Suspension lifts and Long travel suspension

Subject: Suspension lifts and Long travel suspension 11/14/2009, 2:36 pm

Just woke up. Bored... I'll finish eventually. Thought I had the option to save this.

Lift can be achieved by various ways with different methods. Most common methods are bracket drops and spacers.

Bracket drops are pretty self explanatory. They lower the front suspension brackets with little to no change in steering geometry nor gain in suspension travel. Some companies have a coilover option to replace the spacer for the struts. The added benefits of a coilover is adjustability in height, dampening and rebound, and spring rate for better handling.

Leveling kits consist of strut spacers to "lift" the front of the truck and may include a small lift block for the rear. Some companies include new upper control arms to provide more clearance to prevent hitting the strut during suspension cycle. Be advise, with spacer kits you are losing down travel for height.

If you have a spacer kit or a suspension lift package that uses a spacer, be advise hard wheeling and jumps will destroy your shocks as your shocks are bottoming out! This can be fixed by either two options: Install/fabricate bump stop extensions or true coilovers. I'm not sure if the lift kits provide extensions or note this problem so it is up to you to be educated about what you are doing to your truck. Your life and others are on the line!

Long travel kits are used predominantly in desert/cross country racing. Increased suspension travel is obtained with the use of longer control arms which allow the suspension to droop farther down. Coilover shocks is needed for this setup to finetune the dampening and rebound as the vehicle travels at high rates of speed across unlevel terrain. Here is a video provided so you can see the difference between a long travel system setup properly vs. a stock setup...can't find it right now.

Solid Axle Conversion
$$$$ Mucho money involved. Involves cutting off IFS bracketry, suitable front axle donor preferably a Dana 60, option of using Leaf springs or link suspension with use of coils or coilovers. Requires lots of fabbing and know how. All custom job here.

Bracket drop lift:

6" Procomp
6" & 4.5" Rough Country
6" Fabtech
6" Skyjacker
7" & 4.5" BDS
10-12" Bulletproof

Leveling Kits: Many to choose from. Choose one that you want.

Long Travel suspension:

Camburg
Chaos Fab
Pure Performance
PRG (Prerunner Greg)

Subject: Re: Suspension lifts and Long travel suspension 11/14/2009, 4:33 pm

Nice write up so far, Puff. Very informative for a person trying to understand some differences without going to each manufacturer's site in addition to what to consider based on the intended usage.

Subject: Re: Suspension lifts and Long travel suspension 12/2/2009, 1:21 am

Added an important info that I feel I should address since I'm here.