While I was waiting for the front shocks to arrive, I also decided to set the new vehicle ride height. The old front springs were pulled and replaced with a set of 420 lb springs I had laying around. The car looked great with them installed, but admittedly they were a bit low for a daily driver. Plus there would have been a lot more work involved to cure the geometry changes for the lowered ride height.
I ended up wanting to raise the front ride height by 3/4". A bit of math with the vehicle's motion ratio (.6355) showed I needed to make the spring itself 'longer' by .476"...or roughly 1/2". BUT, since I was waiting on some racing Bilstein high pressure gas shocks, I also knew that the high pressure gas tends to raise the ride height as it's load bearing. So I chose instead a 3/8" thick spacer for the spring, which I made from UHMW plastic. Once the front springs were fitted, I then lowered the car on the ground and measured the rocker panel heights (8.5" front). I needed to drop the rear of the car by 1.25" to coincide with the new height I wanted, which was exactly 9", giving a 1/2" rake.
After cutting the rear springs to the correct height, I re-rated them on my spring tester, and they came out to 180 lbs, which is just about perfect for the handling balance I desired. Got lucky there!
I should add that the springs in the car previously were aftermarket (200 front/130 rear), and while I replaced the fronts I re-used the rears, albeit cut-down.
The front end geometry still needs to be altered, specifically the bump steer and alignment. Shock mounts have been lowered both in front and out back for increased compression travel. The rear geometry will also change, and in fact the new rear axle already has the trailing arm attachment points altered, and a fully adjustable panhard bar...both for length AND for roll center height (at both the body and the axle end). Change one thing and it changes a dozen others!
Lowered Sportwagon side view.
Sportwagon 3/4 front view.