New Zealand Datsun Club

can you tell me what the best way to lower a 1200 sedan without running the handling/ride of the car

Common ways to lower the 1200

Fit ready-made lowering front coil springs or lower the spring perch
Re-arch the rear leaf springs or fit lowering blocks.

Lowering leaves less room for the suspension travel. This means the suspension is more likely to bottom-out on bumps. So for maximum comfort and load-carrying capacity, do not lower the vehicle.

When lowering 1 inch, reduced travel is not much of a problem. When lowering 2 inches, reducing the length of the Bump Stops will restore some travel.

A stiffer spring rate will reduce the occurrence of bottoming out, and will make for a more sporting ride but at the cost of additional harshness.
When lowering more than 2":

Modify the Bump Stops
Struts should be shortened.

Coil springs should be tied for positive capture
Rear Shock Aborber need to be replaced with shorter unit
Lowering with blocks does not affect the shock placement so no worries. Exception: Sedan shock mounting.

Front
Using shorter springs can lower the car further, as can precisely cutting a small portion of the coil. Another alternative is to lower the spring perch.

With extreme lowering (more than 2 inches), steps must be taken to keep the spring captive (keep it from falling out of the lower seat at full suspension droop). The end coils of the spring must be securely wired to strapped to both the top and bottom seats.The best, but most expensive way, to lower the front is to fit custom spring, of a certain length and rate. King Springs is popular vendor for 1200. Also Nissan Competition made lowering springs.

These are the reverse eye leaf springs

Blocks work OK for lowering but tend to wind the leaf springs up under acceleration if you have hp up front. Best bet mikali is to call John Taylor at Penrith Pedders. He has 30 years experience with racing 1200's and does a great extra leaf reverse eye leaf rear that'll stand up to anything

Purchased flat Lowering Leaf vs normal leaf


One way to lower the rear is to add another spring to your rear leaf spring pack and reverse one onto the top of the pack, while flipping it. This should lower and stiffen the rear end slightly.

mate thanks very much for your informative post much gratefull

Any spring maker should be able to reset your leaves and reverse the eyes. There's bound to be one in the 'tron who could do it for you.
For the front, Avenger rear coil springs are a tried and true recipe. They may need trimming to get the height you'd like, but the spring rate works well.