Lowering coils? reviews? which to choose? Coil users please come in.

M

Myco

Registered
I have a set of arnott 1.5 lowered coils (I think they are arnott) and they are simply too soft or shot. I'd like to go with another 1.5 lowered kit but I don't know which manufacturer to go with.

People have suggested:
Americanair (eddie)
H&R
Tokico (blue's I think but can't find them are these for mustang's and not t-birds?) Are these adjustable?
Bilstein's (for 2003-4 mustangs)

I'd like to get a kit that has a 'middle' between ride quality and sporty. What I mean by this is I don't want to feel like a boat going down the road (like now) and I don't want to feel every bump in the road.

The coils I have now are so soft my car rides like a boat and over subsequent humps the car will bottom out. This is bad.

I'd like to keep the 1.5" lowering as it really looks good and I like how the car handles. I've heard there are 'relatively cheap' coils that are adjustable and are preferred to non-adjustable as the coils are made for the t-bird which is 4-500lbs lighter than the mark.

Any suggestions? People with coils. Please give advice. Please!
 
I have Eddies (American Air Suspension) 4 wheel lowered coil kit that appears to be from Strutmasters. I replaced the rear shocks also, with the ones that Eddie sells.

The ride is ok, and I am glad I did the conversion because my air ride gave up and stopped working after trying everything in the book to get it going again.

The only downside of the coils that I see, allows for more suspension travel than my lowered air ride set up, so I have bottomed out a couple times now on dips in the road where I never did before with the air ride. Also, at Interstate highway speed, the car tends to wallow over bridges instead of dampening and smoothing out the ride.

I will probably replace the shocks and struts at some point in time in favor of a more performance type shock and strut.
 
I have the Strutmasters kit from American Air Suspension, its the hot rod kit as they call it. 1.5 lower in front and std in rear. I got this to try to get the fender gap the same for front and back, since it sat higher in the front with the bags. Im very happy with it as far as ride quality, almost feels the same as the bags. Only thing I dont like is now its to high in the back, I want to get the rear 1.5 lower.
 
I was gonna do the same kit, but decided agianst it. Instead of that I got the lowered kit and took my old rear bags, cut 1" off the thick plastc part on the end and put that under the spring, kinda like a home made spacer. It worked out pretty good since that part was tapered towards the top and the spring sits on it perfectly.
 
I had that kit on my 95 & the front ent would bottom out ALOT. I finally bought 4 of the cheapo rubber spring spacers that fit in between the coils. It wasn't enough to raise it up but it did stiffen the front up to where it wouldn't scrape anymore. It was a $45 solution!
 
I got the coil kits as well

I got the coil kits as well

I thought the stock ride height kit would soften or settle a little to be lower, but mine have not settled in any and car still sits up a like a 4X4.

Hopefully when i get some highway time on it this next weekend she settles in some. Or ill be going for the lowered kit as opposed to the stock ride height i ordered. I was worried about ground clearance with the intercooler, but the way i have it now, all i have to worry about is the K member grinding, and if that hits, well the rest of the car will be toast by that point so it wont matter. lol

Mike, you got me thinking now about the wallowing, and the car loosing its built - in "bump stops" getting rid of the factory bag setup. I'll get under there and see if some brackets can be fabbed/welded up to use the aftermarket replacemnt bumpstops for regular cars use for like leaf srpings against the frame. I dont remember what they look like under there from memory, but will see when i crawl under there and inspect them and the frame.
 
Update:

I have been looking for a 1.5 drop kit myself and guess what? they dont make one anymore or not that i can find any suggestions?
 
I am using Eibach 1.5" lowering springs and Koni shocks on all corners. I wish the Eibach springs were a little stiffer. If I hit a big dip, then the can can bottom out if the Koni's are not set to full firm.
 
I`ve got a set of H&R lowering coils for a SuperCoupe and Koni`s all around, i`m thinking of putting a half inch spacer under the spring in the back, it seems a little low in proportion to the front, also i got a set of air helper springs that fit inside the coils, only problem is thy`re also for the t-birds, which happen to have a bump stop inside the coils, making my airbags a couple inches too short, have to adapt a bump stop of some sort, sorry if i got off topic but i`ve got the konis set right in the middle and if there`s no load in my car it rarely bottoms out, only if i hit a pretty big dip at a good speed. it rides pretty nice too
 
spitfyre said:
I`ve got a set of H&R lowering coils for a SuperCoupe and Koni`s all around, i`m thinking of putting a half inch spacer under the spring in the back, it seems a little low in proportion to the front, also i got a set of air helper springs that fit inside the coils, only problem is thy`re also for the t-birds, which happen to have a bump stop inside the coils, making my airbags a couple inches too short, have to adapt a bump stop of some sort, sorry if i got off topic but i`ve got the konis set right in the middle and if there`s no load in my car it rarely bottoms out, only if i hit a pretty big dip at a good speed. it rides pretty nice too
Click to expand...

Here's what you need for those H&R's to make the AirLift bags work like they should. It's a UHMW spring perch that I developed for the T-Bird guys that want to switch to Mark VIII LCA's.

More details here:

http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108085
 

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