2" front and 1" rear lowered coil springs use factory shocks?

[Guest middleman]

Tons of good material on lowering on this site. I'm about to pull the trigger on Jamco's 2" front and 1" rear lowered coils and just wanna make sure some factory height replacement shocks will be ok for my '63 Riv with this set up.

Thanks!

JB

[Guest middleman]

Looks like Jamco sells the lowered kit that includes shocks. May just go that route unless somebody knows it to be a terrible idea.

[mhnova65]

JB, I agree with you on the information regarding this topic. A lot of people have shared some very valuable information to help us all decide what we would like to do with our Rivi's.

What I think might be helpful on this thread is if we can get some of you all back here and post some side profiles pictures of your Rivi's with a brief description of your drop so that we can get a good idea of what to expect between overall look, rake, and ground clearance. This includes those with stock suspension set ups as well who've used springs from various manufacturers. It would be interesting to see how a stock set up from coil springs vs. Jamco vs. others stacks up against one another. Although they might be rated for the same vehicles, differences in materials and processes lend themselves to different (albiet slight at times) results.

Thanks again to all who take the time to add to this.

Mark

[RivNut]

A lot of the looks of a car being lowered can be deceiving. If you have 15" (stock) rims on your car, it's going to have to be lowered a bunch for the fender arch to come close to where the top of the wheel is so that the car has a lowered look.

On the other hand, if you're running 20" rims, it's not going to take much to get the rim tucked up inside the fender - you've already pushed the rim of the wheel 2-1/2" closer to the wheel arch.

What you need to look at, and consider where your car will be driven, is how close the rocker panels are to the ground. Look for ground clearance or look to see if you can see your wife's navel when looking over the top of the car.

There are sites on the web that will let you "picture" different rims on select cars. The 63-64 Riviera is one of the select cars. You can choose the size wheel you want, then using the up down arrow, you can lower the car inch by inch. You can also stagger tire sizes. Paint it any color you want and tint the windows as well. Here's one of them. The Riviera is in a drag down window in the Classic category. Wheel size is at the bottom, ride height is at the top.

http://www.autowaretech3.net/nextwheels/newstal.htm

Ed

Edited November 18, 2011 by RivNut (see edit history)

[bb1970]

Here is a pic of mine lowered 3" on Jamco springs. With stock shocks. Infact I re-used the coil over shocks on the rear. So the rear is only 2" lower than stock.

[oldstyle]

A lot of the looks of a car being lowered can be deceiving. If you have 15" (stock) rims on your car, it's going to have to be lowered a bunch for the fender arch to come close to where the top of the wheel is so that the car has a lowered look.

On the other hand, if you're running 20" rims, it's not going to take much to get the rim tucked up inside the fender - you've already pushed the rim of the wheel 2-1/2" closer to the wheel arch.

What you need to look at, and consider where your car will be driven, is how close the rocker panels are to the ground. Look for ground clearance or look to see if you can see your wife's navel when looking over the top of the car.

There are sites on the web that will let you "picture" different rims on select cars. The 63-64 Riviera is one of the select cars. You can choose the size wheel you want, then using the up down arrow, you can lower the car inch by inch. You can also stagger tire sizes. Paint it any color you want and tint the windows as well. Here's one of them. The Riviera is in a drag down window in the Classic category. Wheel size is at the bottom, ride height is at the top.

NextWheels Online by Autoware Technologies

Ed

Ed,

What a cool site! Thanks for the link. I'll be playing with colors for the next couple of hours...

[Guest middleman]

Quick update: I was betting on factory coils to have settled some so I wasn't expecting for Jamco's 2" coils to lower car a true 2". I was wrong. Car is now 2" lower and due to mediocre exhaust job I'm scrapping quite a bit on driveway entrances and rough roads. Now it may also be that I'm running 60 series tires on the 15" rallys but all I know is it's too low. Another issue that bugs me is to get my rear wheels off I need to disconnect the bottom bolt on the lowered shocks. Too much of a hassle....

I was able to get rid of the rear end lean with the new coils but there were shims put in the old coils so maybe that caused that issue.

So looks like I'm gonna go back to original coils and shocks on the rear end and see if that alleviates my rubbing problem.

JB

[Guest rls65rls]

hey, I have the jamco 2"front and 1" rear lowered coils with the belstein shocks also with 18" wheels, It looks great and rides great. BUT their service sucks. hope anyone else does better. rls65rls

[Guest middleman]

Not a bad stance but still in need of some larger tires in the rear and I'm gonna swap the dropped shocks out for stock shocks soon. I'm on the hunt for center caps too but I may bite the bullet and go for new rims and tires as these rallys are pretty rusty.

[bb1970]

I'm on the hunt for center caps

An idea far a cheap center cap is a "cock hole cover". No joke here. Go to a plumbing supply house and ask for a 2" cock hole cover. It is a painted or stainless push in steel plug. The last time I bought some they were .75 ea.. They look like this.

Beats spending $150 on caps for rusty wheels.

Edited December 31, 2011 by bb1970 (see edit history)