e129745

My non-Air conditioning, `68 Cutlass Supreme, 350", TH400, rides 1/2 " lower driver’s side. It seems common, and no, that's curb height with me standing on the curb. Just installed new Eibach 550lb/inch fronts, advertised 1.3" lowering, Rear Non-linear from 112-188lbs/inch with advertised 1.0" lowering. Rear had some type of larger cargo type and it dropped about 5/8". Front dropped about 1.20” as opposed to the 8 year old Moog #5374 317lb/in spring I had been using, but still has the driver’s side sitting lower by the same 1/2".
(Off topic but you might be interested, it doesn't ride rough or stiff in the least. It rides like a machine should, following the road heaves and the front not needing a couple of oscillations to settle back down like the rear already has. The sharper inclinations like at driveways are not as soft, but not as noticeable as my wife's 2002 Taurus with newer designed strut dampers. My KYB Gas-A-Just shocks are not higher end linear or better yet digressive and those will be next, but the 42% higher rate springs are nothing even close to too stiff which really surprised me.)
Had recently installed the .5" Taller lower Howe Ball-Joints, (incidentally, which when used with the taller uppers is a way better route than the B-Body Spindle swap to get better geometry/handling in my opinion, just watch for upper joint angle bind, usually requires after-market Upper Control Arms I’ve read) These .5" taller lower ball-joints drop the chassis the .5", so this along with the new spring drop accounts for about 1-3/4 lowering pass side, and 2” drivers.
Doesn’t sound like much, but with 26" dia. P235-60s on 7x15 rims, the 5" tall side wall has 2-1/2" stuffed behind the fender at the top, the sway bar barely clears the tie-rod shaft at curb height and I can forget about getting my floor jack under the front cross member or even under the frame from the side at the door hinge line. So far, I drive up on a 4x4 and then I can jack it up from there. dang...

Not a problem though, I'll simply put SPC cast aluminum spring spacers in the lower control arm spring seats. The issue I'm thinking I end up with is trying to level the right and left sides. On paper, a 3/4" spacer will lift it approx. 1-1/2" and a 1" will lift it approx. 2". Great! ... But if I put a 3/4" on the pass. side and 1" on the driver’s side, I bet the taller drivers side will also lift the pass. side some. It will be closer to level, but how much differential will I need in the spacers to level it out by 1/2" and gain the height I want?

Put a different way, the 550lb/inch driver side spring is supporting about 275lbs more than the passenger side. How much taller a spacer is needed to shift 137.5 of the 275 lbs. to the passenger side? I might need to lift the rear drivers side by some amount also to help, but I would rather not trial and error this and spend the time and money and end up with spare spacers lying around I will never use.
Oops, wordy as usual, but I'm entertaining in person!

Anyone else deal with this? Am I over thinking this? I'd love to hear what someone else has found to be true.

Patrick

Nilsson

Cut a coil or less from the passenger side front coil spring. This seems to work with a stock setup.

e129745

Thanks for the response Nilsson.
I want to share that cutting a full coil is reducing the installed length by something like 1-1/2". That is pretty much similar to adding a spacer 1-1/2" taller than the other side. That would be too much difference in thickness between spacers from what I've found out. The "or less" part looks like pretty good advice though, except I prefered getting the dimentional difference through spacer choice rather than guessing how much to cut a new $ spring.
As it has turned out, I put 1" on drivers sd. and 3/4" on pass. sd, a conservitive 1/4" difference. This raised it about 1-1/8 average overall, and the side to side difference was reduced by one half from 1/2 to 1/4" with drivers side still lower. The SPC spacers fit very well, both the spring and lower control-arm pocket. SPC doesn't offer anything bigger than the 1", so cutting too much coil would be more difficult to resolve in my situation. The lift serves me well as is and I am very pleased. With the same diameter tires as OEM, the Eibachs have lowered the rear by 5/8" and the front is 1-1/2" lower than original OEM ride height. Remember, of course, this is with the 1/2" tall lower BJoints and spacers being used . I might'ev gone with a 1/2" and 1" if I would've found more info. With a 1/2" spacer difference I might have gotten it within 1/8 or so. Moving the battery to the trunk in the opposite corner or even just to the passenger side engine bay would probably be a good solution, although the difference now isn't half as noticable as it was before.
Anyhow, I wanted to give someone else who may be searching for info some feed back.
Thanx again,
Patrick