Coilovers to Adjust Rear Ride Height?

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fenderman33

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Is there anyone using a pair of coilovers in the back to set the ride height? I'm looking to ditch the air shocks when the car finally comes back together, and I'm looking for opinions. It's a '73 Duster, small block, 4 speed, driver.
Thanks,
Jon
 
I am assuming you still have leaf springs......lowering blocks would work.

coilovers support the weight of the car as do leaf springs, coilovers are not just for ride height. I did a triangulated 4link w/ coils on my car.
 
I do still have leaf spring. I'm looking to keep them and add the coilovers to use to adjust the ride height. I know I've seen people using them.
-Jon
 
Ok...I am curious to know the benefits of having both coils and leafs, I dont see it

Hopefully someone will chime in
 
when doing this, im assuming that youre doing so to raise the back of the car up a bit. much like the air shocks did. the coil overs will work, yes. work properly, probabley not. when you do this, all the weight of the car will effectively be resting on the shock mounts, not the leaves. the leaves would be more along for the ride and axle location at this point. you will see some handling benifits due to the higher effective spring rate, but its hard to determine what that rate will be when using both.

reason i know about this is that a while back, i was running some of those parts store coil over conversions to do the same thing on my duster. it did work, but i broke shock mounts after a while, killed shocks, and had some twitch handling.


hope this helped. if it were mine, id do what i did and get the springs i need from ESPO, and be done with it. the sprongs have been in for 5 yers now, and have not sagged.

Michael
 
What you are wanting to do is a band aid for sagging springs. I have air shocks on my Valiant right now but they are just temporary until I can get new springs. Tearing out an upper shock mount is not a pretty thing or an easy fix.
 
If you can find booster coils that go on TOP of the rear axle, between the frame and axle, the load won't be on the shock mounts.
You used to be able to get them at camper/trailer stores.

It will pick up your rear a few inches, but will ride kinda bouncy.

The 1500 lb JC Whitney leaf helpers bolt on top of the leaves, and you can
load up the tension as little or much as you want to tune the height.
You can also use them to "get by" for a while with one broken leaf in the pack.
 
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