Would it be possible to take out my front shocks with springs and have them replace the spring? that way I just bolt on the shocks into my car.

 

If I understand you correctly; thats the only way to do it.

 

lots of shops will do the swap for you should cost around 50 bucks. Call around

 

Or you could get a manual McPherson strut coil compressor for about the same amount and do it yourself. Then you can do a buddies car also later on. You may even be able to borrow one from a local autoparts store for free (with a refundable deposit).

There was the way Horsepower TV did theres by raising the car, jacking up the lower arm. Then they loosened the center nut up top and lowered the lower arm then removed the rest of the bolts for the strut. they were also removing rotors, calipers, etc so for them it made sence to just take it all apart that way. I tried this on one side but I found it was actually easier to remove the other side ---strut, spring and all still in one piece as described by many others.

 

Ah I just did the whole suspension myself (except the bumpsteer kit) within this last month. You can find the service manuals here:
http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.php?t=419742

The rear suspension is EASY. The springs and shocks are all seperate. The struts and front springs are not as easy, but its not horrible. Disconnect 6 bolts and the whole strut assembly will come out: spring, strut, upper strut mount. Then you can take it to a shop to have them change it out or use a spring compressor yourself.

This is all pretty fresh in my mind so if you have any questions let me know. The service manual located at the above hyperlink is pretty good. And you can check out Taco Bill's How-To's.

Here are some things I learned when I did this:
-the stock upper strut mounts have a rubber spring seat (good), and metal and plastic (bad) components. A lot of people have reported a "popping" noise from the struts after installing lowering springs when going over speed bumps, potholes, etc. Its from the plastic flexing I guess but its not serious or even damaging. It just has the potential to be annoying. Steeda makes heavy duty aluminum mounts for $300 (which is what I have installed) that eliminate the popping. Expensive, yes, necessary, no; I hate noises coming from my suspension, personally.

- you have to re-use the rubber upper spring seat, jounce bumpers and dust shields from the factory struts.

-removing the struts will throw off your alignment a little bit. Its possible to do it yourself or let an alignment shop do it. Just replacing the strut assemblies won't affect it too much, the car will still be drivable to get it to a shop, but for the sake of your tires, get an alignment shortly after you're done installing the parts.

-Your suspension geometry will be adversely affected by lowering the car. You can find more detail about this in other threads where its been beaten to death, and Galaxie's sticky (which is freakin great), so I'll keep it general. If you're just doing this for looks and not handling then I'd say only #3 would be absolutely necessary.
--1-Your rear axle will likely not be centered with respect to the body of the car anymore because of the panhard rod. You'll need to get an adjustable one if thats the case.
--2a-Your Lower control arms won't be parallel with the ground anymore. For the rear, it isn't serious but can be fixed with relocation brackets from BMR or Steeda.
--2b-As far as the front goes, you can get ball joints (direct swap for OEM) or relocation brackets (have to be welded in) to fix it. Without correcting it, you'll still get less body roll than stock because of the stiffer springs, but it won't be as controlled. I drove around for a week like that. The difference with the corrected geometry was night and day.
--3-Your pinion angle won't be correct anymore. This will translate to more driveline vibration, a loss of power (the guy at Coast Driveline said you would see about a 10 hp loss at the wheels for every 1 deg it was off, for a 1-piece driveshaft), and premature U-joint wear. This isn't a huge issue with the stock 2-piece unit but with an aftermarket DS, you'll need either an adjustable upper control arms or adjustable lower control arms.

Trust me, he ain't lying about the 10hp loss. I drove for 2 weeks with a bad pinion angle before I had the chance to install the adjustable UCA. The car was really slow and the vibration was really bad. With either the UCA, the LCA, or both, the added benefit is reduced to eliminated wheel hop.
--4- If you get the front control arms' geometry corrected, you'll want a bumpsteer kit too.

Hope all that helps.