Pics of hybrid suspension ... writeup later

[T Y L E R]

So the Slee Arms are longer than stock? I was curious ablout that, but didn't see where it said on his site.

Must be .. they drive the fr axle forward. Basically relocating it after the 4" coils. With the coils and plates only I had more or less brought caster angle under control but did not have a centered axle (fr - bk), so the 36's would rub with my 1.5" spacers



TY

 

[thefatkid]

The total lenght of the arms is longer then stock. This is due to the arms are designed to fit on a 6" truck. if the vehicle were lifted higher the tire would be centered.

Tyler when are you coming back? That thing needs a ARB!

Your truck has motivated me to look for an 80 now, looks great

Brian

 

[sleeoffroad]

You running L's? If so, how much before the shock bottoms do you hit the spacers?

It was dark and cold outside when we were done, so we never measured that. I know that with 2" we will hit bumpstop before the shock is compressed all the way, we needed to go to a 3" bumpstop to keep the tires out of the body. I am sure there is more travel to be had, but Ty was not so keen on the sawzall on the rear fenders

 

[sleeoffroad]

Ty needs to post a pic to match this one then we can compare front clearance.

This one is close

 

[Nay]

Where's the ramp pic?

Seems to have disappeared

 

[agomez]

Seems to have disappeared

post#68

 

[Walking Eagle]

post#68

no, post#68 is after I asked where the flex pics were.

 

[agomez]

my bad.....

 

[T Y L E R]

The total lenght of the arms is longer then stock. This is due to the arms are designed to fit on a 6" truck. if the vehicle were lifted higher the tire would be centered.

Tyler when are you coming back? That thing needs a ARB!

Your truck has motivated me to look for an 80 now, looks great

Brian

Brian! How ya doin man? Thanks again for all the hard work you put into this build .. from having to deal with the Canadian rusted bolts snapping off everywhere to straightening my wheel at the last moment. And lets not forget the work with the sawzall ... turned out sweet!

I'm going to skip the ARB and wait for the new Slee front bumper .. always wanted one like the shortbus so when Christo mentioned he would finally be making one like it for the masses, I knew it would be hard to resist.

Get an 80! You'll love it ..






TY

 

[T Y L E R]

Here's a poser ramp shot. Keep in mind we did NOT remove the rear mud flaps, and so ramping was limited by that ..

Christo has more shots on his camera I think .. the forward ones.

 

[T Y L E R]

Here are some flare bumper line comparisons .. before 4" coils/Slee fr arms, after install , and Beo's with Slee's fr bumper (not sure on Pristines susp. setup)

 

[T Y L E R]

From those images it looks like I should be fine with a Slee bumper . . . my bumper might be cut just a tad more. But his bumper lines seem more akin to the cut Brian made on my bumper ends than to the stock bumper lines.


TY

 

[T Y L E R]

It was dark and cold outside when we were done, so we never measured that. I know that with 2" we will hit bumpstop before the shock is compressed all the way, we needed to go to a 3" bumpstop to keep the tires out of the body. I am sure there is more travel to be had, but Ty was not so keen on the sawzall on the rear fenders

What should you gain from more lift?

Clearance in approach/depature/breakover angles
Increased suspension travel
Ability and need to run larger tires

Choosing the 6" lift out of the box vs. the 4" only gets you the clearance.

The 6" lift is still using the same OME L shocks, mounted in the stock postion. You cannot get additional suspension travel with identical shocks and identical suspension components such as radius arms that are already limiting flex.

You also cannot run larger tires, because the shocks compress to the same point. Essentially the 6" suspension has the same L shocks extended 2" at static ride height, which increases reliance on up travel for flex...not good for those wanting to go up in tire size. Ty would have needed the same bump stops and same trimming with the 6" lift unless something else is limiting up travel.

So the question of "why not go all the way" is answered in part by "a lack of a major out of the box advantages" combined with center of gravity disadvantages of the taller lift.

Now, if you plan to redesign the front end to a three link or even a simple radius arm setup with upper arms in a y-link and larger bushings to allow the necessary flex, and you plan to space down the shock travel along with longer travel shocks and redesigned shock mounts so you can run larger tires without limiting suspension travel, then you have created a good rational for the taller lift because it is the basis for a more comprehensive project.

Now, Ty's setup is not perfect. That ramp pic he posted looks like about 500 RTI, which is horrible for a rig with that much potential suspension travel. But he got the first part right - the smallest amount of lift to fit the largest tire you want to run without trashing the looks of the rig (and why have a long travel suspension on a road rig?).

Bottom line: if you need 6" of lift, you should be looking at 37"/38" tires and redesigning the suspension to improve travel by at least 50% if not more. Stockish flex and 35/36's fit the 4" lift perfectly. I would go so far as to say that Slee's 4" lift pretty much makes the 6" kit obsolete, except that it is a great platform for a custom project.

Nay

Nay mentions my rig having much 'potential' suspension travel. My trip was too rushed to get into this all with Christo, and I am curious as to what I could change to improve my setups travel. Obviously I will be removing all the mudflaps from my before hitting the trails, but are there plug and play mods which I could look at such as longer travel shocks?

Nay, Christo? Others?

I'm really happy with the direction the 80 has taken, and would like to know if I'm close to something that can really perform well. Nay you mentioned on another board (Rising Sun) that my 80 was just for looks .. well that wasn't what I was after.

What needs doing, if I am to improve my RTI score .. without creating a grotesque trail-only machine?





TY

 

[bjowett]

Ty, looks great! Have you changed the shock mounting points to go along with the drop blocks? Place that 2 - 3" back into droop and you'll be good to go.

 

[T Y L E R]

Ty, looks great! Have you changed the shock mounting points to go along with the drop blocks? Place that 2 - 3" back into droop and you'll be good to go.

Brian, thanx for the reply ..


I was wondering about the mounts actually. Has someone here done that yet, that I could look into? I remember someone cutting into the rear floor a while back and creating custom shock mounts. Or is it easier than that? If you steer me in the right direction, I'll go off and begin studying ..


Thanx,


TY

 

[T Y L E R]

What are the basic mechanics of this droop I keep hearing about? One side of the axle runs over a rock, and stuffs up until it hits the drop blocks .. and were it not for these blocks that tire would keep stuffing? But because of the blocks I should add longer shocks, or remount them so they 'droop' further down, allowing the axle to touch down and keep contact with the ground?


Is that close?

 

[Walking Eagle]

What are the basic mechanics of this droop I keep hearing about? One side of the axle runs over a rock, and stuffs up until it hits the drop blocks .. and were it not for these blocks that tire would keep stuffing? But because of the blocks I should add longer shocks, or remount them so they 'droop' further down, allowing the axle to touch down and keep contact with the ground?


Is that close?

yep, that's real close.

Run the truck up on ramps or jack it up so that you bottom out on the lowered bump stops. Then measure eye to eye on the shocks. If that measures to be say, 19.5" for example. And the collapsed length of your shock is 16.5", then there is 3" of shock movement that you are not taking advantage of. From there, you have two choices.

1. Keep your current shocks and move the shock mounts. You can move the lower shock mounts up 2.5" (I'd leave .5" or so for bump stop compression). Now, if there are no other limiting factors (short brake lines, suspension binding ect.), you should have 2.5" more down travel (droop) than before. You could accomplish the same thing by moving the top mounts down, but if you're going to mess with relocating the mounts, you might as well get the lower mounts up out of harm's way.

2. Get new shocks. If eye to eye is 19.5", look for some shocks with a 20" compressed length. Rancho RS9000's for example (just happen to be the quickest for me to look up on summitracing.com) - have a long travel shock with a compressed length of 20.125" and an extended legnth of 34". This gives 14" of travel, and will allow more down travel than your current shocks, even with relocated mounts. That's cause if the current shocks are 16.5" compressed the travel isn't going to be more than 10" or so.

I just made up the #'s - you'll have to measure for yourself what your compressed eye to eye is. Then you'll have to decide if you want to relocate mounts and keep current shocks, or spring for new shocks.

This is sort of how I set up the shocks on my 40. I bought some 14" travel Explorer Pro Comp. ES9000's, and then I compressed my suspension to the bump stops. Then I mounted my lengthened Ford Superduty shock mounts such that the shocks had about another .5-1" of travel before bottoming out. Worked out pretty good. I don't think I've ever gotton the shocks to fully extend, I think the shackels would probably bind first. The reasoning on this was I figured if I ever lifted it higher and put bigger tires on, I could just lower the bump stops and shock mounts (the way I mounted the towers this would be easy) and not have to buy new shocks.

Short answer - if you lowered the bump stops 3", you should be able to run shocks with 3" longer compressed length, or move your mounts up 3" - if the bump stops are close enough to the shocks that the travel at both locations is nearly identical.

Heath

 

[Walking Eagle]

oh, and somewhere on the web you might run into a theory that you should have 1/3 up travel and 2/3 down travel on the shocks. If you're trying to get the ultimate in articulation with a low center of gavity, that's not going to work out right. I also think that is more of a guidline when you're talking 6-8" travel vs. 12-15" travel shocks. See lots of buggies and race trucks that have very limited up travel, and a whole bunch of down travel. Short course off road race trucks always look to me like they are sitting almost on the bump stops when standing still (I know they're not, they just look that way), and then they go over a jump and the axles drop 20".

 

[T Y L E R]

Heath,


Thanks for the primer. It makes a lot of sense so far. --->


Maybe I ought to start a new tech thread on this topic to see how many guys have addressed this problem, and how they went about it on an 80.





TY

 

[T Y L E R]

Here a few images to show just how close I've taken the building of my 80 to hitting the underground parking garages limits. I drive in under 4 MPH. When I returned from Co, I forgot about my cell antenna and knocked a bit of insulation down as seen in pics 1 & 2.