I have been reading everything I can find on coil springs foe my 57 Custom 300 and I missed the boat. I do not want to lower the car in the front and maybe just a little. I could live with 1" but I looked at the springs from the car are at 14 1/2" (listed at 14 .8) and the aspen are 10 1/2" way to much. The s-10 springs are listed as 13" which seems as close as I will get. Any body use the s-10 springs with v-6 rating? Are they soft or too firm? The car will have a FE 390 3 x 2 aluminum intake ford 3 speed automatic. Just looking for a reasonable driver.
Front s-10 v-6 coil springs are 16 3/4 " ($60 shipped) Stock 57 Custom 300 are 16.800 and settle at 10" . Just passing along as I continue to learn.
Why not use Eaton Detroit front springs if your looking for a stock height?
What everybody else uses is really not too relevant to YOUR car. Ford used 9 different springs to keep the ride height the same on all vehicles leaving the factory regardless of options. Most of us have had to fiddle with ride height a bit to get what we wanted.
A specific spring compressed height change will result in a different ride height change. This is due to the mechanical advantage of the geometry of the lower a-arm in applying the weight load of the car to compressing the spring. It can be calculated but it is a PITA.
A stock V-8 spring will basically give a stock ride height well within your 1" limit. A 390 with an aluminum intake is very close to a stock Y-block weight (if not lighter). I would definitely use an Eaton a stock replacement spring.
I have Aerostar springs (Moog 850) but I had to space the spring with a 3/4" spacer to allow sufficient bump stop clearance. The springs are 600 lbs/inch compared to the stock rate of 400 lbs/inch (IIRC). I should have used the stock springs with a dropped spindle to lower the car.
I have bought stock springs from this place. Looks like they might still be around.
https://www.springsnthings.com/Pages/coil-spring.htm
Quite a few years ago I bought a set of stock height springs from Eaton. To me the front end seemed way too high with those springs, and they didn't really settle much over time. Ended up removing those and using aerostar springs, which dropped the front end down where I liked it, but I wasn't thrilled with the ride.
Last week I installed another set of Eaton springs, but I went with the ones listed as 1" lower than stock. I have not measured it but the car appears to sit much closer to stock height than it did with their stock height springs.
Here's a pic of it yesterday at a cruise to give you an idea of how it sits now
49468132.jpg.