Front/Nose high stance... will new springs cure this?

My car has always sat with the nose high. i.e. the gap between the top of the wheel and the wheel arch being larger at the front than the rear. I've seen lots of other 308's with a similar stance.

The front springs were replaced by the dealer when they bought the car, so I never saw the before & after. But in 1998 the nose was higher than the rear & still is. Why they needed replacing was never explained.

I am about to embark on a rebuild of the suspension. My intention is to get the Koni's refurbished and buy a set of springs from Superformance. Will my car sit level after this? All threads on this subject seem to focus on lowering the car overall.
I spoke to Superformance and they (not unreasonably) could only say that the springs, although uprated, are designed to match the original specification regarding ride height. They have sold many of these springs and never had a complaint.

I'm not particularly bothered about changing the handling characteristics of the car - only the ride height in terms of front/rear balance. I have a fully adjustable option at my disposal, which actually works out cheaper but I'd rather stick with the Koni's as I don't have a problem with them.

 

QA1 shocks Eibach springs, done many years ago, used the shocks & springs others on this site used
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My result of this: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/technical-q-sponsored-algar-ferrari/39712-suspension-brake-upgrade-time.html

Can't just do it with springs... have to have adjustable shocks (I used Varishocks), or you can get lowered spring perches (I'll put drwgs for this in a separate reply).
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As I said, I already have the option of a fully adjustable set up but I have no real ambition to go down that route.

I'm trying to find people who have fitted the Superformance springs and determine what ride height they provide - particularly the relation between front and rear.

 

Lowered spring perch drawings (I haven't personally used these):
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I had one and a half coils cut from each spring, problem solved.


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This is really it, there are a couple of good ways the revise it, the perches as shown, or trimming the spring height itself...

 

Thanks Mike, that's really helpful.

Using those plans and calculations, making lower perches appears to be relatively straight-forward (famous last words). Although it would mean test fitting the springs and refurbished shocks. Working out the adjustment required. Fabricating the new perches. Taking it all to pieces and then putting it all back together with the new perches.

This means I can continue with my plans, if the ride height is still unsatisfactory, I have a 'Get out of Jail' card. I'd still be interested to hear of anyone who has fitted the Superformance springs but it is less pressing now.

 

The boys on 'Fast and Loud' are always cutting coils out of springs to lower cars but I had assumed that whilst this maybe OK for some big, wallowing 1970's American Saloon it could be a tad crude for a 308? Surely the spring will behave differently and not to the original spec of the suspension?

 

Springs have a "rate" and a "height"....so cutting the height does not effect the rate.

It does, of course, take travel away from the suspension as a whole...

I often wonder in these threads, if the spare tire remains, some Owners Manuals even show the tool rolls stored up fornt...
A/C equipment, and so forth..

 

I think the simplest solution might be to go ahead with whatever springs you choose, (even reusing your existing springs?) without planning to shorten them (this will decrease travel)... and combine them with your Koni shocks, rebuilt and modified by Carobu Engineering, to make them height adjustable, as other Tifosi have reported here and in other forums....

Based on pricing on Carobu's site, rebuilding/modifying your Konis doesn't cost much more than having them rebuilt by Koni (which I have just done). See the link here for Carobu's offerings: http://www.carobu.com/Parts%20Catalog/308%20GTB-GTS-GT4/308%20Razzo%20Rosso%20WBS%20Price%20List.pdf

I've not done this myself, but others have reported good results. If I were you, I'd research what others have reported, before making your decision.

 

I will be getting the Koni shocks rebuilt in the UK, I may ask if they can adapt them to be height adjustable - that would kill a lot of birds with one stone!
I'm hesitant about re-using the springs as I suspect the rears are 35 years old and the fronts 20 years old. By all accounts they should never sag. Are they only replaced if they rust badly (other than surface rust)?

 

Here are pictures of the Carobu Koni rebuilds with Eibach springs. Transformed the ride and handling of my former 308. I would highly recommend going this route!
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You can see the threaded sleeves in this picture which make them height adjustable.
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Nice setup

 

Andy
Have a chat with QV London and see who/ what they use for springs. Can't remember where I got mine from either QV or SuperF. Though mines a GT4 so different stance. Did have also some springs made by Ashfield Springs(just down from our workshops) which were uprated as well.though I have sold these on. You could always fabricate some spacers for rear springs to raise a little on the rear. Don't go too low as you know UK roads are c**p.

 

Hi Gavin,
I think I'm going to pull everything off and take it account all the different ideas that have been posted. Springs don't appear to be a particularly specialist item, a local suspension company quoted me £22 (US$ 35) a corner for springs! I'm not sure what data they would need but the way it was casually quoted, nothing seemed like a problem. These combined with rebuilt Koni's and some fabricated perches could be a very cost effective solution.

Back out to the garage now... to put the top coat on the steering rack that's almost ready to be reassembled!

All the best
Andy

 

I have the QV London springs. They did not lower the car much. It was still nose high. I made some of the dropped spring perches as described above. You can see my old thread for the details.

I find the car rides a bit harder than I want, but that could be because I adjusted the shocks too much to the firm side when I swapped the springs.

 

Actually it does, spring rate is a function of the stiffness of the metal (determined by diameter and composition)and the number of coils - more coils=softer spring. So, if you cut the spring, you stiffen it a little, which usually isn't a bad thing given the car is going to be lower.

Cutting the springs is perfectly fine and you can easily calculate the new spring rate, what you don't want to do is the old heat it with a torch method while in the car as that ruins the temper in the metal making it brittle in the heated area which could cause it to break and changes the rate in an unknowable manner.

 

Andy

I rebuilt my entire suspension last winter and replaced amongst other things the Koni's and Superformance uprated springs. These are perfect fit. Word of warning - fitting the springs is a PITA as the paint thickness on the shocks hinders the fitting of the spring retaining ring. These were made to fit the shocks prior to painting

Laser aligned afterwards and the handling is transformed.

Judge for yourself the ride height?
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That look good, certainly where I am looking to go. I've attached a picture of my car and the gap is huge, I've always tried to avoid looking to be honest... (I suspect/hope that the photo or ground it is sitting on may be exaggerating the problem). I am going to have to be careful that whatever solution I go for I don't over do it & 'slam it into the ground' - to use the Gas Monkey parlance.

You're car looks great - I love the colour.
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Tony's height (space) above the front tire to the wheel well lip appears to be just like yours...

 

Andy - The rear wheel arch is 10mm lower than the front (something to do with the V8 I think)

Ground to top of wheel arch front 690mm rear 680mm

I see you have the deep spoiler like mine so you need every mm!!

The colour is Blu Met Dino which is really nice in the sun.

Tony

 

Cut 1 coil off of each front spring and call it done.

Stock GTB springs are 200lb/in, with 11.5 coils. So, if you remove 1 coil, it will change to ~220lb/in.

Unladen height is 13.43", so will reduce to 12.2", however once loaded the drop will be less. It should reduce it around .8-1", which should make the gap reasonable and a slightly firmer ride in front. Just be mindful of how the spring sits in the perch.

If you don't have stock springs, you'd have to get the specs to figure out how much to cut. If you have a stiffer spring with less coils, you probably don't want to cut a full coil as it will lower it more and make it quite a bit firmer; vice versa if more. If you can count the coils, we can probably determine what's in there - you may have GTS springs in there which are 12.6 coils and 14.5" unladen, which would explain why it sits high on your GTB. Taking a coil (or 1.1 coils) would make them exactly equivalent to stock GTB springs as they had the same wire diameter. The extra coil makes them softer (175lb/in) and higher in the GTS.

See data sheet here:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/308-328-sponsored-yellow-compass-group/374929-308-coil-spring-suspension-data-sheet.html

 

FWIW, I have some springs I bought second hand, which I was told were Superformance lowering springs. They appeared to be the same coil as stock, just shorter (perhaps just cut and nicely ground).
My 308 GTS remains a little bit subjectively nose up.

I also noticed that some previous mechanic stacked two rear spring perches on top of each other! I suspect that was an effort to raise the rear a bit to adjust the trim. You can see that it worked reasonably well in my profile pictures with the silver wheels.

The end result with the double perches removed is attached. I think all of these pictures should have the spare tire in place.

P.S.: Great info about the heights of the wheelwells. I hadn't been aware of that.
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