Leaf springs with lowering blocks for racing?

anyone have any input on using lowering blocks with leaf springs on a street/strip car im kinda worried about breaking the u bolts

 

I'm curious myself. I'm not worried about the U-bolts, but I wanna know if the centering pins can withstand the force of launching. The blocks I have are made of extruded aluminum (which is supposed to be stronger than cast or billet).

 

They are designed for lowering not performance. I would be worried about shearing off the centering pin and block sliding out. Seems like a bad combo for racing.

 

it is simply a cheap way to change the ride height and actually makes it tougher for the spring to resist wrapping up. basically creates a larger lever type effect the thicker the blocks get and the rear end housing moves away from the spring. If you're serious about performance in all directions.. look into a reverse eye designed springs to lower the car and avoid excessive block heights.

 

I emailed calvert racing they offer a 1" lowering leaf spring for mavericks & they suggest no more than 2" lowering blocks

 

I currently have 1-1/2" lowering blocks on my car, and I have a set of 1" blocks in case the springs settle a half-inch over time. Do you think those sizes would have a substantial negative affect?

 

substantial? hardly noticeable on a typically driven street car.

However, if the factory suspension is worn and beatup?.. you bet it could be when you start beating on it in the corners. 1.5" inches might not seem like much but imagine the loads being moved, twisted, and resisted upon by the rearend, not to mention the rearend/brake/wheel and tire assemblies weight. I know for fact it sure doesn't make your wheel hop problems any better. lol

Cruising and occasionally spirited driving would be fine but pure road race cars will avoid shims like the plague. Well.. other than maybe for weight jacking, fine tuning ride heights or whatnot.

 

Yeah, it's definitely not a race car. If I had it all to do over, I would have gotten mid-eye lowering springs and not used blocks. The blocks were an afterthought when the new leafs made the back sit too high. Back in my younger days, I would have thought that was cool, but not anymore.

 

I hear you there bud. Most of us have had more than a few cars with air-shocks being used out of necessity just to fit big tires. Lots of sliced up sidewalls when they failed too. lol

I myself love acceleration AND topspeed so the thing I never really liked about heavy rake was the constant feeling that you car was already in a braking nosedive with the assend tilted up in the air.. before you actually went into a real braking nosedive flying up to and around corners. Pretty much like giving the car a tail flailing and suspension waddling head start to exaggerate the worst they already had to offer in the handling department. No thanks. I go low and deal with the stiffer shorter springs and try to get variable rates whenever possible to ease up on the old vertebra.

 

low and slow compared to high and fast 30 years ago

 

There are plenty of low & fast cars nowadays.

 

I have to admit that I like the look of lowered Mavericks, but it is hard to get there with new springs. When I ordered my composite monoleafs, I had them build a one inch drop into them. After I got the car off of jacks, it is still too high, so I'm going to have to add lowering blocks. Up front, I bought the lightest front 6 cylinder coils I could find and cut a coil out of them to boot. The engine and tranny are still out of it, but it sits super high. I've changed a lot of engines so I know what to expect and I don't think it will settle enough with my motor/trans combo.

Very frustrating.

 

It can be damned tough to nail ride heights. Worst part for me is all the R&R time needed to get there. Takes its toll on an old back.

Have you considered just having custom front springs built? There are shops all over the states that still coil and bend to spec. Takes some homework and calculation to get it done closer to optimum but a good spring shop will have their PC program crunch the numbers for you. You will most certainly need to have the car scaled on all 4 wheels though. True fully dressed wet weight too.. not some guesstimate made prior to the cars completion because it usually just adds to the error. Who really does a car to that extreme though?.. builds the car first and then builds the spring under it. Most just use off-shelf parts and nip/block them to height to end up "close enough". If you don't have previous weight baselines then obviously the closer to completion weight the better off you'll be. You can also shorten any coil spring with heat, can do them in the oven but it's hazardous and stressful as hell to heat the bolts holding a highly loaded fully compressed spring. With all the offshore parts out there these days, I'll never do it again. Any competent spring shop can easily de-arch steel leaf springs too. For any type of sporty looking or handling results, reverse eye's are the way to go, IMO.

Or what about modding a set of the Mustang variable rate springs? Everyone seems to make their own versions these days but I would guess most are just reboxed from main suppliers. As you cut them down the solid rate portion goes away but they sure are noticeably more street compliant without giving too much away in the handling and safety department. Even though they were designed for the heavier Mustang they have higher coil counts and softer variable spring rates for lowering ride heights. Take 1 coil off those springs and you might be damned close unless you want that ricky-racer look or something bagged and slammed into the weeds. Looks cool but tough to get into driveways. For now I plan on starting out with those springs minus a coil or so until my suspension gets more extreme with my other lighter bullet. Will let folks know how it goes.. if they work out plan on selling them off when I do my final suspension work well into the future. When that happens, QA1 suspension is right outside of town here and will build whatever rate I want into my coil overs. It'll cost me though. lol

 

Drop spindles on the front is the only way to go,A freind of mine has done many pickups,chevelles,camaros as well as other cars.My race car has 175lb Afcos on the front & a 2 in blk welded to the moser rear.These blks I`m going to say are at least 6 in long & the pin does go in side of them.The car has 3 leafs out back w/ shackles & cal tracks with full tubs.I`ve only had a mock mtr & trans in it once but it set pretty well with M/T 10 1/2 slicks 29 1/2 tall well up into the fenders,now I realize a street car will be a different story but lowering it correctly can be done.

 

Took me three sets of springs, set of lowering blocks and I switched to 18's to get the look I wanted.