4KQ spring chop

[Duncan Thomson]

I'm in the "DON'T cut them" camp...
and can confirm that 4kq rears front and rear work fine on my car (cq 
non-turbo)

cut spring won't seat properly and will probably shift and make noise 
under hard cornering...
I don't believe it would be dangerous as such (had one cut spring on my 
old CGT), but will change the handling...

Springs that lower the car below it's design height makes handling less 
linear and predictable. The control arms are designed to start from a 
horizontal position. If they are already angled upwards, then the camber 
change over bumps is exaggerated...

In my case I only really wanted to lower the front a bit (was riding too 
high) and definitely wanted to stiffen it up a bit. Got Koni sports 
(yellows) all round and got B&G lowering springs...
The springs dropped it too far, looked quite cool when on the flat, but 
were undriveable, bottomed out the whole time...
The lowering springs turned out to be about the same stiffness (or 
softness as stock) only shorter... I guess they were strictly 'lowering' 
springs... grrr...

anyway eventually got annoyed enough to tear it all apart, and am 
currently running 4kq rears on front and rear...
seems to be a little better than stock (front not quite so high) and is 
doing me fine for now...
still want it all quite a bit stiffer, but am making do for now...

front springs have a much longer free length, but a lower spring 
coefficient (softer) so hard to make direct comparison with the rears... 
in practice, the rears should work fine for what you want...

handles fine too... no significant change in understeer from what I can 
tell...

hope this helps

Duncan
'85 CQ

Jason Gray wrote:

>Cutting stock 4kq springs is a bad idea. The ends of the spring are wound with smaller diameter than the rest of spring, removing part of the pigtail on the end would make a larger diameter end that does not sit well on the spring perch or upper spring retainer. In my opinion, the front stock 4Kq springs are WAY too soft for decent handeling. YOu really should get stiffer springs before trying to lower any or you will bottom out excessivly with reduced ride height (riding on bumpstops results in very bad handeling). 
>
> My suggestion would be to get an extra set of rear springs and put them on the front. The rear springs are stiffer (larger wire diameter) and shorter free length so will lower the front end significantly and provide stiffer spring rate.  Stiffer front springs will make for increased oversteer handeling, should be matched to a addition of a sway bar in rear to obtain more neutral handeling. 
>
>-Jason Gray
>Anchorage, Alaska
>
>
>
>Message: 11
>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 19:15:02 +0100
>From: "Richard Tanimura" <richard at tanimuras.com>
>Subject: RE: 4KQ spring chop?
>To: "Phil Mather" <specracerx at yahoo.com>, <quattro at audifans.com>
>Message-ID: <MHEHJBEPOMNOGHOIDLBLKECGDBAA.richard at tanimuras.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
>You can cut them but the spring constant will increase i.e. the spring will
>get firmer.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: quattro-bounces at audifans.com
>[mailto:quattro-bounces at audifans.com]On Behalf Of Phil Mather
>Sent: den 17 mars 2004 17:45
>To: quattro at audifans.com
>Subject: 4KQ spring chop?
>
>
>I've heard of it being done before, but wanted to confirm.  Can you cut a
>coil off of the front springs on a 4kq?  The front of my car rides fairly
>high and I'm too cheap to buy lowering springs.  I'm putting new strut
>mounts in this weekend though and while everything was out I thought I could
>cut the springs (with a cutting wheel, not a tourch).  How likely is it that
>the strut would bottom out (bump stops are still good, PO replaced them)?
>Thanks!
>
>Phil
>
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