So here is how my 84 sits right now with coil-overs in the rear. Ugh the front has got to drop. Geez I read where someone said the 84s sit much higher then the others, I guess so.





So the car's front end must come down. As I have blown the budget my spouse set for me when I revived this little guy... everything from here forward is being done on a DIY budget to be revamped with aftermarket parts later.

Yes that means cut front springs for the time being. I have searched and read MUCH pros and cons. FYI: The car is NOT a daily driver and in the near future a proper drop with aftermarket parts will come. But in the interim this stance is beyond embarrassing. Sure I could jack the rear back up, but really after all that work to ride like a 4x4… I refuse… I have been without my little car since 2008 and I want to drive him again…soon! I measured and I'm sitting at exactly 3.5 inches b/w the fender lip and tire top. Ideally, I really want to eliminate 2 inches. That will give me 2 fingers.

The other must dos with the drop that I know about… cut the bump stops…
Is ¾, with a bit of overlap for the weld, enough for a 2" drop?

Then I have seen some touch on reversing the upper ball joint for the ability to align it later.
Is this something I need to do on an 84? What does this actually do?

So in searching and reading I see the majority of 85-87 folks say: 1 coil = 1" to 1.5 " drop some say 1.25" drop… 2 coils = 2.5" drop. Does this seem to be the standard for an early Fiero? I saw a member Patrick say 2 coils gave him a 2 inch drop on his 84. Is the 84 a fluke and more needs to come out? Just want to dial it in as close as possible the first time.

I really don't want to cut then align, drive, then cut and have to align again… sooooo… The plan is 1.5 coils… if the majority's math is right I will be hitting a 1.5+ to a 2 inch drop. If the 84 had taller springs then a bit less of a drop. Thoughts???


In searching, I know I'm going to hear the SAVE and DO IT RIGHT comments… Those who want to say that, please read the next post… That will clue you in on what the checkbook has been through in the past few months and why I can't spend another dime unless it is on a broken part… Again… this is only temporary…

[This message has been edited by redraif (edited 10-13-2011).]

A bit of background, in late 2008... I had the car running and things were fine except for an intermittent start and battery drain issue. Then it decided to OVERCHARGE... With the smell of burning wires I parked the car. I waited till xmas and my gift was my new polished 140 amp alternator. Then my job laid me off. The install halted when I lost my job as I did not want to waste the extra $ on the wiring upgrade on an "extra" car. The car sat till I was employed permanently and our finances had sprung back from my prolonged layoff.

So the end of 2011 comes around and my patience was rewarded by my spouse... ok lets fix the INDY! (saving bit by bit & only getting small or no Xmas/b-day gifts while I was unemployed, makes spouses feel guilty)

So here starts my 2011 money pit....

So the alternator install finally happened...as I posted for advise on my wiring upgrade to go with it, I did much reading and searching and got so much help from The Orge. With his advice, I decided to add a distribution block for my power side and make some adjustments to the power routing... Well I discovered a huge mess of wiring issues. The previous owners replacement c500 had been badly spliced in.
Budget hit # 1 = soldering gun, LOTS of wiring, cables, fusible links & a battery But hey the car starts right and does not kill batteries now! Yeah!

Ok its running now to make it safe to get on the road…
Well as the poor fellow had sat so long his iffy tires got dangerously BAD... So I worked some magic and made a deal with the spouse to get new wheels. So I gave on the idea of 19s, and went 18s, but I was going to run a staggered set… I used the spouses take off 18" tires from the Mustang & got $60.00 pair for the front. (My compromise to make it happen)
Budget hit #2 = tuner lugs… ugh… I already had a locking set in standard size…

To make room for my staggered wheels, I spent the $ to properly convert the rear to a coil-over set up. But to stay in budget, it was a DIY conversion and I won a $100 summit gift certificate at a show to pay for 90% of my parts investment.
Budget hit #3 = a fail from Summit to get the cost effective with no shipping coil-over sleeves I was counting on, so now I had to spend real money… grrrr…

Since I was going to be messing with the rear anyway… I had to do new poly bushing to replace all my dry rotted rubber ones (they were dry rotted as bad as the tires) Had these from before the lay off…
Budget hit #4 = my passenger side tierod REFUSED to release the spindle. After 2 new tools, the rod released, but only after splitting its end. So I opted for new Rodney Dickman inner and outer tierods in the rear. Figured that tierod was god's warning to me to go ahead and upgrade!
Budget hit #5 = while the rear suspension was off I got a good look at my tranny and motor mounts…They were SHOT! So more money for new ones… But hey, my floaty rear feeling should be gone!

So now I'm sitting with a car that looks like it has a reverse rake… LOL! My options for the front, drop spindles, lowering springs, lowering ball joints. Figure the ball joints and lowering springs would be the best option, but my ball joints were recently replaced, so that would be a shame to waste them. Not to mention, my budget hits have killed my reserves. All my extra cash went to the problems along the way. UGH!

Now the worst part…. The family budget reserves went to a dock and seawall that just caved in. $7000… that’s a steal btw! Then my 15 year old step daughter's purchase of her first car went horribly wrong… her Montero was $600.00 with a bad tranny, she had $2100 so it was thought the left overs could rebuild the tranny. Nope previous owner ran it into the ground & replacement was the only option… $1500 for a used warrantied tranny… now her $ is gone. It's our turn…$900 for the install, then 3 ($100) o2 sensors, a new egr and egr solenoid $150ish … now she can pass emissions, then registration, and insurance. Then we find out the previous owner NEVER did the timing belt (233,000 miles) We paid for that and a massive valve cover leak, plus 2 other leaks below that… $900… Now to clean the driveway… LOL!

[This message has been edited by redraif (edited 10-11-2011).]

Not the answer you want to hear, but after spending all that on other projects, the cheapest way to lower it would be to put some 13" wheels on it.

quote Originally posted by fierofool: Not the answer you want to hear, but after spending all that on other projects, the cheapest way to lower it would be to put some 13" wheels on it.

And how would that fix my 3.5 inch fender gap... lol... pretty sure that is what looks stupid

Yeah, I know. Guess I should have put a big and a after that so you would know I was joking.

quote Originally posted by redraif: I saw a member Patrick say 2 coils gave him a 2 inch drop on his 84. Is the 84 a fluke and more needs to come out? Just want to dial it in as close as possible the first time.

Did I actually say "a 2 inch drop" somewhere? I honestly don't recall measuring and/or reporting that.

Whatever it was it worked fine for me, but keep in mind there can be different factory springs installed for each year of Fiero production. Cutting two coils off of softer, shorter springs will obviously not result in the same drop as cutting two coils off of stiffer, longer springs.

The shocks will also make a difference in drop as the Monroe Sensa-Tracs I have installed offer "compression" resistance whereas the factory shocks do not.

I posted more info in your other thread, but here's the only recent picture I have of my '84 (on the left) with the cut springs and the bump stop metal cones properly shortened. (I was sitting ON my front bump stops before the cones were shortened.)

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 10-11-2011).]

I have cut both of my 86 Fiero's Front and Rear springs. Both cars have 1.5 coils cut off the front. The Sport rear spring were cut 3/4 coil and the GT was cut a full coil in the rear
My advice, don't go more than 1.5 coils. It still rides great and only the MAJOR holes in the road hurt when hitting them, but what sports car takes a huge pot hole well.

I took a sawzall to my front bump stops and cut all that stuck out of the housing off. That gave a good amount of travel and the car rides great. Mine is a daily driver.

Anyways, here are my cut coils.






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[This message has been edited by jwrape (edited 10-12-2011).]

quote Originally posted by fierofool: Yeah, I know. Guess I should have put a big and a after that so you would know I was joking.

lol! Long day at work... Never know around here though.... I've gotten a mixed batch of results in some threads I post. No worries... I was like seriously.... Seriously....

quote Originally posted by redraif: I was like seriously.... Seriously....

LOL!

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Car Threads
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quote Originally posted by Patrick: Did I actually say "a 2 inch drop" somewhere? I honestly don't recall measuring and/or reporting that. Whatever it was it worked fine for me, but keep in mind there can be different factory springs installed for each year of Fiero production. Cutting two coils off of softer, shorter springs will obviously not result in the same drop as cutting two coils off of stiffer, longer springs. The shocks will also make a difference in drop as the Monroe Sensa-Tracs I have installed offer "compression" resistance whereas the factory shocks do not. I posted more info in your other thread, but here's the only recent picture I have of my '84 (on the left) with the cut springs and the bump stop metal cones properly shortened. (I was sitting ON my front bump stops before the cones were shortened.)

sorry, my appologies.... I had that in my head from somewhere(2 in) read to many threads and got confused. I stand corrected! Do you have any idea what your drop netted? Or at least the tire to fender measurement?

I saw the other thread.... Thank you for posting there as well. I'm guessing my mileage is not too horribly off the od's read of approx 74000-79000... So far I have had zero issues with seized bolts or rusted solid bolts. No control arm bolts seizing to bushing sleeves. So maybe the mileage is close. That being said... The springs should still have some life in them. I measured last night and they sat at 12.5 free from the car. Did you measure yours before the cut? I took a pic of the number the factory taped on the spring.... Just have to resize the photos tonight.

oh and the factory struts and shocks are long gone. I now have fresh kybs. Probably only a couple 100 miles on them. Not sure if they offer compression resistance or not.

quote Originally posted by jwrape: I took a sawzall to my front bump stops and cut all that stuck out of the housing off. That gave a good amount of travel and the car rides great.

Am I misunderstnding you, or do you not now have any bump stops at all?

If so, I'd have to say that is not the way to do it. You'll either be binding your springs if they compress all the way (doubful), or at some point you'll be bottoming out your front shocks abruptly in a big pothole (very probable), wrecking your shocks in the process.

quote Originally posted by Patrick: Am I misunderstnding you, or do you not now have any bump stops at all? If so, I'd have to say that is not the way to do it. You'll either be binding your springs if they compress all the way (doubful), or at some point you'll be bottoming out your front shocks abruptly in a big pothole (very probable), wrecking your shocks in the process.

No, there is about half of the rubber bumpstop still there to catch it but yea, A super hard bump still is hard. But if you don't cut down the bump stop you will limit your travel substantially.

So no one has said, do I have to reverse my upper ball joints? Want to be sure I can get my alignment right after... I saw a few talking about that in threads while I was searching, but I only saw it a few times out of the insane amount of threads. They were not vehicle specific, so maybe its an 88 thing?

thanks!

quote Originally posted by redraif: So no one has said, do I have to reverse my upper ball joints? Want to be sure I can get my alignment right after... I saw a few talking about that in threads while I was searching, but I only saw it a few times out of the insane amount of threads. They were not vehicle specific, so maybe its an 88 thing? thanks!

I never reversed my ball joints. I actually don't know how to go about it. I didn't see where they were reversable. My GT aligned perfectly.

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Car Threads
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I'd be very cautious about reversing ball joints, unless the car was going to be just for show. The flanges of the riveted or bolted in ball joints are on a particular side of the control arm for the purpose of handling the stress put on them. That stress is exerted against the surface of the control arm through the flanges. If you reverse them, you only have 3 small bolts absorbing everything. In my opinion, not wise for a road vehicle.

quote Originally posted by fierofool: I'd be very cautious about reversing ball joints, unless the car was going to be just for show. The flanges of the riveted or bolted in ball joints are on a particular side of the control arm for the purpose of handling the stress put on them. That stress is exerted against the surface of the control arm through the flanges. If you reverse them, you only have 3 small bolts absorbing everything. In my opinion, not wise for a road vehicle.

Oh, if that's what you are talking about ^ I would NOT do that. Sounds dangerous

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Car Threads
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Ok... well that is WHY I was ASKING first I always double check what I read in searches. Good I will leave them alone. I'm not sure what that all was in reference to as the poster just touched on it, but I felt it was worth asking!

Turns out I have ws6 springs. DMN #10029675







Thank you Patrick for the info on these! So based on pics that he posted in my bumpstop cutting thread, it looks like 1.5 coils just might be the ticket!

I think you will be happy with the 1.5 coils.

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Car Threads
86 Fiero 2M4 Silver https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/115701.html
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