Basic Bolt ons: Lower/Sport springs

Alternate Imeges · May 10, 2004

what do you guyz think of drop zone, tein

quennet · May 16, 2004

I have installed the FK Hitec spring set (35mm/40mm) from newedgeperformance.com. I was impressed with the ride, (little sacrifice). As far as price goes, you can`t beat it.

fokuzsport · May 16, 2004

Alternate Imeges said:
what do you guyz think of drop zone, tein

do a search of dropzone in this forum. they suck.

central25thst · Jul 4, 2004

wow u know your stuff

dudeman05 · Jul 4, 2004

goldline are just as good as eibach,tein is good but ppl dont like em on the focus bc its a japanese product and ppl think dropzone suck bc they ride rough but as are most coilovers ive ridden in cars with dropzone with a beefy strut/shock setup and it rides good but most coilovers arent gonna ride as good as coilsprings and are alot more money.

Iceboy9191 · Jul 5, 2004

K this is huge...I have a 2002 zts and want it lowered...my friend is gonna put my springs on, he works at a shop and has done lots of cars...Im getting either the ebay pro or sportline kit....I would much rather have the 2/2.2 drop on my ride...Do i really have to buy something other than just the springs. I only care about looks and still riding smoothly(my car is turtle slow)...will i actually have problems besides tire wear with my car if i dont get a camber kit or tune up or whatever....Thx alot please send me a PM

dudeman05 · Jul 5, 2004

ur gonna need a camber kit and struts/shocks for the sportline drop what size rim do u have?if its pretty big or u plan on goin big i would keep it at a prokit rather than the sportline.

Iceboy9191 · Jul 5, 2004

explain to me how your tires get more wear by having your car lower???

S2 · Jul 5, 2004

It's all about the alignment. When you lower your car, the tires will actually "lean in" at the top which means your going to be riding on the edge of the tire, not the flat part like your suppose to. You'll wear the tires down in no time (friend of mine didn't get an alignment, went on a road trip out of town about 4 hours and back, new tires when he got back, they were only a couple months old). A camber kit is used if you drop more than 2" to get the alignment back into specs. You can use the stock adjustments to get the wheels back into specs if you drop less than 2".

So basically, your tires wear out cause your driving on the side of them instead of on the flat tread part. They don't sit on the road flat but at an angle..... driving with your tires on an angle, use your imagination and you will see how fast they will wear out..... does that make sense?

bwojdyla · Jul 9, 2004

tvr2500m, it's not that nobody could do or would be interested in such an investigation, its that it would be really hard to do. To accurately model full vehicle suspension geometry you have to generate a HUGE spreadsheet in excel or purchase some fairly sophisticated (and pricey) software such as ADAMSPre or CARSim. Then be able to replicate the existing geometry by measuring all the suspension points, knowing exact cg, pitch poles, roll center, camber, caster, toe, ackerman angles, spring rates, damping rate, blah blah blah... you know, stuff that Ford is stingy about giving up. You could measure most of it, but it would be a B!t(H to get some of it, and even then the accuracy would be poopy. I could probably dig through my old files and find a full vehicle model from my graduate chassis courses, but there would be so many assumptions that the validity would be shaky.

When you get right down to it, suspensions are designed to operate as a controlled system at all levels of travel. You don't think that the car was designed to drive safely down the road packed full of 300 pound ********? that will definately drop the suspension 2 inches.

bacosta · Jul 16, 2004

what happens if you Cut the springs you have now??

microtonal · Jul 22, 2004

tvr2500m said:
Has anyone looked at what happens to roll center geometry, bump steer, and possible suspension travel issues after lowering the Focus?

I agree a lower CG is always better, but more often than not roll geometry errors are induced by lower a car that counter the positive effect of the low CG with the net result of making the chassis performance worse. Automotive engineers design suspension to have the fewest geometry errors at the stock ride height. I'm sure there's some variability here, but most suspensions get sloppier about controlling wheel attitude as they approach the limits of their travel.

And you certainly don't want to be anywhere near the bump stops. Once you hit those the effective spring rate becomes infinite and everything goes out the window.

Also, with any modern chassis like the Focus, at least a few degrees of static negative camber are required to make the contact patch as large as possible as the suspension de-cambers under full chassis roll. This depends on the type of tire used and how hard the car is cornered. A sticky radial ply DOT race tire, even though its sidewalls tend to be very stiff, usually needs more neg camber than, say, a snow tire. In the case of the snow tires, there's not enough grip to decamber the suspension very much and so it doesn't need much negative camber to maintain the maximum contact patch. That's why rally cars don't run much, if any, negative camber.

Of course, there's no substitute for lap times. If the lap times are lower, then you can't argue with that.

Does anyone or 'gurus' know the answer to this?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Geezer · Jul 23, 2004

Cutting an existing spring will increase the spring rate. For example, on a linear rate spring, if you have 10 complete coils and you cut one coil off you will increase the spring rate by 10%. If you have five coils and cut one off you increase the spring rate 20%. This assumes you can cut each spring exactly the same length to maintain the same rates. The bad part of cutting is that the cutting process creates lots of heat which has a dramatic impact on the tempering and molecular structure of the metal. Some people have done this without much impact, others have experienced springs that have settled unevenly or in worst cases, actually failed and broke. Its generally considered bad form to cut springs.

AuthentiCustomz · Aug 5, 2004

^^^^^ yeah, cutting springs arent all that good...i tried it on my first car, an 89 Pontiac 6000, what a sick car, lol....but neways the springs didnt settle in correctly, so everytime i hit a bump HARD u would hear the springs move and make a loud noise, lol

BUT ANYWAY, i have a question about the Progress 1.8inch drop springs from (modernperformance.com)......how r these springs? and a camber kit is not needed, correct?
thanx

zx32001 · Sep 5, 2004

i agree the focus sits far too high for the sporty look it has, it sits really high and im thinking about a lowering kit, if you have any info on any cheap one let me know

cope1027 · Sep 6, 2004

You will be nowhere near the bump stops. I have lowered mine 2", and it handles great. I live around some rough and bumpy area, and have yet to come close to bottoming out. I have never been happier with the performanc and handeling of my car.

Turtle · Oct 13, 2004

SOmeone asked about the Ford Racing springs and never got a response; has anyone had any experience with them? Who makes them for Ford? The price seems good. Are they worth it? SHould I just save up and buy something better if there is a huge difference? I'm just looking to lower it and limit body-roll a bit, tighten up the handling some, no track days in the near future . . .

How difficult of an install is this? I have limited experience on newer cars (built after 1980) but I have rebuilt a few '65 and '66 Mustangs and my '69 Charger, so have decent mechanical skills. How tough is it on the Focus? I have a 80'x200' garage and plenty of tools, so that isn't an issue.

dmjasmith · Jan 7, 2006

Raising this one from the dead

I am getting ready to install the Ford Racing Lowering Springs mentioned in the post above on my 05 ST. Does anyone have these installed? I got a killer price quoted on them from John Bleakly Ford here in Atlanta ($164), so I don't plan to pass them up. Springs and rims going on next week.

island_boy49 · Jan 7, 2006

i had the tein... i liked them... the only reason why my ride was bumpy was because i didnt upgrade my dampers at the same time... so they became worn out and i was practically riding on the bump stops...

island_boy49 · Jan 7, 2006

Turtle said:
SOmeone asked about the Ford Racing springs and never got a response; has anyone had any experience with them? Who makes them for Ford? The price seems good. Are they worth it? SHould I just save up and buy something better if there is a huge difference? I'm just looking to lower it and limit body-roll a bit, tighten up the handling some, no track days in the near future . . .

How difficult of an install is this? I have limited experience on newer cars (built after 1980) but I have rebuilt a few '65 and '66 Mustangs and my '69 Charger, so have decent mechanical skills. How tough is it on the Focus? I have a 80'x200' garage and plenty of tools, so that isn't an issue.

if im not mistaken kw makes some of the focus's ford dampers

the install is easy... just takes some time and maybe a pair of helping hands... if u had experience on the cars... it should be fine... there's some how to's on this forum on how to install it.

Basic Bolt ons: Lower/Sport springs

Alternate Imeges

quennet

fokuzsport

central25thst

dudeman05

Iceboy9191

dudeman05

Iceboy9191

S2

bwojdyla

bacosta

microtonal

Geezer

AuthentiCustomz

zx32001

cope1027

Turtle

dmjasmith

island_boy49

island_boy49

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