Practically Classics Forum

There is MUCH more to suspension than just ride height. You have dramatically changed your spring rate which will change how your car behaves. Watching American TV where they make a hot rod lower by cutting the springs remember this is not for road use. I am not sure how legal it is to do it in the UK but what you have done IS NOT SAFE! Do it properly and buy some high-lows or proper lowering springs.

The coilover lowering springs are nolonger suitable unless old style
struts are fitted! this is due to the diameter of the tube and cap of
the body of the strut being wider than that of the old oil type struts.

As for cutting springs, the following is an interesting read

jonallsorts wrote:

mobilemechanical wrote:As far as I'm aware from current MOT law, a cracked or fractured spring would fail an MOT.

How ever cut springs are not cracked or fractured so I don't see as that would cause a problem also long as with the car jacked up they can't be pulled out.

I'd understand your confusion as a lot of testers arent even sure of the rules. I've copied this directly from the MOT inspection manual today:

Where a coil spring is incomplete, cracked or fractured at an extreme end where the spring locates on the spring mount, it should only be rejected if :-

The function of the spring is impaired

following jacking, the spring ends do not locate correctly when the vehicle is lowered into the normal running position without assistance

These criteria should also be applied to springs that have been deliberately shortened or modified in order to lower the suspension

megadethmaniac wrote:Hate to say this Mitsuru but your running, I presume, the stock brakes for the 2.0 car and you now aim to run, when finished the 3.3l motor? What does a Voyager (or the like) run in terms of size of disks? Are they a larger diameter?

A little re-cap on a couple of details before list the details on the brake
discs dimensions.

The Chrysler Neon mk1 weighs approximately 1088.64 kg (2400 lbs)
The Chrysler Voyager weighs approximately 2268 - 2721 kg (5001 - 6000 lbs)

The Neon mk1 2.0L SOHC engine only produced 131 bhp max, and 129 lb·ft
(175 N·m) of torque.
These are the details of the Voyager's engine I'm using.
Displacement 3.3 L (3301 cc/201.5 CID)
Bore 93 mm (3.66 in)
Stroke 81 mm (3.19 in)
Years...................Power.........................Torque
1990–1993.......150 hp (112 kW).........180 ft·lbf (244 N·m)
1994–1995.......162 hp (121 kW).........194 ft·lbf (263 N·m)
1996–2000.......158 hp (118 kW).........203 ft·lbf (275 N·m)
2001–2010.......180 hp (134 kW).........210 ft·lbf (285 N·m)

Yes the car will have more grunt, but so would you if you had less to haul
around and I do mean the neon will be less than half the weight of the
voyager from which the engine and transmission came from! Also those
Alloy wheels which were on the old girl were off a mk2 Voyager.

Neon mk1 (93-99) Outer Diameter (mm) 260 to 280+ depending
on model and transmission
Voyager mk 2 (91-95) Outer Diameter (mm) 282.1
Voyager Outer mk4 (200+)Diameter (mm) 301.7

That isn't really the point. Think of it like this, if you remove one in every 10 springs from your trampoline you will be slightly closer to the ground when you stand in the middle but when you bounce you won't go as high.
With a car this means you have changed how the car will handle. As you have carried out lots of modifications to your vehicle nobody can tell you what this change will be. My money would be that it will not be desirable.

Terry G is right, and I have done a Motorsports Engineering and Design Degree and can tell you that simply cutting springs is a big no no. They may not fail the MOT but as Terry says, you have dramatically changes the spring rates etc, and not forgetting where you 'cut' the spring you will weaken it, because the metal is tempered.

The front springs will need changing for uprated ones to compensate for the extra weight of the V6. I reckon you would get away with using standard springs on the back (uncut!). Didn't you have a Voyager engine loom? If you could mate it up to the rest of the loom then you might be in with a shout of getting it running. Surely, the Voyager & Neon can't be too dissimilar. They're both Chrysler so there should be something in common. A complete wiring diagram of both vehicles would shed some light on the issue.

Well springs first, the front springs were changed out for mk2 r/t
neon ones a while ago (it's mentioned in the thread somewhere!)
These have coped well with the slight increase in weight of the V6
and 4 speed auto box.

I am looking into specs of a couple of different car springs to use on
the rear.

As for the destruction manuals wiring diagrams that are in the haynes
books, no comment! and it's easy to get mixed up with the factory
service manuals as they have all the different spec options covered

But not the British option it's not fully covered I have had to post
stuff on the owners club forum of stuff I have found out for others to
use!! If you want an idea the Voyager has more in-common with the mk2
neon than the mk1 which was made at the same time.
(pm your email address and I will send links to the voyager manual and
the simplified neon wiring diagram)

I have done a Motorsports Engineering and Design Degree and can tell you that simply cutting springs is a big no no.

That seems to have been worth the money then......

Welshie wrote:Terry G is right, and I have done a Motorsports Engineering and Design Degree and can tell you that simply cutting springs is a big no no. They may not fail the MOT but as Terry says, you have dramatically changes the spring rates etc, and not forgetting where you 'cut' the spring you will weaken it, because the metal is tempered.

It is true that cutting a spring will in general increase the rate (normally desirable on a car that is a bit lower) but there are enough other factors determining a spring's rate that saying it is a 'dramatic' change is a wildly blanket accusation.

When cutting a spring with a disc in a grinder so little of it would get hot enough to temper the metal, and only at the extreme end, that it is practically of no consequence.

I think we could argue about this all day but suffice to say that cut springs are less safe than non-cut ones. Even less so when used with the factory dampers.
However the most dangerous thing about cut springs in this instance is the way they are retained: