Chicy wrote:The main aim of all this is ground clearance and also i am involved with a 4wd club with mainly supersized nissans and landcruisers, whom like to do fairly extreme types of tracks etc. so i do like to follow them, wether it be rock crawling, hill climbs or mud ( love the mud yeh),
... so i want it fairly chunky with grunt....
Sounds to me like some of those Nissan and Toyota owners have been in your ear about what makes a "capable" car.
If you are going to limit tyre size to 32 (maybe even 33) a solid axle swap is a waste of time and money. Personally, I'd rather outdrive a nissan or toyota on an IFS than swap a solid axle in and potentially loose capability in some circumstances.
The big issue is that once you go to solid axles, you are stuck with the same ground clearance as your toyota/nissan mates. If you're running a cruiser axle (probably the best option) with a 32" tyre, then you only have as much clearance as a cruiser with a 32" tyre. If they have more tyre then you, they'll always do better, and you will have spent all the time and money and not really gained very much.
If you keep the standard rear diff (plenty for a 32-33" tyre) and the IFS front with the usual upgrades, you'll have far more clearance with, say, a 32" tyre than a patrol/cruiser on a 35" tyre or bigger, and your car will be sweeter to drive under all circumstances.
One of the "tricks" of the vitara platform is that they don't want to pick front wheels up. It's a by product of suspension design and weight distribution. As a result, they tend to stay very stable and predictable, even on very severe angles. That's not necessarily going to be the case once you switch to a live axle, and will depend very heavily on how the geometry was set up - a real minefield.
Over the years, I've been very very impressed with what the vitara IFS can achieve. That's what I'd be working with.
You really need to work on the strengths of your vehicle over a cruiser/patrol to get the best out of it. Light weight, a high power to weight ratio (really, compared to most large 4WD's) the nose-lead balance of the vitara, and availability and cost of transfer gears are the strengths you need to work with.
Ripping everything out and putting heavier stuff in is really going to level the playing field out by adding weight and bulk to your car, which works in the favour of the bigger cars you drive with.
Right now you have the opportunity to outperform them if you build the car right.
Steve.
Steve.
[quote="greg"] some say he is a man without happy dreams, or that he sees silver linings on clouds and wonders why they are not platinum... all we know, is he's called the stevie.[/quote]
.
[/quote]
