Quote from: Shredder on May 27, 2006, 03:50:17 PM

Quote from: milk on May 27, 2006, 12:20:30 PM

cool, yup i'm using grade 8 bolts.  thanks guys....

  What kind of a 2" body-lift are you putting on that Tracker? Most of the 2" kits use a custom metric "female bolt" that threads onto the stock studs that hang out of the body.

Actually, most are those crappy box tube lifts, I only know of one or two of the female bolt types..


me, I disagree, I think body lifts are an absolute last resort and rather........well...... let's just say that on trackicks, I see why folks do them, but I don't have to like it.. lol..

I totally agree with quaddawg. I believe body lifts should be a last resort only. I'd get some suspension lift on that thing and see where you're at before body lifting.. unless you already have suspension lift. If the body is in bad shape just hack away instead of body lift after you suspension lift and get bigger tires

well i agree but it's like this,  i really can't afford too much for a little while but i'd really like to get some cheap lift so i can at least afford some bigger tires so i can do a little more aggressive off roading.  then the suspension lift will come but probably not till the end of summer.  can ya dig it?  oh and the body is in great shape along with the rest of it so i'm really trying to shy away from cutting anything.

mike

Stacking up washers??

You have GOT to be kidding me.

If your looking for cheap, try the "garage sale" at boondox, they have some 2" bds body lifts on close-out for cheap!

http://www.boondoxmotorsports.com/garagesale.html

Stacking up washers??

You have GOT to be kidding me.

what could possibly go wrong.....      
<rhetorical question filled with sarcasm>

what could possibly go wrong..... :o     
<rhetorical question filled with sarcasm>

LOL.... oh... nothing I guess.. I am sure that is the correct method   

I totally agree with quaddawg. I believe body lifts should be a last resort only. I'd get some suspension lift on that thing and see where you're at before body lifting.. unless you already have suspension lift. If the body is in bad shape just hack away instead of body lift after you suspension lift and get bigger tires

I have to disagree, a good suspension lift should have more travel, therefore the suspension should come up just as far as the stock suspension. True it will require more force to compress the suspension fully but it still doesn't leave any extra room for more rubber. If you want bigger tyres then you either have to body lift or cut, I'm not a fan of either but its a means to an end.

see in my eyes i figure like this... the only way to get 'everything on the vehicle' off the ground is to put bigger tires on.  see if you do a suspension lift with the same size tires, sure you get some lift but you still have the axles sitting where they already were.  so the cheapest way to go would to be to do a body lift and bigger tires then the suspension.   make sense? 

oh and you'll be happy to know that i'm working on getting roger brown at 4crawler offroad custom body lift kits, some information so he can start developing body kits for our trackicks.  yeah i know there's already kits out there but i figure maybe he'd be a little cheaper and he uses top quality parts.  so no washers or hockey pucks or shopping cart wheels for me

mike

Nah, cutting em up is cheaper than body lifts.. and leaves your center of gravity closer to the ground.

yeah but if i go 3" then i'll have to extend the shifters and the steering and i don't have a welder or anyone that could do it for me  :'(

You still may need to extend the shifters with a 2" body lift as well, the shifters are easy to take out, you could take them to a welding shop and get them extended pretty cheap. I don't have anything against 2" body lifts - just don't choose it because you think it's easier, most things needed to be done are the same, just an extra inch.
BTW - shop around for a 2" kit, some kit's don't include bumper lift brackets, so if you're running stock bumpers, BDS suspension has the most complete 2" body lift kit(bumper brackets, steering shaft extension, 2" t-case shifter extension, fuel filler extension, full instructions)

Quote from: Maroon Monsoon on May 27, 2006, 09:56:44 PM

I totally agree with quaddawg. I believe body lifts should be a last resort only. I'd get some suspension lift on that thing and see where you're at before body lifting.. unless you already have suspension lift. If the body is in bad shape just hack away instead of body lift after you suspension lift and get bigger tires

I have to disagree, a good suspension lift should have more travel, therefore the suspension should come up just as far as the stock suspension. True it will require more force to compress the suspension fully but it still doesn't leave any extra room for more rubber. If you want bigger tyres then you either have to body lift or cut, I'm not a fan of either but its a means to an end.

lots of lift kits come with bigger bump stops. It is because unless you relocate your shock mounts, once you put bigger ones on the axle can't go up as high and the bigger bump stop is so the shock doesn't quite max itself out upwards and mess itself up. You still get more up travel because it's sitting higher and you get allot more downward travel. So basicly unless you redo the shock mounts the axle will not go as close to the body as it would when stock. I see the point in body lifting if you don't want to hack a nice body but your argument kind of lacks a bit in the up travel aspect of it because it usually can't go up as high as stock. I still say it's a better idea to hack the body than body lift it, you get the space required because unless you barely upped your tire size the bigger shock and bumpstop won't give you that much extra room. as quaddog is pointing out, lower center of gravity with hacking VS body lift.

[lots of lift kits come with bigger bump stops. It is because unless you relocate your shock mounts, once you put bigger ones on the axle can't go up as high and the bigger bump stop is so the shock doesn't quite max itself out upwards and mess itself up. You still get more up travel because it's sitting higher and you get allot more downward travel. So basicly unless you redo the shock mounts the axle will not go as close to the body as it would when stock. I see the point in body lifting if you don't want to hack a nice body but your argument kind of lacks a bit in the up travel aspect of it because it usually can't go up as high as stock. I still say it's a better idea to hack the body than body lift it, you get the space required because unless you barely upped your tire size the bigger shock and bumpstop won't give you that much extra room. as quaddog is pointing out, lower center of gravity with hacking VS body lift.

The original question was about a Tracker, the Tracker has unused travel in both front and rear struts/shocks. Struts choice is limited but you can lower the stock strut 2" without needing to extend the bumpstops, theres no point in going any further because of the CV angles. The front spring has an effective rate of 156.5lbs,  Stock front compression is 3.94", call it 4" to simplify the maths. If you make the spring 2" longer then you get 6" of compression travel so to fully compress the suspension it takes 6*156.5lbs, rather than 4*156.5lbs. It can still fully compress but it will do it less often.
The rear is similar, unless you fit a much longer shock you don't have to relocate the rear mount. If you do fit much longer shocks and relocate the top mount then you're back where you started, the same amount of uptravel as stock, but a longer spring to compress and hence more force needed.
You can extend the bump stops to keep the tyres out of the arches but then you lose suspension travel, which you don't with a body lift.

Quote from: Maroon Monsoon on May 28, 2006, 11:36:30 PM

[lots of lift kits come with bigger bump stops. It is because unless you relocate your shock mounts, once you put bigger ones on the axle can't go up as high and the bigger bump stop is so the shock doesn't quite max itself out upwards and mess itself up. You still get more up travel because it's sitting higher and you get allot more downward travel. So basicly unless you redo the shock mounts the axle will not go as close to the body as it would when stock. I see the point in body lifting if you don't want to hack a nice body but your argument kind of lacks a bit in the up travel aspect of it because it usually can't go up as high as stock. I still say it's a better idea to hack the body than body lift it, you get the space required because unless you barely upped your tire size the bigger shock and bumpstop won't give you that much extra room. as quaddog is pointing out, lower center of gravity with hacking VS body lift.

The original question was about a Tracker, the Tracker has unused travel in both front and rear struts/shocks. Struts choice is limited but you can lower the stock strut 2" without needing to extend the bumpstops, theres no point in going any further because of the CV angles. The front spring has an effective rate of 156.5lbs,  Stock front compression is 3.94", call it 4" to simplify the maths. If you make the spring 2" longer then you get 6" of compression travel so to fully compress the suspension it takes 6*156.5lbs, rather than 4*156.5lbs. It can still fully compress but it will do it less often.
The rear is similar, unless you fit a much longer shock you don't have to relocate the rear mount. If you do fit much longer shocks and relocate the top mount then you're back where you started, the same amount of uptravel as stock, but a longer spring to compress and hence more force needed.
You can extend the bump stops to keep the tyres out of the arches but then you lose suspension travel, which you don't with a body lift.

but then why does a calmini kit come with bigger bump stops for the back? I am 99% sure it does. I know what you are saying with the front but with the back I didn't know there was unused travel with the stock shock when fully flexed. I am pretty sure it's a good thing to have just a little so it barely doesn't max out the shock. So I'm seeing your point there but I still stand by cutting being a better option but I won't put a body lift agianst anyone with a perfect bodied rig that doesn't want to do too much hacking to it

but then why does a calmini kit come with bigger bump stops for the back? I am 99% sure it does. I know what you are saying with the front but with the back I didn't know there was unused travel with the stock shock when fully flexed. I am pretty sure it's a good thing to have just a little so it barely doesn't max out the shock. So I'm seeing your point there but I still stand by cutting being a better option but I won't put a body lift agianst anyone with a perfect bodied rig that doesn't want to do too much hacking to it

I'm not anti-cutting, I like the idea of keeping the truck as low as possible. I bought my Vit new and really didn't want to cut it.
I've been out and pulled my rear suspension and I have to put my hand up and admit to being wrong. I haven' t seen a kit for a Track/Kick with bumpstop extensions but you got me thinking and worrying a little.
My 3" Calmini kit has no bump stop extensions. I bought it used but I've looked at the pic on the Calmini site and at their description of whats included and theres no reference to any. Now I've taken some measurements and against the bumpstop there is around 13" of shock clearance and around 5" of spring clearance. Thats not good because the Calmini shocks are around 15" long compressed, looking back on this forum the stock shocks are 13" compressed so they have actually maxed out the travel. According to my calculations the Calmini spring fully compressed would be 6 1/2", I haven't got a stock spring handy to measure, Although I'm pretty sure that I've got one somewhere.
This means that I do need to extend the bumpstops, the shocks aren't an issue because the top mounts are being relocated anyway (longer shocks to go on) but the springs are going to sag if I leave the set up as it is. I'm going to repeat this exercise on the front suspension as well but I probably won't get to that for a couple of weeks. I'll post up what I find.
Its an important subject and I thank you for making me go back and investigate this. I wonder how other aftermarket suspension setups stack up. It certainly doesn't look good for those using spring spacers.

Edit: To be fair to Calmini I should have said that its possible that the rear spring could sag, given its length it would take a lot of weight to compress it that far.
The figures I gave above for the front strut lengths are correct as I have measured them previously

[

I'm not anti-cutting, I like the idea of keeping the truck as low as possible. I bought my Vit new and really didn't want to cut it.
I've been out and pulled my rear suspension and I have to put my hand up and admit to being wrong. I haven' t seen a kit for a Track/Kick with bumpstop extensions but you got me thinking and worrying a little.
My 3" Calmini kit has no bump stop extensions. I bought it used but I've looked at the pic on the Calmini site and at their description of whats included and theres no reference to any. Now I've taken some measurements and against the bumpstop there is around 13" of shock clearance and around 5" of spring clearance. Thats not good because the Calmini shocks are around 15" long compressed, looking back on this forum the stock shocks are 13" compressed so they have actually maxed out the travel. According to my calculations the Calmini spring fully compressed would be 6 1/2", I haven't got a stock spring handy to measure, Although I'm pretty sure that I've got one somewhere.
This means that I do need to extend the bumpstops, the shocks aren't an issue because the top mounts are being relocated anyway (longer shocks to go on) but the springs are going to sag if I leave the set up as it is. I'm going to repeat this exercise on the front suspension as well but I probably won't get to that for a couple of weeks. I'll post up what I find.
Its an important subject and I thank you for making me go back and investigate this. I wonder how other aftermarket suspension setups stack up. It certainly doesn't look good for those using spring spacers.

Edit: To be fair to Calmini I should have said that its possible that the rear spring could sag, given its length it would take a lot of weight to compress it that far.
The figures I gave above for the front strut lengths are correct as I have measured them previously

yea, I just put teh pro comp shocks from boondox on that are supposed to be 0-2 inch lift and they definatly bottom out.. I need to extend my bump stops and lift it to make them work right. They also unseat when fully flexed (articulates much better)sounds like calmini shorted you bump stop extenders. I am not sure about the springs sagging if there is excessive up travel but I don't think it would take more weight to make them go up 8 inches than 2 or something unless they are progressive rate coils. a friend of mine has a grand cherokee with lift coils and coil spacers and stock pads. it has soo much flex and I don't think his coils have really sagged at all yet. I do see how it could be really hard on the coils to do that though, just not sure if it really is or not

I am seeing the point of a body lift though even with new bump stops cause my new shocks do max out upwards and when it's fully flexed it doesn't lose that much upper wheel travel like that. It only has like 2.5 inches of up travel tops right now so I really need to lift it and extend my bump stops. but my sayng the bump stops would likely take care of the tire clearance in many cases was probably not correct cause once the axle is all angled the tire still goes up high and my shocks are stopping it

yea, that's probably worded like crap but oh well. best of luck to you with your future mods you mentioned