Heat shrink springs

[Taso]

hey, thinking weather to heat shrink my springs on my prelude, a mate has done it to hes car and seems alrite, what are your suggestions?

thanks

[ACTI0NMAN-1]

it alters the properties of the spring to a rate thats not intended. This will affect ride and handling properties. can also cause an uneveness as springs will not have an even compression ratio.

[T-onedc2]

^^^ yep what he said, avoid it. Taking shortcuts with your suspension is dangerous.

[PaZzMaN-R]

there certain parts of a car i will not mod, they tend to be safety. for example i dont mess with airbags, pedals, breaks, suspention and drivers seat or seat rails. because there just to much to go wrong with them. i will go for proper proven parts just not diy shit. thats my opinion tho.

[BlitZ]

it isnt as bad as what everyone is saying... you just might get spring bind on the progressive coils (depends on the spring).

the only way it can be dangerous is if it snaps.. which i havent ever heard.

[robbieraver]

i work for a suspension company and there is no probs with what your about to do, other than in six months time ur your springs will sag a heaps, im talking about 20-40 mil and then your going to need some new ones.....

[steve]

wouldn't heating the metal spring change the grain structure? perhaps making it alot weaker...

This practice is dodgy... and to think a suspension shop happily does this is a little on the scary side

[STOCK]

Ive got mates that have had this done to there stock springs... They havnt had problems except for sagging. I really dont understand why they have gone this route when it only costs like an extra $100 or so for basic off the shelf items like kings/pedders/whiteline springs with the benefit of having the stock items should you want to revert back.

[robbieraver]

as said before dont even go near a suspension workshop that compresses springs, its a waist of your time and money, its a spring and its designed to working with a cetain amount of coils within a certain amount of height, you change that with heat and a bit of squish and you change the propeties of the springs metal, when you heat metal you weaken the bonds....

[BlitZ]

honestly.. i think people give spring company's way too much credit..
what most spring company's do : -
when u want custom height.,.. they simply jsut recompresss them or compress them abit more during manufacturing (through HEAT) ... they dont go off redeisnging u a new spring..

when u ask for harder rate.. they simply make is 1 coil less..

unless if they came from a well known factory .. they simply arent R&D... and dont expected them to test every spring in every car..

I can name u a million factory springs what sagg in after 6 months...

[robbieraver]

err yes they do go and make a new spring and no they dont go and lop one off to make your height, no spring company ive ever delt with, ie king, pedders, koni, h+r, bilstein would ever compress a spring to make it custom, it costs about $700 each to make totaly custom springs the proper way using a machine.

and its part of a spring to sag, after all it is a spring but six months, i dont think so..