by fbernard » 02 Oct 2013 8:20
Nope. Coil-overs would put permanent weight stress on the cross-member (and lower shock mount), which are only designed for transient, dynamic suspension stress. You might get away with it. Determining the exact spring rate needed just to complement the leafs will be a bitch though, you don't want the coil springs to really take a part in the dynamic damping.
So you'll either end with low-rate coils which must be compressed a lot on install (and may bind when driving), or too high-rate coils which will make the ride really harsh once they start acting on bump & rebound.
The fix is other (arched) leaf springs, adding a leaf, or front spring mounts with a lower eye and longer shackles.
(1 inch lower eye and 1 inch longer shackles). This will induce a little more body roll.
Are your new springs flat with the car on its wheels, or are they arched the wrong way?
What is the distance from the middle of the wheel opening to the ground? I usually have around 24", IIRC.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't !