Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Its time to lift my shorty GQ patrol to fit 35" tyres but can't decide which one would be better. what i want is 6" of lift but i dont know whether to go 6" suspension or 4" suspension and 2" body. as this is my daily driver i still want to keep the on road handling reasonable but still i want an off road weapon. What i am unsure of is the on road handling of the 6" lift. so i am after some opinions on who has fitter a 6" lift to a shorty. i have noted a few pros and cons each

6" suspension lift

Pros
better wheel travel
If i want to put bigger rubber later i wont have to touch the suspension later and just fit a 2 inch body lift
dont have to deal raising bars to suit body lift.

con
higher center of gravety

4" suspension and 2" body

Pro
lower center of gravety
probably better on road

con
will have to lift front and rear bars to suit body lift

talking about centre of gravity, it will be fairly close, considering that you end up with 6 inches both ways. The only reason it will be fairly close is the fact that youve lifted the body 2inches, but the chassis is just that bit lower, you might as well have the centre or gravity that thouch higher and have the extra travel.
I have a LWB and i have 6 suspension, and am looking at 2 inch body to fit bigger rubber

Shawn

6" will make the on road worse than the 4" and the extras in tailshafts etc would be pretty expensive.

Taller spring lift doesn't necessarily mean more wheel travel

My Mav' has a 4" suspension lift and a 2" body lift. It also has no swaybars fitted, ie. they've been removed. I find it drives fine on road, I drive 55kms each way to work 3 days a week (gotta love 12hr shifts) as wellas running around picking up kids etc. etc.

If you drive it as it is supposed to be driven (ie. like a truck that's 6" taller than god meant it to be) and not like a sports car, you'll find it more than acceptable.

Regards


Dave Mc.

hey dude,
I hope I can answer some of your questions for you.
Body lifts first, the only worthwhile reason for fitting body lifts to thgese things is to create space to lift other things up into, it will give you the room to get the exhasust way up above the bottom of the chassis, lift the fuel tank up to less damage-prone spot, give you more room to run long shocks on new mounts, get the barwork up for better approach/departure,etc.. It really doesn't help a great deal with tyre clearance. I run 37's with 14" of shock travel at each corner. My tyres only rub in one place, and they wouldn't rub there any worse with no bodylift.
6" coils will net you with less travel than the 4" coils with the standard setup. The front won't compress to the bumpstops anymore, meaning you need more down-travel to get the same amount of usable flex. The radius arms won't let it travel down. In the rear the short upper arms will end up on such a wicked angle that the car won't want to climb and will try to torque itself over lots. A mate runs 6" coils on the standard arms in his shorty and has to run a swaybar on the rear to keep the truck steadyon steep stuff. He has done a few other tricky bits and pieces and his drives well on and off road. My vehicle is similar to his, but with a 5-link front and 4-linked rear which fixes up _most_ of the little problems with running tall coils in these trucks, but there is still alot of niggly little things that need to be played around with to get them right.
Sorry about the novel, but I am just trying to show how the big lifts in these can be made to work well, as they are a very low slung vehicle to begin with, but there are lots of little things that need to be looked at...

if i were to use professionals to set the 6" lift up like overkill engineering then they would fix up all the little things. I also want to run a 5 link in the front at some stage. would it be better suited to the 6 or the 4.

I'd use to Mannells.

CJ Burns Esq wrote:I'd use to Mannells.

Why????????????????????????????????

Now it's my turn for questions. If I do a 6" lift, apart from castor plates, brake lines, shocks and springs, what alse should I look at?
I have the option of a 4", 5" or 6" lift and I wish to run 35" tyres eventually.

tailshafts and upper control arms for the rear diff, then look at the shock clearance probs thread wendle posted in this section

Cheers

Ryan

CJ Burns Esq wrote:Now it's my turn for questions. If I do a 6" lift, apart from castor plates, brake lines, shocks and springs, what alse should I look at?
I have the option of a 4", 5" or 6" lift and I wish to run 35" tyres eventually.

Shorty or LWB?

LWB not really any problems, My LWB has 6in lift, and is fine.
Ryan has a 4in lift in his shorty and is having all sort of problems.

You can run 35's with 4inch suspension and 2inch body, or probably 1inch body. Just no mud flaps, and run a 12mm spacer on the control arm to move front diff forward for more clearance

it's a LWB 93 3L petrol.
Spacer on the control arm?

CJ Burns Esq wrote:it's a LWB 93 3L petrol.
Spacer on the control arm?

You want to move the diff forward a little, so unbolt, put in spacer, and put back together

Long arm from body to diff.