Chevy Muscle Cars: Lower Ride Height the Right Way

So, you have the power train squared away and the paint is done, now you want it to look low and mean on cruise night. Getting the right stance for the street isn’t difficult if you follow a few simple methods for lowering the ride height. We are talking muscle cars with stock suspensions here so I hope you aren’t looking for advice on a low rider.
I always like to go the simple route first so we won’t be talking about the expensive stuff here either, just some relatively easy mods to the stock suspension to drop the height conservatively so it looks good, rides good and doesn’t hang up on every speed bump in town. You'll find that a correctly lowered vehicle not only looks better, but will also provide much better road feel and have minimal body roll. Conversely, an improperly lowered vehicle will not be fun as a daily driver, and more importantly, it may be dangerously unpredictable on rough pavement. So if you've ever thought about dropping your chevy muscle car, read this guide to achieving a functional in-the-weeds stance.

Let’s start right at the most basic element of the suspension. The factory springs are a compromise meant to satisfy a wide range of drivers and ride heights of 60’s muscle cars were much taller than the new hardware on the road today. We’ll fix that! We have advantages today undreamed of back in the day. The aftermarket has lowering kits that provide you with all the components needed to drop the height in reasonable increments. Assuming you really want to drive the car on normal highways and streets, you will want to avoid getting too radical; usually 2 to 4 inches of drop make a tremendous difference in how the car rides, handles and looks on the street.

A discussion about springs is in order. Spring rates are generally rated in pounds per inch (lb/in), which represents the amount of force required to compress the coil spring by 1 inch. For example, a 200 lb/in spring will compress 1 inch under a load of 200 pounds. Spring load is the amount of weight that a coil spring can support at any given compressed height. A 10-inch-tall spring at free height with a 200 lb/in rate compressed to a height of 6 inches, would be supporting 800 (4 inches X 200 lbs per inch) pounds at that height.

A cheap alternative for lowering is to cut the spring. We are talking coils here; if you want to try this I suggest you make your cuts with an abrasive cutoff saw (a wet saw if you can get your hands on one) and only cut ¼ of a coil at a time until you are satisfied with the ride height. Never, ever use a torch to cut a spring and under no circumstances should you heat a coil spring to lower its height. The heat changes the metallurgy of the steel and ruins the spring. Cutting and reinstalling and removing and cutting and reinstalling is very tedious and time consuming but if you have a lot more time than money it can work if you are careful.

Safety tip: always use a safety chain when removing a coil spring – they have a tremendous amount of stored energy and can inflict serious injury if they are allowed to fly out unrestrained. Support the car with jack stands, use a floor jack under the A-arm to compress the spring, remove the ball joint and slowly lower the A-arm with the jack.

Leaf springs are a different case. Many aftermarket manufacturers make leaf spring sets designed specifically to lower the vehicle in precise increments and are a bolt-in proposition. Spring shops can also de-arch a set of stock springs to lower the car; a viable and cheaper option. Spacers are some times used to drop the ride height and are very cheap but beware that they can also induce wheelhop under acceleration because they stress the spring and create a lever effect in the spring action. If you use spacers, do not exceed 1” in drop.

We have stayed within the basics of the stock suspension and really only ventured into some very simple changes regarding spring heights to lower the car’s center of gravity, improve its handling and increase the road feel. For the cost of a few Benjamins and a few hours with the tools you can have just the look you want for cruising while creating a good handling street machine. Do your research, plan your mods and put that machine in the weeds!