Try searching the web for a how-to on Neon coilover installation (HP Racing coilovers). I'll post the link if I find it first. If you put the coilover sleeves on the stock perch, the best you can hope for is a 1" raise in height, you'll get no lowering...

You have to take a Dremel and completely cut off the spring perch flush with the strut body. Careful, the inside is pressurized... Then you take a section of exhaust piping (6" is fine) and an exhaust u-clamp and make a new perch for the coilover sleeves to sit on. Install sleeves. To help the struts not bottom out, you can break out the Dremel again and take material off the top of the strut rod to lower the shoulder (you aren't cutting off the threaded part, just making the threaded part longer), and you'll need washers on top once you reinstall them to tighten them down again properly (or use a die and make your own threads).