So I took my car into my friendly neighborhood Vette mechanic to have some fresh Mobil-1 put in and, while there, lower all 4 corners. The oil change was done lickety split... Next they moved the car over to a 2-post lift (vs. the "drive up" kind it was on for the LOFX) and started the lowering with the fronts first. I'm hangin' out in another part of the shop looking at a nice '67 (primered, 502ci motor, etc.) when I hear, "Hey Dude...you better come look at this!"

I walk over, and the guy doing the work has my front spring in his hands - it was split longitudinally from the center out towards the RF tire. Now...I'd always thought the front of my car was a little soft, but I just chalked it up to the FE1 Bilsteins w/ 50k miles on 'em. I never even imagined that my *spring* was the culprit!

At any rate, the shop owner makes some calls...None of the local dealers had a new spring. The local Vette parts store ("Corvette Clinic") didn't have one. Not a single soul, apparently, in the SF Bay area had a front leaf spring for a 96 Vette. Finally, the shop owner found a guy right around the corner who is basically a self-proclaimed "Vette dismantler" that had a used one - $225. I was looking at $600 and Friday before we could get a new one, so I say, "Okay...let's go have a look."

We hop in his brand new '05 SSR (which was a blast to ride in, BTW) and head over to this guy's place. He digs out the spring, we take a look, compare it to mine. Identical! All's well, so we head back to the shop.

A couple hours and a beer later, they drop my car back to the ground with the front and rear done. The result: The front lowered just about 1". The *G.D.* front literally sits 2" higher now! I just started ... All I could think of was, "Figures..." like the part in Men in Black where the space ship smashes Edgar's truck at the beginning and he comes out on the porch to see what the noise was - the expression on that guy's face was exactly how I felt.

So...the $1,000,000 question is *what* exactly in the hell is going on? Will the car eventually settle? Or did I (we) miss something when we picked up the "new" spring. The shop owner thinks that, since the spring hasn't been under tension for who-knows-how-long, it will take a while to "compress" vs. lowering and re-installing a spring that's been on a car. That makes sense to me, but I just can't imagine it lowering *that* much.

What should I do???

 

drive it - it will settle...

 

When I did mine I removed the shim that sat on top of the spring and moved it under the spring. I was very disapointed when I pulled the car off the ramps. It sat only .25 lower then it did before. I took it out for a drive and found the roughest road I could find. Came back and it was about 1.25 lower now. I was now. then over the next few months it went down another .25, so now I have 1.5 in the front and over 2 in the rear.

Yours will go down more, give it time. But remember the old spring was junk so it's not going to be as big as you think only becasue it was not at the stock hieght to begin with.

 

I live in the area.Who did the work and what shop did the spring come from.

 

When you picked-up the used spring did you notice the two spring blocks left and right of center? Those have to be cut off about have way or more. the two bolt retaining brace also has to be cut the same amount as the spring blocks on the spring. That's the only way I know that would lower the front end of a C4.

 

Yep...both spring blocks were completely removed and then ground smooth before reinstallation. The retainer was also cut 1/2"...

 

PM sent.

 

Should sit on the ground ?

 

Yeah...that's what I was thinking. Instead, the car looks like it's just taken off from a 5000 RPM clutch-dump with *really* sticky back tires i.e., the rear is slammed and the front looks like it's seriously about to do a wheelie but just isn't quiiiiiite off the ground yet.

 

It should settle - when I had my rear spring replaced (it was splitting) my rear sat very high. After a while it settled down. I recently had Precision Motive Corvettes (in Hayward) lower mine. It looks much, much better.

Which shop do you take yours to in SJ?

 

That's comforting to hear... I just hope it settles sooner than later! I get most of my work done at Race Street Rally (just down the road from Apex) in Santa Clara.