Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I want to increase further the downward travel of my lifted independent front suspension.

Can I cut off some of the top of the downward bump stop limiter that's welded to the chassis to allow additional downward travel of the front suspension? (I've already removed the rubber bump stop attached to the upper U-arm and put longer shocks after the torsion bars were cranked up 2".)

If I lower the height of the bump stop, will it pose a danger to my CV joints since they could get angled nearly 45degrees downward from horizontal when it articulates while crawling?

Thanks in advance mates.

andoy wrote:I want to increase further the downward travel of my lifted independent front suspension.

Can I cut off some of the top of the downward bump stop limiter that's welded to the chassis to allow additional downward travel of the front suspension? (I've already removed the rubber bump stop attached to the upper U-arm and put longer shocks after the torsion bars were cranked up 2".)

If I lower the height of the bump stop, will it pose a danger to my CV joints since they could get angled nearly 45degrees downward from horizontal when it articulates while crawling?

Thanks in advance mates.

Yup CRUNCH SNAP CLATTER CLATTER THUD..... *tinkle* Thats the approx sound your cv will make on full articulation If you take much more than 10-15 mm off your rubber bump stops and try and use it in anger .. the fact that you have already removed the rubber completely puts you into the danger zone.

At 45 deg you will be putting immense strain on the cv's to the point where they would be very very close to locking up and tearing somthing important out.

ok Im the first to admit ive cranked the bars on mine up 2 inches when i first got mine ... however ive since wound them back most of the way and gone with a modist body lift instead (gives me the height without ruining what little articulation i had in the front.

sorry to sound negative mate .. but i think you are in very real danger of doing some serous damage to your beastie with what your planning.

cheers Meece

Now that's interesting timing, I'm currently ivestigating doing just that - but need to check the angles very carefully first. Whilst I've got more travel than you already the angles are the same so we should both get the same Go/NoGo results - although with longer control arms I end up with a larger gain/degree.

a bit of carefull thought necessary BEFORE the angle grinder gets used.

Just a related question:

If I put a bigger tires, would an increase of 2" in diameter push the axle up ward, say by 1", therefore making it more horizontal and less strained?

andoy wrote:Just a related question:

If I put a bigger tires, would an increase of 2" in diameter push the axle up ward, say by 1", therefore making it more horizontal and less strained?

No, it won't change your suspension geometry by fitting bigger tyres.

If you want more downtravel, you have to space the diff downward before modding the bumpstops.

HotFourOk wrote:If you want more downtravel, you have to space the diff downward before modding the bumpstops.

1/ Stock, that's not what I found - I ran shaved bumpstops for droop for almost a year before I went and "played" with the front.

2/ even with spaced ball joints there's still angle remaining in the cv's ( although as meese says strength is an unknown ). How far we can push is really the question, IMO droop is different to bump in that the wheel is in the process of unloading so the traction is reducing so your not going to get the same load through the cv's... especially with an unlocked front. Am putting birfield rings on the outer CV cups as an investment next time the fronts out

3/ Spacing the diff down, just reduces ground clearance so IMO its counterproductive. Your fitting bigger tires to improve ground clearance ( and hurting gearing.... ) and then loosing it again. Also Feroza diffs don't like dragging on the ground - something I've learn't first hand

HotFourOk wrote:

andoy wrote:Just a related question:

If I put a bigger tires, would an increase of 2" in diameter push the axle up ward, say by 1", therefore making it more horizontal and less strained?

No, it won't change your suspension geometry by fitting bigger tyres.

If you want more downtravel, you have to space the diff downward before modding the bumpstops.

Oh, I think I get it. Fitting larger tires raises the whole rig instead of just forcing up the suspension arms and presumably decresing axle shaft angle?

MightyMouse wrote:
3/ Spacing the diff down, just reduces ground clearance so IMO its counterproductive. Your fitting bigger tires to improve ground clearance ( and hurting gearing.... ) and then loosing it again. Also Feroza diffs don't like dragging on the ground - something I've learn't first hand

Thanks MM, what I had thought bigger tires would do is somewhat bring up to more horizontal my front axle shafts even if I don't get additional ground clearance; that was my real intent. It seems though that this won't happen because the whole rig will go up instead of just the axle shafts, correct?

Correct - the whole vehicle will rise by 0.5 of the increase in tire diameter.
The arm angles will remain the same as the body weights exactly the same.

However bigger tyes start touching on things requiring some lift and there we go on my favorite subject again.....

Christmas greetings; me again mates.

I've been told that with my 2" front lift, I can do a procedure where I first put support on my chasis on stands to keep the vehicle's height, then proceed to remove the torsion bar and from the original mating mark of the torsion arm and torsion spring re-install the spring by turning it some amount counter clockwise from its original mark. I was told that the vehicle will retain its height even after the stand is removed from the chasis but the setting will soften and allow more travel.

I guess the whole idea here is to release some tension from the spring to allow more suspension travel/articulation without reducing height/ground clearance.

Is the assumption correct?

NO

The torsion bars do not limit the front suspension movement - they simply carry the weight of the vehicle. The amount of preload on the bars is a constant if the vehicles height/weight is unchanged

There are already adjusters fitted at the torsion bars rear that allow easy adjustment - moving a spline is doing the same thing as the adjusters but in a very dumb way.

Perhaps the advice came from someone who has worked on torsion bar equipped vehicles that aren't fitted with adjustments.

The limit to travel is mechanical....... its about angles ( arms, cv's etc etc )/ Its about engineering not adjustment.

The best way is to put 2" body lift kit and bigger tyres (235/75/15).

Thanks gents.

I'm already on 235/75 15s, and have untightened the torsion bar so that the lower arm axis and the wheel axis are now same height (stock specs says lower arm axis should be 30-50mm lower so I'm higher still by at least 30mm but the ride has improved greatly with no scrubbing against bumper and still about 4" clearance from fender edge) but thinking of going up to 31/10.5 and hope there won't be any scrubbing...otherwise i'd have to settle for 30/9.5 which will only be marginally taller than the 235/75.

The more dramatic step in line is my getting hold of a Dana 30 diff with 5.3 gearing this month and doing an SAS conversion. More as I get it done but your comments are welcome meantime.

Happy new year!

Pays to measure the tyre height before you buy - many nominal 31"s aren't... more like 30 and a bit, However some are bigger - so measure first.

Rim offset also has a big effect on just where they are going to bash, so you need to consider that as well. People say XX fits or hits... but they don't tell you all the details so you still take a risk,

Having said that my old "31's" ( more like 30" ) hit on full bump, the 32's are a challenge and the 34" swampers hit EVERYWHERE ( except up..... ) basically the cutout in the guard for the tyre just isn't big enough and neither is the flare.

This assumes of course the wheels run inside the guards, the few SAS conversions I've seen have so much lift that the car sits on top of the tyre, gets clearance but at the expense of stability - not for me........

I really want to keep the tires in the guards and the COG as low as possible .......considering

I keep looking at a hilux front diff ( already running a lux rear on Feroza PCD ) for a SAS but he Feroza' chassis rails have very little hump making it very challenging not to make the whole thing way too high. Diff to sump clearance is also an issue - i'm lifting my motor and creating a weird sump to get the pan away from the diff center ( I hope ).

So will be very interested to see how you go ( are you going to run two different PCD's ? ) with your SAS - might push me to do it but only after it gets enough power to push the 34's......

MightyMouse wrote: I keep looking at a hilux front diff ( already running a lux rear on Feroza PCD ) for a SAS but he Feroza' chassis rails have very little hump making it very challenging not to make the whole thing way too high. Diff to sump clearance is also an issue - i'm lifting my motor and creating a weird sump to get the pan away from the diff center ( I hope ).

So will be very interested to see how you go ( are you going to run two different PCD's ? ) with your SAS - might push me to do it but only after it gets enough power to push the 34's......

Hi mate, how high do you think should the chassis be lifted to make room for the solid axle; will it go beyond 2" (which I've already experienced just with torsion bar adjustment on the IFS)?

By the way, I have to confess that I'm stumped on what PCD stands for...hehe, only PCD I know is a girl named Nicole (of the Pussy Cat Dolls).

PCD - Pitch Circle Diameter.

MM and I spent a long time trying to work this out.

Lift would be about 5" to run a solid axle.

All the solid axle feroza's I've seen have been unacceptably tall. The chassis is not well suited to a solid axle conversion.

Steve.