i keep hearing about putting longer springs in the front of a 4x4 to make the ride smoother and get a lift at the same time. i just went out and did some measuring-- heres what i found:

my front springs are 44" long eye to eye

the center pin on my front springs is 22" from the front eye, 22" from the rear eye

i have a set of springs off the rear of some kind of older chevy car supposedly, and some add-a-leafs sitting around. the springs are 54" long eye to eye, and the eye bushing width is an excact match. no problem there, correct? just a nice long smooth riding flexy spring.. heres the problem. the center pin is 24" from front eye, and 30" from the rear...

so, my question is, can i just carefully mark and drill a new center pin location on these longer springs? will that cause any problems with integrity of the springs? i probably will only be using the top 2 of the 3 leaves, and adding my own from there to dial in the lift/ride i want.

do long springs also help ride in the rear?