Minor Level/lift plans

[AV8ER]

I would like to lift my TB in the front about 1.5 inches and not much if any at all in the back. I have seen a lot of info about people using the moog 81114 and know it adds about 2 in. It seems one side effect is that you will top out a lot and this is also more lift than i want. From the info i have found, i have calculated that the moog 81112 will add about 1.6 inches of height(Believe I have 83's) but cant find anyone running these to confirm this. If this is true they would be perfect because they would add the lift i want without spacers and give it a stiffer ride which i also want. I'm also planning to add the airlift 1000 in the back to keep from sagging since i tow about once a week. The airlift should also allow me to give a little lift in the rear if the springs add more front lift than i wanted and will also stiffen the ride. Though a question i had is that all site i see say the airlift are for 4wd only but i didn't know of anything different on the 2wd that would make them not work. Basically with the information I was trying to find if anyone knew an actual lift amount for the 81112's and make sure everything would work how I want and I have not overlooked anything.

[navigator]

I don't recall anyone getting the 81112's.
Why are you interested in a lift?

[AV8ER]

I need more ground clearance in the front. I have scraped the front end as well as frame many times while on minor trails. Also as it sits I can't go down a curb without hitting the frame right under the driver unless I inch it down. And last I hate the look of the factory rake

[navigator]

gotcha, if you want minor lift and level it out, the RC lift is hard to beat.
It will level it out quite nicely and is only $129 + shipping.
It provides about 2 inches in the front and 3/4 in the rear to level it out and it replaces the reportedly weak upper strut mount.

If you take a look at my build thread in my 4th post I am running that lift with basically stock tires. MY first post is that lift + 1/2 inch spacer in the front and Z71's in the rear.

That 2" helped me more than I expected when running in beach sand.
Take a floor jack and jack up your front 2 inches and step back and take a look. Even with stock tires it doesn't look goofy.

[HARDTRAILZ]

MarkMC makes a nice entry kit. It is two pieces and has the option of using just the outside spacer for a bit of lift or just the inside spacer for a bit more lift or both for 2.5 inches. Also includes the rear spacers. Definitely a solid kit and took me over some serious terrain.

[Trail X]

I have seen a lot of info about people using the moog 81114 and know it adds about 2 in. It seems one side effect is that you will top out a lot...

You will not have top-out issues if you do this alone. The top out issues are only when combined with an inside-the-strut lift block.

[AV8ER]

My father does not like the idea of spacers for what ever reason so I can't use those. Because of this I can't use the 81114 because it would need some lift in the rear to look right. So I ordered the 81112's and will have them on by Wednesday night and I will post some pics and numbers. Honestly even though 1.5 inch in the front is not much at all I'm happy that he is letting me do that. The car is in his name so he has the final say so on every mod.

[navigator]

I guess it is too late but if you would have went with the 8114's which will give a little more lift, you could have then went with the Z71's which would have added another ~1.5" in the rear. The Z71's would have also helped with your towing. Then you would have only a spring lift.

Honestly though in my mind from a safety/reliability standpoint there is very little difference between lifting with an inside the strut spacer(like RC or MarkMc's new lift) and the spring. These aren't jeeps where the spacer just sits on top of the spring in the front. One big advantage of going with the Rough Country or MarkMC 3" lift is they both replace the upper strut mount with a more solid mount. With those lifts you aren't really adding a spacer as much as a taller top strut mount. There are no more moving parts with that setup than with your OEM setup. I expect the stress on components either way would be the same with a comparable amount of lift. On the other hand replacing springs and not using the lift kits would likely perform differently but from a safety perspective I would think it to be the same.

The best option if you have the $$$ and must have a spring only lift would be the Radflow Coilovers. If I recall they are about $1k but you get a "spring only" lift with a rebuildable shock reported to be much better than what we currently have available. You can find more info at the following link.
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3002&hilit=coilover

[AV8ER]

Thanks for the input. I forgot about the z71 springs so in the future I may switch to the 81114 with the z71. I'll see how the 81112 do for now. I tried to talk my dad into letting me go with 81114 and a little lift in the rear but for some reason he just doesn't like it. Wouldn't tell me why just said no even though it was $40 more for 81112.

[navigator]

Just be patient with your parents and show them how responsible you can be. Caleb went through something similar with his. Sometimes you have to take baby steps.

[Cable810]

Just be patient with your parents and show them how responsible you can be. Caleb went through something similar with his. Sometimes you have to take baby steps.

Yep. My parents wern't big on me lifting it period. My mom had me research the "dagers of lifting" and I never found anything haha. But in the end I ended up lifting and my parents were cool with it. I think my parents are cool with whatever I decided to do in the future. My mom is on a constand nack about me sinking money into it though

[dvanbramer88]

Just be patient with your parents and show them how responsible you can be. Caleb went through something similar with his. Sometimes you have to take baby steps.

Yep. My parents wern't big on me lifting it period. My mom had me research the "dangers of lifting" and I never found anything haha. But in the end I ended up lifting and my parents were cool with it. I think my parents are cool with whatever I decided to do in the future. My mom is on a constant nack about me sinking money into it though

Josh went through the same thing with his mom too. Now she's better about the idea. Even bought him hella light covers for his light bar for Christmas.

Moral of the story is be responsible and be able to have an intelligent and mature conversation with your parents. They'll come around. OR don't live with your mom.

[HARDTRAILZ]

Moral of the story is buy your own shit and do what you want with it. In high school, I know my parents did not want me to have a 350TPI Z28 with shift kit and rims and straight pipes, but they could not say shit when I paid for it.

[AV8ER]

Well I got the new springs on yesterday while my dad was out of town. It seems like my factory ext springs measure to be about 16.25 in long compared to 15.5 in which is the number I found here. Long story short its not nearly the amount of lift I wanted. After quite a while of talking to my dad we came to some conclusions. We both like how it rides now with the stiffer springs. And I'm less than thrilled with the results. So while talking about switching for the 81114 I ask if I will actually get the .3 in difference in height or if there will be some lost due to well let's call it math over my head of how springs compress. (My dad is actually a pretty smart guy who used to do work for NASA and while he was my age turned his GTO into a drag racing car so he's messed with all this) He said well since were down to about half an inch that you want is there a spacer you could get to do this so you don't have to deal with the spring compressor? And this sure lightened up my day! So now I'm in the quest for marks .5 in top spacer which should give something like .75 inch due to the suspention geometry. So now I'm the third kid on here to convince parents on lift, just not that much lift but lift none the less!

[DustinC1989]

There is no set length of spring for any certain model, there are several spring combinations that came on our trucks.
Can't base you amount of lift from a new spring without first knowing exactly what springs you have to start

[AV8ER]

From what I understood the way gm made them, they were the same length but actually stiffened the material which would be opposite from what Moog did where all are same stiffness but changed length. Of course I could be wrong as we see here

[AV8ER]

I couldn't seem to get the pics to upload here but I'll solve that in the next few days. For now here's the link to gmtnation, post #5060 is the one for the front spring install. http://gmtnation.com/f17/what-did-you-d ... ex169.html Marks half inch spacers came in today so I'll get them installed as well as the airlift whenever they decide to get here I'll get a build thread together after I get everything installed and figure out how to post pics so people can have access to the info in the future

[Zapp Brannigan]

I couldn't seem to get the pics to upload here but I'll solve that in the next few days. For now here's the link to gmtnation, post #5060 is the one for the front spring install. http://gmtnation.com/f17/what-did-you-d ... ex169.html Marks half inch spacers came in today so I'll get them installed as well as the airlift whenever they decide to get here I'll get a build thread together after I get everything installed and figure out how to post pics so people can have access to the info in the future

Here's a direct link to your post.

http://gmtnation.com/f17/what-did-you-d ... post125746

To get that direct link in most forums, click on the Post Number in the upper righthand corner, and it will fill the direct hyperlink in the bar up top for you to copy and paste, or, some give you a pop-up dialogue with the link!

[DustinC1989]

I'm glad people are actually using the search function lately....

But all the post that keep getting brought back are a year old, if not older.....


The date is in the top right corner

[v7guy]

As a general rule, bringing old old posts back up is great if you're continuing to add info or experience to the topic. That's the rule I tend to follow at least.