Calmini Shocks and ride quality of 5" lift kit

[Try_Me]

hey ive got the 5" calmini kit on the zook and its a very bumpy ride like i mean very anyone elese have this problem

i know my fronts are gone and the rears feel just as bad but i still think the ride quality wont improve that much what ideas do people have to change them with or should i just put calmini ones back in??

cheers nick

[GRPABT1]

More info perhaps? Your front whats are gone? What do you have in there now?

[Try_Me]

More info perhaps? Your front whats are gone? What do you have in there now?

front shocks are gone rears i think are gone and they are calmini shocks the one that come with the kit

[GRPABT1]

PM squik she had troubles with her calmini kit being too stiff in her X90 and I think they just replaced the springs and shocks with tough dog items.

[Toecutta]

Must be for a Sierra cuase there is no 5" kit for a Vit.

How old is the Kit?

[TomZook]

I have a 5" calmini lift in my 90mdl hardtop zook (sierra). It is horribly bumpy to the point where i have to slow down on some roads because the car isnt on the road half the time. Although off road is great when driving slow with the suspension under load it flexes like it is supposed to. I personally think they have just designed the kit too heavy duty for a sierra or for american conditions.
....Tom

[grimbo]

why is it so hard for people to provide all the detail sin their intial questions. Itseems that nearly every thread is mor than half full of trying to work out exactly what the question is.

What vehicle are you talking about, your front and back what are gone? etc etc

[GRPABT1]

I agree Grimbo mate.

Regarding the calmini % inch lift for the sierra though I keep hearing off people that it is horribly bumpy. Mine is nothing of the sort, I did specify the "light duty" springs though which I was told are softer and do sag over time. I also removed a leaf from the front, although this was to drop the front down to level the vehicle but it did add a tad more flex and compliance.

What springs did you get TomZook? And how many leaves are there in each pack?

[Gwagensteve]

Xeleventytrilliongazillion

Try_me

What's "gone" and how do you know? Do yo mean shocks? Flogged shocks normally actually improve the ride (but ruin the handling)

Yes, calmini 5" kits ride like crap. Normally, the US market massively overspring because of liability concerns if the lift height is below that quoted, even if some guy has a massively overloaded car, and they don't want to be liable if springs wrap etc.

Start pulling leaves out. lowering spring rate will be the only way to fix the ride.

Steve.

[TomZook]

I am not entirely sure about the springs i have whether they be heavy or light duty, but there are 4 leaf packs on the front and rear (have not removed any). Also i have just recently installed my kit being say 2 -3 months in, i thought this may have something to do with the stiffness somewhat.

[grimbo]

I am not entirely sure about the springs i have whether they be heavy or light duty, but there are 4 leaf packs on the front and rear (have not removed any). Also i have just recently installed my kit being say 2 -3 months in, i thought this may have something to do with the stiffness somewhat.

that's nice what are you talking about? Are you just hijacking this thread, it is a Calmini 5" lift and you are adding some info or just tourettes?

[TomZook]

i have a 5" calmini lift and have experienced this problem and am describing the style of leaves i have for reference to diagnose if the same problem!!!

[grimbo]

right makes a bit more sense although the bit where you said you aren't sure about what springs you had sorta makes it seem like you didn't know what the springs were.

[Toecutta]

Geez Grimbo, get out of the wrong side of the bed today

Tom Zook did say, in his first post, that he had a 5" Calmini kit in his hardtop.

You will find that Calmini also design there kits for the american way of driving, fully loaded with bullbars, winchs, roofracks the lot.

They get better but for a quick fix GRPABT1 has the right idea. pull out some leaves for now and you can always put them back later on is it starts to sag

[grimbo]

Geez Grimbo, get out of the wrong side of the bed today

Tom Zook did say, in his first post, that he had a 5" Calmini kit in his hardtop.

You will find that Calmini also design there kits for the american way of driving, fully loaded with bullbars, winchs, roofracks the lot.

They get better but for a quick fix GRPABT1 has the right idea. pull out some leaves for now and you can always put them back later on is it starts to sag

yep then followed up by saying he didn't know what he had, hence the confusion

[bazooked]

the calmini 5" kit is the bigest piece of crapola on the planet. turf it and start again.

[GRPABT1]

I beg to differ but you are entitled to your opinion, even if it is flawed....lol

[Gwagensteve]

I don't have any experience with the 5" leaf lift, except seeing a few stationary, but I can offer some comments re calmini, as I have worked on a couple of vit lifts.

Their fabricated parts are generally well welded and seem quite durable

They don't own any farking metric drills. They seem to drill .25" for anything under 8mm and .5" for anything over.

The have some strange approaches to spring design - IE make a coil spring over length (compressed) and use it as the bumpstop

GRPABT1 - you're the only person I've ever encountered that has no complaints about the ride of the 5" kit, and the only person who has ever mentioned lighter springs. They must be pretty well hidden in a parts listing, as it isn't mentioned on their website.

Their stuff is far from perfect. It does fulfill a need, but its far from the last word.

Steve.

[GRPABT1]

The 5 inch lift kit uses the 3 inch lifted springs.

go to this page: http://www.puresuzuki.com/leaf_springs.htm

and you will see this:-

3" Front Spring SS1550F IN STOCK $109.00
3" Rear Spring SS1550R IN STOCK $109.00
3" H.D. Front Spring SS1570F IN STOCK $109.75
3" H.D. Rear Spring SS1570R IN STOCK $109.75

I think you will find that the H.D. springs are the heavy duty springs that they sell with most of the 5 inch kits. I only got the 5 inch kit as the supplier had run out of springs for the 3 1/2 inch kit and said to get the 3 inch light duty springs as they will sag a little over time anyway (which they havn't really done yet in over 8 months).

I don't doubt that there are softer better flexing/riding springs available but I still stick by the fact that mine rides/flexes much better than stock and the kit (at least the one I got) isn't the "biggest piece of crapola on the planet".

You will see the difference in the spring thicknesses when you go to that link ^

[grimbo]

so the 5" lift actually uses a 3" lifted spring so wouldn't that mean it is a 3" lift kit? What does the 3" kit come with 1" springs? Where does the other 2" cpme from, please don't tell me it is with 4" extended shackles

[chops_Drover]

Correct if I'm wrong GRPABT1,

I think the lift comes from a shackle reversal & uses the lifted leaves.

3" kit contains SR, 1.5" leaves
5" kit contains SR, 3" leaves

I think from memory they come with drop pitman arms? New bushes etc..

[VR Rodeo]

My 3 - inch Calmini kit came with 3 - inch leaves and dodgy shocks, from what I know the 5 - inch kit has the 3 - inch leaves and the rest comes from the SR and shackles

Never ramped it stock but this is the best it could do after 18 months on the kit 'unworked'

[Toecutta]

so the 5" lift actually uses a 3" lifted spring so wouldn't that mean it is a 3" lift kit? What does the 3" kit come with 1" springs? Where does the other 2" cpme from, please don't tell me it is with 4" extended shackles

Its a 5" reverse shackel kit and they work well 3" of spring rear extended shackles and the revesre shackel brackets giv the 2" in the front.

[GRPABT1]

As mentioned the shackle reversal gives the other 2 inches (apparently, I never measured) and the rear has extended "boomerang" style shackles. The longer shackles however don't give enough lift to match the front I found (which I'm kinda glad as they would be booty fab style long otherwise) hence I dropped a leaf out of the front to bring the nose down a little.

[GRPABT1]

I've just noticed a huge flaw regarding the rear shocks in the calmini 5 inch lift kit. I've noticed this just in time and fixed it before shock falure but others may not have been so lucky?

Whilst working on my car rebuilding the rear axles I noticed the boots on the rear shocks were worn badly. On closer inspection it seams on compression the outer body of the shocks had been hitting the bracket for the rear brake line. This may or may not affect only sierras with the single rear brake line, I do not know. Luckily my shocks still work fine but they have a nice dented gouge in them now . What I did to remedy this was simple, I unbolted the brake line from the bracket and used some really fat zip ties to secure it and belted the bracket flat with a hammer. Luckily it wasn't rubbing on the brake line itself and hadn't caused brake failure

So I just thought I should let all know who have or want this kit to do this before installing and using the kit. It never mentioned anything about it in the kit besides mounting the shock upside down which I had done. And yes the kit was installed correctly with bump stop spacers where they should be etc etc.

[Gwagensteve]

This is a common problem with larger than stock diameter shocks and longer shackles- it's not confined to the calmini kit.

Steve.

[GRPABT1]

If it's well known then they could have bloody mentioned it in the instructions ffs. Maybe they didn't expect it to flex all the way to the bumps stops lol.

[Gwagensteve]

Actually, probably not. Calmini seem to have an aversion to bumpstops.

Steve.

[Squik]

Calmini shocks and coils... <shudder>... I had the 3in kit for the X-90 and when Simon over at Toughdog tested them, they had a coding/rating the same as a LandCruiser

They were so bad I wore out a couple of sports bras just going down Parramatta road every day
I'd just kinda of pointed the nose of the X-90 to the lane I wanted to be in and hoped it bounced the right direction...

We swapped them out with custom valved, adjustable Tough Dogs and their coils... perfect
All the other Calmini stuff is good (wishbones, training arms, bracketry etc)... but their SWB Vit stuff is designed for amoured personnel carriers

[GRPABT1]

It seems the yanks/calmini guys love to run their zooks with heaps of extra weight and big engines so the springs and shocks they sell are usually too stiff for an aussie style light as possible zook. But like I've said eleventybillion times on here I'm still pretty impressed with the (light duty) springs I got and believe there are much stiffer still from some other brands. I've compared mine to a zook with the much reveared OME's and it was much of a muchness. And mines even better offroad now with 1 leaf removed from the front packs so much so that it can be scary round corners on the road when you think your going to tip but still have all 4 on the bitchy. I know some people on here have had other brands and removed a couple of leaves and still had too stiff of a ride. I think I'll end up getting some other rear shocks though now my calmini ones are dinged and I have a ute chop with plenty of room for custom upper mounts to fit loooooooong ones.