I have a mate who has bought a coupe that i recently lowered for him.He then said it wasnt low enough and asked was it possible to lower it further by perhaps cutting a small section off the spring.
I have never even thought about this tbh,but in theory it should work.
But then are they tested to have a specific range on the spring for the cornering.Therefor will doing that make it very boat like?
I mean the customers always right but at the same time i dont want to do something that may cause the vehicle to be unsafe.

Cutting a coil off the spring isn't really good practice John as this would have an effect on the springs travel when the car's weight is off of that wheel, going over hump back bridges and the like.

Suggest to you customer a single coil compressions, by this I mean remove the spring and heat the lower section to squeeze the bottom coils together, it'll keep overall strength in the spring and lower the car. Very important though, don't quench it cold with water, let it cool in a none drafty environment otherwise it could snap!

Hope this helps

What springs did you fit Johnny ?

I had the 16vt Eibachs (same spring as the Apex) that sat with the bottom 3 coils of the spring in a coilbound state.

Those 3 coils weren't doing any work, even with weight off the suspension they were still almost coilbound with about a 5mm gap between them.

I cut off the lower coil at the same point as the original spring ended so it mounted correctly in the damper. That gave me another 10mm of lowering as each coil is 10mm in diameter.

The spring didn't dislodge at suspension full droop and I didn't have any trouble with them.

I wouldn't have cut more than 1 coil off the spring though or as Joe said, at full droop the spring will be lose and thats an MOT fail.
Another solution would be to secure the spring to the damper if you do cut more than 1 coil off.

I did the same as Jimbo with Eibach dual rate springs, I cut 2 of the narrow gapped coils off, anymore and I would have had to reduce the amount of droop on the arm with some sort of strapping.

rich

Fellas is this practice an OK approach? Not thinking of my Coupe but I've an old Lotus in my garage I'd love to lower slightly - but you cannot get lowered springs for it....
Can I chop a coil or two off the OE?

I only chopped off the bottom coil as it wasn't used, in its loaded state it was coilbound so just acting like a solid chunk of metal.

Chopping a spring thats free to move will alter the spring rate and also maybe the way the spring sits in the damper.

There are places that will heat and compress the springs for you to reduce the ride height or even custom spring manufactuers that will make you a shorter copy of your spring.

http://www.springcoil.co.uk/ is your best bet though, I'm not so sure how safe a heated, shortened spring would be ?