lowering a 205 1.8d??

[zesty]

Morning all, i have just bought a 205 1.8d and want to lower it. would the diesel engine be too heavy for gti springs and shocks?
hope someone can help.

thanks

[spider]

I (think) it would. You cannot really use petrol springs with diesel models generally.

You will be able to obtain lowering springs however if you shop around. They are available (or they were) , in theory it (might) be lower given the extra weight of the derv unit if you used GTi springs, but the loading on them is not a good idea they were not meant for that.

The difficulty will be persuading the rear torsion arms to come out to be honest , this is difficult on a newish car sometimes.

[CitroJim]

Yes, the diesel weighs little more than a GTi engine so the GTi springs should be OK. After all, the 205 STDT had GTi suspension.

Note that the GTi front wishbones and ARB are very different to the D setup and if you fit GTi front suspension you'll need to swap ARB and wishbones as well as springs and struts.

Lowering the rear is possibly by adjusting the relationship between the torsion bars and trailing arms by putting the arms on a different spline on the torsion bars. In practice this job will be almost impossible because of years of rust and corrosion which will make disassembly nigh-on impossible.

Best to get a good complete rear beam from a 1.6 GTi. A 1.9 GTi beam cannot be used because the stub axles are incompatible with the drum brakes on the diesel; the 1.9 had discs. You could of course update to discs at the rear...

The D and GTi beams differ only in the strength of the torsion bars and ARB. The D is a LOT softer sprung.

Hope that helps...

[zesty]

cheers for that. definately gives me an idea of what i will need. might look out for a complete car.