Only from the front and only at full lock? Sounds like it would be the CV's...
Mine 'creak' at full lock when you apply anything but a piss weak amount of throttle.
On the lowering. Noss and I lowered my car and his over two days (a few weeks apart). It took us from 10:00 or so till about 3:00 in the morning on sunday the first time round just to do the front of both cars (my corsair and his TRX) and this was only replacing springs on both cars and a front sway bar on his TRX.
Problems were encountered however, the biggest one being the driveshaft coming out on the passenger side spilling fluid all over the place (because we had the sway bar off).
Anyway, the back was much better (although we were told the front was easier). Take off all the suspension bits holding the bottom of the strut on (parallel links, etc) and leave the hub ON (not what the book says- take it off...) Pull whole strut assembly out, bobs your uncle. You've just gotta watch the brakes as they have to be taken off the rotor. On my car they just slid back down over the rotor once we had the lowered springs in but nosses car wanted to play silly buggers. That took us from about 10-6 on a saturday with lunch and breaks in between, on two cars.
Its good to know you can do shit like this once its all completed however. Just need to start stuffing around with my engine a bit more now!