This is where I was a year ago I think. Lifting blocks aren't a good idea period. I know people think they're safe but...
It depends on the application. Lots of OEM vehicles came/come with 1, 2, 3" blocks on the back. Like most things - used in moderation, they can serve a purpose without entering the realm of complete stupidity.
Stacking blocks is just retarded, of course. In most states its not legal. If I remember - and I think CO has a law addressing this - blocks are limited to a maximum height of 6".
Irrespective of legal or not, a 7" block on top of a spring over is the height - no pun intended
- of stupidity. Seriously, I ONLY have a spring over and I break leafs about every 3 years and that's caused by axle wrap - from the spring over. I know why they're trying to use those goofy, stupid shock absorbers for anti-wrap. There would be so much wrap in those - especially with stock springs - that its un-driveable.
KIM, this is an evaluation of their engineering. You don't have leafs. You have coils. I'm curious, though, because I couldn't find pictures of anything Mitsu on their site that looked like it was for anything but leafs.
Wise way to approach it from what I can see.
No, putting $2K in a lift and then having to put another $2K into making it work would suck. A lot.
Which is why I'm being so noisy about this. I'd hate to see that happen.
There are three things that I can see being a problem. Front and rear drive shafts and the cross member. Now, worst case scenario:
1) Front drive shaft:
The angle on the front drive shaft is 'OK'ish - in other words it works at some level - but not OK enough to last for any appreciable amount of time. So, you're replacing the CV and/or u-joint - hopefully only - every year or two. This is going to get real old, real fast and its going to get expensive over time. I'm assuming here that its OK enough that it doesn't vibrate on the street. I wouldn't take this off road ANYWHERE without a spare, complete drive shaft. CV, shaft & u-joint. If you can live with replacing stuff every year or two and it doesn't turn into a wrench fest every 5th time you're off road then this might be liveable for a while.
The angle on the drive shaft isn't 'OK'ish and you need a new front drive shaft. Figure about $600 max for a complete, new, balanced drive shaft. It should be lower, but definitely not more than this. You'll need to have the yoke modified to accept a different - REAL - CV joint. The front output shaft will have to be drilled and taped so that you can run a bolt through the center of the yoke to effectively turn this into a fixed yoke setup. You will also have to have the drive shaft built with a slip joint since you no longer will have a slip yoke. I don't know what the yoke modification or drilling and taping the front output shaft would run anymore. You will have to remove the t-case to do the front output shaft. The shaft is case hardened and requires a cobalt bit. Still this setup will probably still leak a little - never could get mine to seal at the yoke - so you won't be going out to Easter Jeep in Moab any time soon, but this will work and will work for a long time - as long as you get a good CV. Both the Toyota I initially ran and the Spicers I now run have been trouble free.
I am also assuming that their lift rotates the differential and aligns it correctly. For a rear CV, front u-joint, the u-joint has to be directly in line with the drive shaft - no angle. The angle is at the CV. Otherwise, it'll vibrate like hell and eat joints. Eventually it'll trash the t-case output. If my assumption is incorrect, you will need to rotate the housing and modify brackets, etc. That could turn into a real PITA or it could be dirt easy. You won't know until you get 90% of the lift done.
The other possibility is the front just works. If we're talking about 3" of off set and not 7", then the stock joint might be just fine. A little weak IMHO, but useable. I'd still carry a full spare.
2) Rear drive shaft:
Everything just works. Ish. Likely, but how well, would be the real question.
It works more or less but there are 'issues'. There WILL be issues. You can't increase the u-joint angle like that without decreasing life span. This would be bad enough on a strictly street driven vehicle, but on the trail the axle droop will increase the angle significantly. So, figure on replacing u-joints and the yoke on a regular basis. Get used to buying Mitsu joints 'cause you'll be lucky to get the cheap aftermarket ones to last a year. Likelihood of breaking a joint will be significantly increased. Bring spares and the tools to replace them. This is especially hard on the Mitsu yoke.
Long term, this is going to get expensive and real annoying.
There will be vibration. A lot of angle on a pair of u-joints. That's just the way it is. Properly aligned - when new - it may be unnoticeable, but as stuff wears it'll get worse. The worse the vibration gets, the more stuff will wear. The more stuff wears, the worse the vibration will get. And, so on and so on.
The only way to fix either and/or both of these problems is to have a slip joint drive shaft built with a CV on the t-case output end. This requires the elimination of the slip yoke on the t-case; going to a fixed yoke. Again, figure $600 at the upper end for a custom drive shaft. The problem then becomes aligning the rear differential. Same as the front, the pinion points at the CV, so the housing will have to be rotated. Modification of the lift brackets - not recommended - or cutting the brackets off the housing, aligning the housing and welding the brackets back on. The real solution for the SYE is to convert to a NP231 t-case.
The thing that concerns me is that even if they did all their math right, this is still a bad design that will roll onto the street the day you finish it with problems. The Jeep guys have been dealing with this kind of design for decades and you can hear plenty on how much it sucks from them.
3) Cross-member.
Sway bar is connected limiting rear articulation and prevents DS contact with the cross member. Great. Bring spare end link kits for when you break one on the trail since this is going to be come you're 'limiting straps'. Stupid, but better than the alternative of DS contacting the cross member. Sucks because articulation is crap with the bar hooked up. Might as well not bother with the lift in this case.
Take the sway bar off and install limiting straps. Sucks but not nearly as bad as wheeling with the sway bar. You'll loose some droop, but properly done, nowhere near as bad as the bar. Couple hundred $$$ for custom length straps. Install - unknown, but I would guess not more than 3-4 hours of labor so maybe $500-600 tops. Keep in mind that you might have to do this ANYWAY to keep from having problems like above with the yoke and u-joints. Overextending the yoke and dropping your DS on the trail sucks.
Now, how practical a solution this is depends on how droop there is in the axle before something bad happens. If it turns out that straps loose you 1-2", this this is good. If it turns out you loos 80% of your droop because you have to run straps, then again, like above, what's the point of the lift?
Modifying the cross member for clearance. This is time consuming and that means expensive. Its also a little dangerous. That cross member is where the torsion bars mount. There's a LOT of bottled up energy in those bars and that puts a lot of stress on that cross member so its not something you can just hack on with impunity. If I were still running torsion bars I would not clearance that member. Too much chance of weakening it and that would be a very, very bad thing. There's also a good likelihood you can't clearance it enough. I couldn't - I still ended up with the drive shaft hitting the member and we took a HUGE chunk out of it.
Replace the OEM t-case with a NP231 and crawl box. That extends the length so that the yoke is closer to being over the cross member. YMMV. My CV sits dead over the cross member so there's nothing to clear. The A/T conversion may position that further towards the front of the vehicle but it'll still be further back than the stock t-case. Cost - unknown. At least a couple thousand $$$.
Iron Man used to do a 5" lift. There was a reason for that. 5" is comfortable. In the drive line you're only looking at small increments. DC did the Iron Man 5" lift and he had no issues with any of this. But, 7" ... that is a big change.
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Ok. Let me supply some options ...
I understand where you're at. The stock height is crappy after a while. The solution(s) have to be inexpensive, relatively simple and something you can pretty much do yourself. But you want to get into that intermediate level - so, kind of the 'advanced stock' setup
You have two areas to address - front suspension and rear suspension.
Rear first ...
Coil springs. Sigh. This is SOOOOOO much easier with leafs.
There isn't anything you can do other than add taller springs. That's good for a max of about 3.5". You can't go further than that because that maxes out the front.
Now, if you can weld or learn to weld, source a set of leafs, u-bolts, spring plates, rear bushings and pick up some plate mild steel, you can swap from coils to leafs. I would do this irrespective of what I was going to do or planned to do in the future. Leafs are cheaper and easier to deal with. At your level of expertise they're a lot easier to work with. Link suspensions are a ball of wax you don't want to touch for a while.
This is something you could do in a weekend and you're looking at $400-500. Probably less. A pair of stock Sport leafs from the salvage yard usually go for around $150 or less depending on where you are.
Ok. This does nothing but get you back to stock, BUT it gets rid of a big hurdle NOW and down the road if you do a SAS. Danny will tell you that you can't do 10" with a SAS on the stock link suspension.
Leaf springs are easy to get, and easy to modify. There are shops everywhere that will re-arch leafs, add a leaf and get you 3-4" for less then $200. And you can tweak the crap out of leafs. Custom brand new leaf springs from Alcan are $500. Other places are less. AND, your custom 3.5-4" leafs - you can use those unmodified with your SAS 'cause that's EXACTLY the height you need.
Now, if you manage to hit the lottery at the pick-a-part, you might be able to get an entire rear end + springs for $500. If that's the case then ALL you have to do is build/buy buckets for the front spring eyes - I can supply measurements and pics; they are dirt simple - drill the frame and weld in the spring eye bushing tubes in the rear frame, and mount the springs and axle.
Either way has benefits. Welding on spring pads to an axle won't take you more than a couple hours and pads are like $20 a pair.
So, for about $1000 you can do an entire custom rear end.
The front is more problematic. The limit is ABSOLUTELY close to right at 4" and that's pushing it. That is the point where the axle CVs start getting pissy and the steering components are really not running at the angles they should be. So, 3.5" is a good spot to shoot for.
Getting there generally means tightening up the torsion bars - not the greatest thing but it works. A better solution is a combination of tightening up the torsion bars - NOT AS MUCH - and adding ball joint spacers. This could get you 4" without increasing the rate of the bars so much you loose all your articulation (upward travel). This is a VERY good thing.
You'll still be running the half shafts at a pretty steep angle, but you'll be dealing with increased wear more from the big, heavy tires and rims than the angle. These are not u-joints, remember.
The sucky part is you'll still be running the steering components at max. Not good at all.
HOWEVER, if you're good enough at welding to do the rear leafs, what you can do is look at lowering the steering box and idler arm 1". This is going to be another weekend job probably but the materials would be less than $50. 1" doesn't sound like much, but it will help A LOT. I'm speculating here from experience, I don't know that this will work for sure - there may be clearance issues, but I'm pretty sure this is possible and I DO know what the affect will be.
Ok, so with the torsion bars and spacers and the leafs in the back you got 4" of suspension clearance and you're a good chunk further along on a SAS you may or may not do. You have the torsion bars turned up say 60% because the spacers are giving you the extra lift and you have good upward wheel travel.
Time to address wheel travel. This has NOTHING to do with lift. This is TRAVEL - which is WAY more important actually. There's nothing on the back to do other than to pull the sway bar. If you have a good set of flexy springs in the back, you already have more wheel travel than you'll know what to do with.
On the front, you can trim the bump stops down - both upper and lower. CoSport ran Prothane ultra-thin stops. These things were like 1/2" thick. The stock stops I think are something like 1.5". He managed to pick up something like 2" of travel JUST by replacing the stops. This was a little over the top, however. I would shoot for 50-60% of stock height. Again, this doesn't sound like much, but this is geometry. Making minor changes to the length of an arch close to the pivot point turn into major differences in travel the further away from the pivot point you get.
This is pretty much what CoSport and I ran with some updates from new technology we didn't have at the time.
Now, last but not least, a 2" body lift. This won't do anything for clearance, articulation or travel. BUT, it will give you more room for your tires. Which you will need if you increase upward wheel travel. It will ALSO be something you will need if you play in the mud. So, this'll give a set of 35"s plenty of room.
This is about it for our suspension if you're going to do it yourself, don't have a garage and another vehicle to drive for 3-6 months.
What I can tell you is it ain't flashy and it ain't all that eye catching. What it is is very capable. The only thing I'd add is an ARB air locker or two. There's very little you won't be able to do with a vehicle set up like this with just the addition of skids, skid plate and bumpers. It'll be stable because its low - which is very, very good. You'll have a decent amount of clearance and wheel travel.
I would seriously consider sticking with this and just banking your cash for a SAS if you want go further. I know you'd really like to move up but I don't think that IFS lift is a good idea. Besides everything previously noted, you don't get anything out of them except massive amounts of clearance. YOU DON'T NEED THAT. What you NEED is wheel travel and the only way to get that is to have the a-arms extended - that ain't NEVER gonna happen.
People get all crazy over 'lift'. The funny thing is, all the buggies are being designed EXACTLY as I said above. Lots of wheel travel, and low to the ground. Put lots of skid plates on and lockers. Makes for a much more capable if less dramatic vehicle.
Edward