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Suspension and Body Lift Kits explain please

warrenpfo

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Jul 21, 2010
Messages
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Right I have been doing a lot of research into raising my Landcruiser 100 to be when i get it and was wondering if someone could explain when you use a body lift kit and when you use suspension lifts?

Are there times when one is used and the other is not or do you use the two of them together??
 
Suspension lift in simple terms is fitting longer springs. This improves ground clearance and you generally can carry more weight in the truck. A body lift is when you put spacers inbetween the chassis and the body. This doesn't do much for ground clearance (apart from the sills) but you can fit larger tyres which improves ground clearance. Generally you start with suspension lift and then move onto body lift if you need it.
 
With a suspension lift you fit longer springs and lower your axles in order to fit larger tyres.
Lowering axles always gives your vehicle other dynamics.
More roll in corners, less stability side hilling, stiffer springs for more load capacity, often a need to correct the caster.

A body lift fits spacers between chassis and body in order to fit larger tyres.
But this doesn't change the vehicle dynamics as much. You are keeping your original plush ride springs, your original shocks, your original articulation and the original wheel alignment.

If you want to add heavy items like bullbars, winches, racks, drawer systems ie expedition style, than stiffer springs are needed to counter the weight.

If you want to travel into the desert or into the arctic a body lift and trim is needed to accomodate the very large tyres.

If you want to crawl rocks then you want longer springs with a low springrate, longer shocks and a smaller drive ratio to accomodate those grippy tyres and slow driving.

If your a cruiseraddict you finally come to the conclusion that you can't simply leave that vehicle alone and need to try everything in the long run.
 
chriscolleman said:
With a suspension lift you fit longer springs and lower your axles in order to fit larger tyres.

How does fitting longer springs lower the axles ?

Surley the axles stay the same height from the ground?

Graham
 
Its all relative to where the datum is Graham...
 
What's a datum?

As with most mods to vehicles I've personally found that less is more.
I don't mean take bits of the vehicle, but be sure not to overdo something.
Mostly you go beyond the original design limitations and thats when "SH?T HA??ENS"

If you end up with a Toyota looking like a Tractor, probably better buy a tractor :lol:
 
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Datum (geodesy) is a standard position or level that measurements are taken from. Graham's datum is the ground/road and your datum is the chassis in this case ;)
 
Hi Rob,
Yeah, I am taking the datum as the road.
The axles stay the same height from the road, , ,
But will be further away from the body with the longer springs,

G.
 
But for a vehicle with IFS surely that means that you get better clearance as the sump is further from the ground?
 
Indeed with IFS the sump and most of the drivetrain will be further from the ground.

Sump, drivetrain and exhaust protection are what most 4x4 are seriously lacking.
Especially these SUV type vehicles.
I really don't understand their madness, you build an offroad vehicles that has just as much room between
the tyres left to right as 99 % of other vehicles.
First green lane you encounter has the middle of the underbody scrapping the ridge in the middle of the lane.
And when you look underneath all you see is some flimsy "plastic" protection.

With any decent ATV/Quad you get a closed steel plate running from front to rear. You can balance the machine on a log in the middle, you can scrape through tractortracks with 2 wheels in the track and 2 wheels on the ridge.
So many more possibilities with a mere 12 inches of ground clearance and a decent bashplate.

That was my first "mod" on my landcruiser, decent bash/skid plates front, rear and aft.
 
In complete agreement hence:

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ASFIR Bashplates and 2 inch lift ;)
 

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Looks like Gav is going to be busy then :thumbup:
 
We're just waiting to receive Andy Prince's OEM plastic guard to use as a template & then you can have all the guards you like!!!
 
Whoops, I forgot about that one :oops: Meant to send it up to Lincomb with Ian or Matt... :doh:
Anyway, I am back from my travels to California/Dubai/Brazil/Bolivia so will get onto it asap. I reckon it may be best to shoot it off to you via courier or we could be waiting a while for one of us to get a visa to venture up norf. :violence-uzi:

If it's dry this weekend, I may gather up my courage, get underneath my 80 and twirl the spanners quickly ;)

Cheers,
 
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