I finally have my new KYB shockies so I'm wanting to fit the rising rate springs I pinched from a Gemini.

The springs have to be cut to get the correct ride height......
Some people have suggested cutting the rising rate part of the Gemini spring to get the stiffest ride, others have suggested leaving the rising rate part to get the best ride on the street.

What to do......
Is there anyone else here who's running cut down Gemini springs & what did you end up doing?

cut springs? are you mad ? springs are made with certain number of coils and wire diameter for verry specific reasons. Bump length ,droop length, ride length ,weight on spring at ride height are all dimentions you must know before you even start looking for a spring. I dont want to over complicate your project but you will be much happier with the result if you do some more homework first. Check out the eibach web site, their catalogue has some good tech info that can help you find all the right info for your aplication, sorry for the long winded answer but its not as easy as just cutting a spring.

Cutting springs is a big no-no. You'll probably get blokes arguing the point, saying there's no reason it can't be done, but realistically if you prang your car and the insurance company finds out you cut your springs then you ain't gettin' a payout.

I find a lot of people forget about the importance of legality and insurance when contemplating such mods, yet it's easily the most importat area (unless your car isn't road registered).

Getting a good balance on experimental suspension is tricky without cutting springs. There is more to life than ride height, Any of these suspension setups really need to be taken and have the corner weights and height set to gain maximum benefit.

Guys - I understand your point of view & have weighed in on the "non-cut" side of the argument previously.
But, can you please contstrain your responses to stay within the scope of the query.......

For info - I've been researching my spring options for some months now & have narrowed it down to 3 options: -

1) Cut down rising rate Gemini springs.
2) Lowered King springs.
3) A coilover setup.

King springs are crap... Sorry but they are.
If you take a look at the end dressing on King springs, you'll find they've been cut with a drop saw. Funny that.

Not willing to go down the expensive & labour intensive route of fabricating adjustable coilovers.... In the future maybe, but not yet anyway.

At the risk of stirring up another "ants nest" on cutting springs.......
I've considered this carefully.
I've worked out the spring constants, pre load, travel etc of the stock springs in comparison to cut down Gemini items... Given the extra weight of the CA18 & g'box.

Remember... I'm not trying to lower my ute by cutting the stock springs, but rather sourcing an entirely different spring & cutting to suit my utes changed weight distribution.

I'm a Mechanical Engineer with a trade background.... Trust me, I know what I'm doing!

Please........
I just want advice from anyone who's run cut Gemini springs before in terms of whether to leave or cut the rising rate part of the spring.

Thanks in advance.

isnt that the only reason people use the gemini springs, for the rising rate bit? There's heaps of springs that will fit but I think gemini ones are used for that reason.

Yeah, that's the way I was heading until a comment from another member suggesting to cut out the rising rate part to get a stiffer spring........

A spring is a complex bit of technology. You need it to sit at a certain height. And for the street, that involves a little compression of the spring from it's free length. The maximum corner weight then needs to be calculated in terms of static corner weight 'traded off against' the dynamic corner weight estimated during a 1G->2G hard turn on a race track.

For race, you'd set it up for the dynamic corner weight, for the street you'd be looking more closely at the using the static corner weight and suspension travel.

The length of the shock travel completely determines the spring rate. If you shorten a 180B strut (like I have) I now have to arrest the car from bottoming out 2 inches quicker.

If I have 5 inches to arrest 500pds of corner weight, then using 110 pound/inch springs is fine. After 4.54 inches the springs will support the weight.

If I've changed the suspension travel to 3 inches, I'd want to be supporting the weight after in 2.5 inches, that would need 200 pound springs.

So by removing 1/2 the travel (or bump), I'm required to double the spring weight.

These are totally hypothetical, and I'd recommend 250 pound/inch springs at 225mm free length for a 1200 with shortened/recupped 180b struts.

These numbers are for the weight being supported by the spring, the angle of the strut and it's relation to the vertical force (gravity) is what I'm talking about. It's not necessarily just the corner weight.

Totally off the topic of what to do with your gemini springs.. just thought you'd like to have a think about the things that have kept me awake during my 1200 rebuild, with both custom front and rear suspension. Tuning my suspension has been expensive and time consuming. But I'm finally getting happy with it all.

Most of this stuff was learned by me reading a few 'racing suspension' books, and reading Ferrol Errols website (datrats.com.au), thanks Errol. Errol's website no longer has the information I learnt from, but I wisely took a copy, if anyone wishes to read the same.

gemmy springs work much better than king springs superlows, these are what i upgraded to and only 20bucks from the wreckers. Cant remember but i think i cut off 3 coils from the skinny progressive end. Could still be a bit stiffer i think, maybe after market gemmy springs? These are on stanza struts