hotchkis leaf springs sitting too low :(

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I'll try to shoot a picture of the whole car in the next few days.

anyone know how the stance of the espo spring is compared to the XHD spring summit and mancini sell? Mancini sells an XHD spring with 1" over stock, is this different then the XHD spring summit sells?
 
ABJ has it set right....dont' want to stink bug your car or it wont handle.

Low and settled.....+1-2" in back vs front is a nice rake.:cheese:
The tires should sit inside the wheel wells a bit or you get hat nose bleed stance that was horrible in the late 70's early 80's.

No know but hard to handle a car at speed like that.
 

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Okay, so I just took the back rim off to check for back spacing
below is a picture of the stamping on the rim. Am I right in reading that it is actually a 8.5" rim? I measured the backspacing and it seems to be 4" What does the 6 mean in the stamping?

The final image is my old springs. The 6 leaf stack used to be on the driver side and the 5 leaf stack on the passenger side (the side that rubs the wheel well).

I'm starting to think my best bet is to go with some 1" over stock 6 leaf springs from espo and if they do sit a bit to high, I can change my front hangers out for the dropped hangers from hotchkis. I'm assuming the 6 leaf spring rides a bit stiffer then the hotchkis 4 springs as well

Anyone think that is the way to go?
 

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You could always take them to a Truck Spring Shop and have them rearched. Do it all the time on big trucks. Really common to have one side heavier than the other. Or could do yourself if you have the right fixtures for a press and a clue what you are doing
 
67cuda360 said:
Okay, so I just took the back rim off to check for back spacing
below is a picture of the stamping on the rim. Am I right in reading that it is actually a 8.5" rim? I measured the backspacing and it seems to be 4" What does the 6 mean in the stamping?

The final image is my old springs. The 6 leaf stack used to be on the driver side and the 5 leaf stack on the passenger side (the side that rubs the wheel well).

I'm starting to think my best bet is to go with some 1" over stock 6 leaf springs from espo and if they do sit a bit to high, I can change my front hangers out for the dropped hangers from hotchkis. I'm assuming the 6 leaf spring rides a bit stiffer then the hotchkis 4 springs as well

Anyone think that is the way to go?
Click to expand...


What are you trying to achieve? Do you want the car to handle better? Or are you going for a "look"? If you want the car to handle better then you are better off with hotchkis springs and a corrected backspace wheel. If you are looking for a "rake" look then your handling will suffer and you can use your current wheels. If it was me I would get a set of wheels for the car and use the hotchkis springs and drop her down. they look mean that way. Then you will also have better handling.
 
I thought I was being smart... :), thinking my springs probably would have settled over the years and I wanted to keep the look the same as how it sat with the old springs. So I opted to get the hotchkis springs, 1" (lower than stock).

Of course I didn't consider that someone might have re-arched the springs or thrown some other brand (1 or 2" over stock) in there before I bought the car LOL.

The hotchkis springs sit quite a bit lower then the ones I replaced it with, but it doesn't look like the front is up in the sky. I like the look, just with the wrong backspacing of my rims the tires rub on the inner fender (rubbed the undercoating down to bare metal where the inner wheel well dips in) when I go over a bump. (not so much the wheelwell lip as I had previously thought).

I have now ordered the 1" over stock spring from ESPO, 6-leaf design. This will probably sit more like it did with the old springs, without adding too much of a rake.

Live and learn I guess :)
The car only gets driven for fun and I'm not doing any serious racing or anything.
I might just hold on to the hotchkis springs for when I do go with new rims and tires, or I might sell them If I find someone close to home who could use them.
 
Tire and rim backspacing and clearance between tire and leaf spring.

You can get better backspacing rim and eliminate your issues.

We have a 4200 # big block car running BFG 255-60-15 tires on all 4 and we hit the curves about as hard as the tires can tolerate, so lots of heavy side loading.

This tire is definitely not a high performance tire, it has wimpy side walls and runs at 32 PSI so it does flex under side load quite a bit.

Now, we have exactly 1/2" clearance between the tire and spring. Occasionally if I lay into a long sweeping curve really hard, the tire will rub the springs.

I suggest you figure out what backspacing you need to put your actual tire exactly 3/4" from your leaf springs.

Run a 60 or 50 series tire and an 8" rim.

Getting max back spacing will optimize your outside spacing so you can run wider rim and still clear your quarter panel opening.
 
Only you can tell them if you need all that stuff. If it were me I would replace the u bolts, spring eye bushings and the shackles and all shackle bushings. It's not a lot more money to do so.
 
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