The reason most people think that is coil springs need to compress squarely, and need to maintain some amount of pre-load even at full extension.

I use an air-powered angle grinder for cutting and cut in 5-10 seconds bursts. Then let the spring completely cool in between cutting. If the spring gets hot its done for.

 

[2gSX018]

Wow, this thread was extremely helpful and answered alot of the suspension questions i had.

 

[DaRKSiDeGSX]

This is a 2ga awd on tein springs and kyb struts. It looks cool, but it requires extreme caution pulling in/out of any parking lot. Really hard sharp turns have resulted in some tire rubs.

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[Outrun Talon]

This is a 2ga awd on tein springs and kyb struts. It looks cool, but it requires extreme caution pulling in/out of any parking lot. Really hard sharp turns have resulted in some tire rubs.

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How much of a lowering do you have, what size are your wheels, and what size are your tires?

 

[DaRKSiDeGSX]

I'm not sure, I bought it, changed the oil, checked fluids, and fixed some vacuum lines. It needs an engine... I parked it and have been knees deep in my gsx trying to figure out why I'm only getting spark on 2 cylinders....

I was told by the previous owner it has tein springs and kyb struts. I can verify they are those brands, I am not sure what model. The front end is literally 2 inches from the ground at best.


It has stock evo 8 wheels which are 17's. The tires are fuzion something. I will get back to you later today with tire size.

 

[campos_racing]

This is one helpful thread, im thinking of doing the same thing to mine since im in a very tight budget as well! I have 17's and ill see how much I'm gonna drop it.

 

[DaRKSiDeGSX]

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Tein Springs KYB struts

EVO 8 Enkei factory wheels 17x8 I believe with Fuzion 225/45's

 

[Outrun Talon]

trying to figure out why I'm only getting spark on 2 cylinders....

Check the coil packs.

Also, thanks for the pictures. Your Talon looks sick!

 

[DaRKSiDeGSX]

Thank you. These cars look great lowered a little. My gsx is at stock height and looks like it's lifted compared to this....

On the 2 cylinders with out spark issue. I've got 3 coil packs, 3 transistor packs, 2 ecus, 2 sets of wires, 2 sets of plugs and I am now into the wire harness trying to check for continuity although I'm horrible with electronics and do not belong in that field....