Hi guys, I’m looking at lowering my 92 corvette and I was told to just cut the wedges off completely, but I’ve also heard you cannot do that as they keep the spring centered. Any input if I can do that or if it is safe for using on the track? Thanks!

 

Cutting wedges -- not sure if you meant that or if you were talking about the pads as in the title -- So the stock spring setup consists of a teflon pivot and housing on the top side LH and RH centers, a rubber pad directly below, and a 1/8" aluminum shim above. Then there are the pads at the ends.

Typical lowering process is to cut the teflon roller halves off, sand the spring down where they were removed, and bond a set of low profile wedges that are a lot shorter than the rollers. These you need so don't cut them off. You would still install the 1/8" shim for a number of reasons that may be debated I guess. The rubber pads on the below the pivot wedges remain, and using the late style spring retainer brackets, cut the legs down a little bit to take out the slack created by a shorter wedge. The wedges allow for a stiffer spring in roll, and also the spring is contacting the cross member hard if you go too far n this area. I don't think the top of the spring should rub the cross member bare metal when the car is at ride height. If further lowering is desired, you can cut the pads shorter on the tips -- there's over a half inch of meat there, so you can shorten it or remove it, but without any pad, you have bare structural fiberglass rubbing against the aluminum lower control arm, not sure if that's a good idea (I would leave a 1/8" layer so it slides freely and doesn't damage either the spring or the control arm). For additional lowering, a slightly longer balljoint can make that happen, but that means installing a bump steer kit to compensate for the geometry change effects.

 

Thank you for the response! I’m also reading now that I can cut the spring pad on the end to lower it about 1/4 inch without taking the spring out. Do you have any input on that? Thanks

 

yes I mentioned that above, not sure how you would do it without at least doing most of the work to get the springs out (car jacked way up, remove LBJ from upright and lower the LCA down all the way.) Now the spring is just 4 bolts and 4 nuts away from removal.