spring question

[GoodSamaritan]

Hello!

Many of you might have seen my Hillbilly SUV project, (aka Herkimer) which is a box beater wagon on 17" truck wheels with 31" off road tires.

At any rate I need to lift the car a bit to make this work. I already have longer shocks, and or extensions planned, so bottoming them out is not an issue. The rear is no problem, but the front is bugging me. I have put in some of those twist in jobs, but only gained an inch and change. in the process.


I can go with a set of early 80's caddy fleetwood springs. (RWD not the 4100 fwd craptastic 50k mile wonders) But this only gains me a couple of inches in height, and reportedly it will ride like an unloaded dump truck. I don't mind a bit of a rough ride, but I don't want to get beat to death when I do take it off road. (Yes I know it is 2wd, no I don't care, and if I wanted a 4x4 I would have bought one, so cut me some slack here ok?)

The next option is to grab or fab a set of spring boosters off of ebay, similar to these, http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...RK%3AMEWA%3AIT

Now for the questions.

#1 What other budget conscious options are out there?



#2 The way the front springs are placed, I beleive that I will not need a 2" spacer to gain 2" Does anyone know what the real ratio is? For instance 1.5:2 or???

#3 last but not least, what other vehicles have similarly sized springs that might offer a taller stiffer ride when installed in a vic?

Thanks,
Bryan

[Grand Marquis GT]

Ever measured the diameter of 4X4 F150 springs??

[GoodSamaritan]

nope, is it the same?

[DuceAnAHalf]

pretty much any coil spring 5.5" in diameter with one end ground flat will work. Unfortuntly you can lift the front a whole lot until the upper control arm hits the frame. Ideally you would have to move your lcontrol arm mounts down, This would require notching the fram for the uppers and extending the mounts further below the frame for the lowers.

[Tiggie]

It's gonna be very hard to get the thing aligned correctly.

I'd do some measuring and obtains a 4X4 truck frame and mate them together.

Otherwise, body lift is about the only thing I would recommend if you are using the stock suspension. You're gonna have to customize several things and you won't get any more suspsension travel, but I think it would be more drivable overall anyway.

[mrltd]

Twin I beam!

[GoodSamaritan]

I'd do some measuring and obtains a 4X4 truck frame and mate them together.

woah Woah WOAH! Now what did I say in the original post?

(Yes I know it is 2wd, no I don't care, and if I wanted a 4x4 I would have bought one, so cut me some slack here ok?)

LOL!

Seriously. I am not looking for the kind of lift those guys are going for. I do however want to gain around 3-4", without the effort of lifting the body and both bumpers, not to mention any lines I might have to lengthen.

[gadget73]

You're not gonna get 3-4" I don't think. The suspension simply won't travel that far. I'd say maybe 2" tops and thats pushing it.

[GoodSamaritan]

I can get by with 2" if I have to. It will mean I will have to trim the lip on the fenders, though.

3-4" would have eliminated the need for that. Regardless, I will still have to trim the bottom front corner of the wheel openings on the front fenders a tiny bit, anyway. Even if this is a low budget project, I still cringe a bit at the thought of taking a saw to any car. Unless of course it was the wing on a ricer. That could be fun. :grin: