hey guys I was looking on ipdusa and found lowering springs but im wondering what kind of struts/shocks i should get that wont be as expensive as bilstein hd's and i dont know much to anything about suspension please help

 

whats the goal of this exercise? are you building a track car? or just lowering because you think it looks cool?

bilstein HD's will give you a VERY stiff harsh ride on a rough road. it will rattle everything loose in the car that can be rattled. so will stiffer lowering springs.

shorter springs need a stiffer spring rate for the same weight vehicle as they have less travel before they bottom out.... a stiffer spring rate needs to be matched to a stiffer shock damping rate ('shocks' are really dampers, their purpose is to slow the suspension rebound down, so the car doesn't pogo).

IMHO, lowered cars suck as daily drivers on the street. harsh ride, lousy clearance on driveways, dips, curbs. considering how bad the country and city roads are around where I live (left coast), I'd as soon leave the car at the stock ride height.

when I researched available shocks for my car, I ended up coming to these conclusions:

1) Boge/Sachs Pro Gas -- essentially the stock shock on these cars, gives a great ride and good handling, last quite a long time
2) Bilstein TC/Touring. I chose these, they are a little stiffer than 1), I'm wishing I'd chosen 1.
3) Bilsten HD - a lot stiffer than 1 or 2, a good choice for a track car but not something I'd want in my daily driver. expensive.
4) Konas - adjustable, supposedly the softest setting is tolerable, anything else is a bad or worse than 3. would work best matched with a higher spring rate. (for that matter, so would Bilstein HD's).
5) Monroes - pure unmitigated junk. mush when new, and will lose all damping in a year.

 

thanks for the response pierce, I'm just lowering it because i think it looks cool and the roads around where i live are pretty decent so i don't have to worry about many pot holes and such. I'm also not talking about lowering it much, maybe an inch and a half or so and I'm not going for "spring clamps" because I've heard horror stories about those so what would you suggest?

 

I was really happy with the car I put Boge Progas shocks on. They lasted a long time, too.

I dunno what they are called now, Boge is Sachs, and they all seem to rebrand stuff every few years. ok, I think they are the Sachs Automatic now. The Boge/Sachs Turbo Gas are a notch stiffer, and are probably a good match to lowering springs (actually, IPD says to not use the 'automatics' with lowered suspension, and I suspect I know why, has to do with the automatic valving not working right if the car is not running at its stock height)

 

ok thanks pierce I'll check them out