Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hey all I am new to the 4x4 scene and was just wondering if I could get some friendly advice on a slight issue that I have. I own a Suzuki sierra 1993 wt 1.3 hardtop and have just recently bought a snake racing body lift and also put in a 2.5 inch suspension lift my only problem is I am getting nervous that I might roll my pride and joy (zook) and be left with out a car if I lift it too high I was wondering if there is any tips and trick that you can do to avoid this, I have thought about getting a roll cage and am sourcing around to find one that fits the budget. One of my mates also encouraged me to get spacers and put a big heavy tool box in the back of it to weigh it down any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks. I will get some pics up of it as soon as it comes out of the shop should only be a couple of days.

Link

Hi Link....

Not a Sierra owner so others will be able to provide you with actual real world feedback, but some general observations :

1/ Have you checked out the legality of your body, suspension and tyre combination ? Its my understanding that QLD is very tough on this sort of thing.

2/ Roll cages are not simple or cheap to have done properly/legally. Mounting, clearances/materials are very important. Bolting it to the floor may be simple but may not provide the required strength in the event of an accident. A poor cage might make you feel good right up to the point when you need it.

Enjoy your Sierra and your offroading.

To my knowledge, you cannot raise or lower suspension by 1/3 of compressed and uncompressed spring. Also 50mm body lift is acceptable.
I think u will find that you might have to change your driving style a little bit to accomadate for the lift, but shouldnt be much of a problem.

Link, welcome to the scary world of the sierra.

my zook, is a 3inch body lift, and prolly 2 inch lift springs, with 32 inch tyres. so its pretty damn tall, it does lean over around corners etc, but you just have to drive accordingly, i have driven some silly angles offroad, come close to going over, but not done so as yet (fingers crossed)
wheel spacers are illegal from what i understand, how ever if u are wanting a little more width legally.. look at offset rims, i got my stock sierra rims cut and flipped (had the center taken out, turned around and welded back in, this gave me, from memory, another 2 or 3 inches of width per side).

As MightyMouse said, it would be wise to check with the regulations of the state that you are in, NSW are pretty flexible, but i have heard, that VIC and QLD, are tight on the rules.

but again welcome, you have a made a wise choice in the Sierra

-Pyro

Link,

That's a pretty common combination you have there. Stability should be OK, but you don't mention what size tyre, rim and rim offset your running. This will have a big bearing on stability.

E.g - My trayback runs about 2" of spring lift, 2" body lift, and 34X9 swampers on 16X4.5 stock rims. When it was narrow track, it was stupid tall and narrow, and it fell over all the time. I've now added 80mm of overall width and it doesn't want to fall over anywhere near as much.

If you're running say a 31 10.5 on a 7" rim with around 25mm of offset (like speedy rims) you should be pretty good.

I relation to a roll cage, if you fall over you're still going to total your car. a good exo cage will prevent this but will add lots of weight up high. In any case, functional roll cages are very expensive. There's lots of material and labour in them.

If your concerned about on road, just slow down. If you're concerned about off road, look into the suzuki club in your area so you can go wheeling with guys with other cars set up just like yours. You'll soon get a sense of what you can get away with.

Adding weight to the rear won't help in a meaningful way. The load deck is only just below the cars centre of gavity so you'd have to add a lot of weight there to make much difference, and sierras performance drops off quickly with weight in them.

Steve.

Steve.

I had the same concerns about top-heaviness but luckily i bought a Zook with 2 or 3" suspension lift and no body lift with 31" tyres so the COG is still quite low. I'd rather modify the guards than put a bodylift in.

you gotta remember - spring lift raises COG more than bodylift does...

mines SPOA with 31's and speedy 15x7's and its more than stable - i have a video of a lane change test to prove it =)

Leave the swaybar in

Amen

if you are that worried about stablity why did you bother lifting it?

i run 33x12.5 with no suspension lift and no body lift..... and i still have 2" of uptravel

Hope the lifts reversible...


get hold of DoT and find an engineer, go talk to them hypothetically...

Spock