Outer Limits 4x4 Board

g'day,

*first post yes*

i own a Suzuki X-90 1996 1.6L EFI (aka Vitara with a different body)

i have recently bought and installed Pedders 2" lifted 'extended' springs and spacers in the front 15mm installed front and have not installed the 30mm in the rear "spacers" that is..

i have recently also just bought "NEW" tough dog 30-40mm gas cell shockies..

have taken the car out last weekend and it did not seem to flex further than the standard shocks and springs did, i'm wanting any info possible as to "WHY" my X-90 is not flexing to the capacity of the new shockies or springs..

any advice would be good eg; things that could be stopping my car from flexing. (Oh and no my car does not have sway bars to remove) you buy the X-90 standard and it comes with diff breathers and no sway bars.. i hope i have provided enough information for you to understand my problem and make any suggestions if possible

thanks Abs!!!

mate personally ive herd that the tuffdog range is just to stiff for the vitara to handle without a fairly intencive load on the suspension setup eg: Front + back bar winch .
Might be worth your while to check out the spring rates of your springs.
Hope this helps best of luck

just for fun - try unbolting the bottom end of the shockies and flexing up again... this will test if the shocks are whats limiting your travel.

Given what you have done I can't see why you are now expecting it to flex much more than stock. You have lifted it a little at the the front but still have the same strut travel as before so no more flex there. At the back you have also lifted it and I assume your shocks may now allow approx another 30-40mm of travel so possibly a little but not much more there.

If you want more travel out of the front you can flip the top strut mount or add a strut spacer (approx 50mm) to utilise all the available travel of the stock struts or add Old Man Emu struts which have more travel than the stock ones. If you try running flipped mounts or spacers with the OME struts you will need to look at diff drop brackets or your CV's won't last long.

At the rear if you start chasing real travel with much longer shocks you will need to look at spacing the a-arm to rear diff connection and adding a driveshaft spacer.

Both the front and back springs will also need to be of a suitable length and rate as well.

p.s. Tough Dog Vit kits seem to be fairly stiff.

look for ataris build and copy

g'day again group

well. i've just found and done a tiny bit of research

what is a Heim joint?
how much will this help out if i get an extended one of these parts?

i looked into the 3" calmini kit and from USD is it around $1400 and i'm not sure what that converts to in Aus dollars, however. 1400 is expensive for a student...

where as this heim join thingo extend seems to sound okay?? and that's $180 ??

form outdoor auto...

advice on what this is and does would be nice as it seems to give limited info on the webpage

abs!!!

A heim joint (also known as a rose joint or a rod end) is a aviation/race car part that is used when fabricating suspension. In a vitara, they are used to replace the ball joint on the A-arm on the top of the rear diff housing. Calmini include one with their 3" suspension kit. It's a low quality part that's fitted mostly to add bling- it doesn't allow much more movement than the stock ball joint and wears quickly.

They are also illegal for road use.

In your case, fitting one would add no wheel travel.

As has been explained- you have stock length struts, (basically) stock length rear shocks, and stiffer than stck rear springs. With this setup you are never going to have better than stock wheel travel.

PS the calmini kit is good and bad. Shocks are OK, struts are terrible, brackets are (just) OK- they look neat but all the holes are massively overdrilled so the fit is average, the rear heim is a gimmick. The springs have ok rate but are too long so Calmini bottom them out to avoid having to fit bumpstop spacers, which is terrible supension design.

The front a arms, rear shocks and control arms and front diff drop brackets are only really useful parts.

Steve

i agree with steve + the X-90 weighs even less than the Vitara.

i run the calmini kit with bumpstop extentions front & back + OME front struts & commonwhore rear shocks.

my calmini heim joint has done about 60,000kms & has just started to flog out... trail gear replacement heim joint is about $60.