Like every has already said, NEVER heat the springs!

If he wants to cut them, he can do so. It will lower the ride while increasing the rate. If he's not happy with that he can go spend the money on aftermarket springs.

 

not to mention it can mess your alignment all up. i saw some tires a few weeks ago that had a bout 1/4" of tread on one side and metal showing on the other side.

 

The thing to remember about cutting, is you really can't do all that much on these cars because they are already low to the ground stock. If you have 10 coils as an example, and you cut 1 entire active coil, you increased the rate 10%, not very much. So if you slam the car with this method by cutting 2 or 3 coils, you will NOT have enough rate to avoid bottoming out.

I have 600# on the front with around a 2" drop which is extremely low.

 

I remember someone here did this before and he said it turned out pretty good. If I remember rightly he did it as an experiment until he got new springs. Can't remember how much he cut off but the key is to cut them and make sure they don't get hot so you'd have to cut a little at a time.

Still I'd say your friend is better off getting lowering springs.

 

True, I wouldn't try to slam the car but a modest reduction might not be too bad. The stock springs are already too soft for my liking but if you wanted to invest in more important things first like heavy duty stabilizer bars and high quality shocks it might be worth a try to cut the springs. You'd need some pretty thick bars to work with cut springs but I'd imagine this type of setup wouldn't be too bad for street or light autocross, definately not for road racing though. For street or autocross you really don't want a "slammed" car anyway, suspension travel is your friend

I think you'd know more about this than I, Dr. Mudge, but it would seem maybe not ideal but reasonable, to me.

 

I have 1.5 coils cut on my 240Z springs, until I can get coilovers/struts, you just have to be carefull how low you make the car since the spring rate will not be very much stiffer, but torching is a ghetto job IMO and is not the way to do it.

But, we all have the freedom to experiment.

 

dms springs-
$155