lowering, possibly with stock struts.

[2sixTZombii]

So before you immediately condemn me for Even suggesting such an idea, let me explain my problem. When we first decided to ressurect the datsun, one the things I knew was gonna need done were the struts, there the reason my brother first stopped driving the car. So while it was stil sitting on a dirt floor garage, there was for monroe struts going on, buy 3 get one free, so after rebate thats about 150 for premium oem replacements. well I hadn't done much research yet but figured at that price I'd pick up a set. Well once I had it home on flat concrete I realized it sits up really high for a sports car. I at the time didn't realize it wasn't kosher to use stock struts with drop springs. So heres my problem while its all apart I'd like to just get both done Since it'll be pain to pull it apart, I'd rather fix my ride height while I'm at it. But have a pair of 200 dollar(there was a problem with the rebate and I never got my free strut) monroe oem struts sitting in there box that I'd rather not have wasted the money on, but would like to get the car lower. I really can't afford springs right now, but I only wanna do it once(for now). Are there any actual rwal problems with using my struts with a set of 1.5-2'' drop springs and really what is it? I'm not after a track car, or a cushy ride. I'm OK with a kinda rough ride, but want a nice handling car as well. I put a wtb ad on another forum and a guy got back to me with a set of suspension tecniques springs, are these pretty good? And what do they run new? Could I lower with stock springs or should I maybe just install my new struts with stock springs for now , and buy all the stuff later on, or maybe sell my struts for way less than I payed and get performance struts and springs? Any advice or opinions are welcome.

[Kurbycar32]

Doing it once is exactly equal to doing it right. How do you want the car? If the answer is lowered you need to acquire all of the right parts before you begin and as you said "do it once"

Your struts are whats called a "sunk cost". You made a mistake and it cannot be reversed, stop thinking about the $200 and move on. In a separate thought process consider selling them on ebay or something but dont let them influence how you move forward on your project.

[John Coffey]

The stock S30 suspension has about 3 to 3.5" of bump travel at the strut. If you remove 2" of that by lowering without shortening the strut tube, you will be bottoming the suspension on the foot valve in the bottom of the shock (Monroe, Tokico, and KYB all have foot valves). That will quickly destroy the foot valve and the shock will be junk - hence the warning by KYB not to use their shocks with lowering springs. Same is true for Monroe.

You can add some good progressive bump stops but now you are reducing available bump travel further and, in essence, you will be riding on the bump stops. If looks are more important to you them performance, go for it.

[2sixTZombii]

One of my thoughts was installing these for now, then later if the ride height just isn't working out, take it down a few inches. How hard of a job is this? Is the type of thing where do it all once, or will it easy enough to do again once I have some good stuff. Also I saw a set of eibachs and tokicos for 260-280 on one of the forum classifieds, but I know the 280s are different, just curious what is the difference? Can they be used on earlier cars? And being my car is the goofy early 260 isn't there a decent chance the parts store gave me 260-280 when I said it was a 74 260, rhis was aso before I learned to ask for parts for a 73 240z if I want the right thing.