I want to get the measerment of the upper and lower control arms on a 3in lift kit. And 5 inch. From center to center.
I also need to know the track bar bracket dimensions.

What i want to do is get the 3 inch spacers, make the upper and lower control arms, figure the track bar bracket out. I would buy my own shocks. I would have the lift for under 200 bucks.

I know i could buy the whole lift for a bout 500 bucks, but i will only have it on the truck for a year or two as i plan on buying the 7in skyjacker kit. but thats about $3000.

I have been threw endless welding class threw high school and vocational school so the integeraty of the welds and such should not be worried about.

Any help will be very helpful


thanks
Eric

 

My control arms are from a 4" kit. They are 1" longer than stock. top and Bottom. They centered my tire perfectly with the D25 spring kit .

 

I would suggest that you not just take measurements of someone else's kit. What you SHOULD do (imo), is measure all the STOCK pieces, then make the changes you need to get what you want. You'd basically be re-designing the suspension that DC spent millions engineering. Good luck.

Oh, and pay attention to things like motion ratio, scrub radius, bump steer, Ackermann ratio, control arm length and sweep, pivot location, caster adjustment range, track bar angle range, etc. There's a lot more to consider than even this short list.

justin

 

Justin.....it's really not that complicated to make control arms. He's not changing and of the mounting points going 3-5". Splashing measurements off of 3-5" control arms isn't going to be a drastic enough change to throw off the front end geometry. As long as the dimensions are accurately reproduced, there shouldn't be any problems.

I remember you telling me that Bilstein 7100's wouldn't work on my truck.....that I was re-engineering DC's carefully crafted front end...well, I'm running long radius arms, a custom track bar, x-over steering and King 2.5" shocks with rezzy's and the front end is better than brand new. The only thing "stock" left in my front end is the axle. Come on out sometime and we'll go hit some 1-2' washboard at 45-50MPH. You won't even spill your beer.

Not slammin' you Justin....we agree on a lot of things, but 3-5" control arms are pretty simple.
We WILL agree on this;

Greeds22, the stock control arm mounts will not support 7". IIRC, the SJ 7" kit uses longer lower CA's and puts the uppers in the stock lower mount. Anything over 5" really needs to be done with long arms to prevent binding and provide decent articulation.

I'd stay away from Skycrapper, I ran their stuff for 4 years and IMO, it's junk. I have what's left of my 4.5" single flex kit sitting in a pile of spare parts. I won't give it away because it's junk.

Drop brackets for track bars are junk too....they use the stock track bar (which will go bad even quicker than usual with a lift) and they move if not welded on. There is a lot of engineering that goes into a track bar, as this is a CRITICAL front end component that can cause loss on control if it breaks. I would strongly recommend an aftermarket track bar from Thuren or DT.

As for the lift, there are several fabricators that do better work than SJ. Check out pavementsucks.com...lot of guys over there doing the Dick Cepek long arms for lifts over 5". I run DT radius arms with 6", I think Don Thuren is working on CA's as well.

While your welding skills might be adequate, Justin has a point. Your engineering skills are probably not, so I would suggest if you plan on making your own lift you duplicate someone else's engineering EXACTLY. Anything over 4" can get pretty complicated if you try to start from scratch. Materials are critical as well, so if you are not 100% sure in regard to material grades, sizes, wall thickness, etc., leave it to someone who is.

Making your own lift sounds easy and cheap until the truck won't drive like it's supposed to. If you die as a result of what you did to the truck, that's too bad, but there are other folks sharing the roads and trails with you, so it has to be safe.

There's an old saying that us old guys know all too well..."you can do it cheap or you can do it right". Cheap was $1200 for a SJ 4.5" kit. Right was ~$4000 re-engineering DC's multi million dollar front end.

 

when my old lady brings home the truck here i can measure it for you... i have d25 coils with pro comp trailing arms. and bds shocks.

 

NO slam taken at all! Good post, Cowhand.


When I give advice, I have no idea what skill or background or knowledge the person has who's requesting input. I've seen a LOT of people get in way over their heads and end up spending a lot of money or worse-- permanently ruining their truck. Lifts gone bad are a VERY common occurence, don't you think?

That's why I tend to discourage large lifts, P-pump conversions, and a couple other such projects. I know full well that people have done them and made them work wonderfully. But these are the smaller percentage of people.

Cowhand, you have invested a LOT of time and meticulous attention to get your truck to be the gem that it is. (Gem? for such a dirty truck? lol) But not everyone has your talent and attention to detail. Making the lessons you've learned available to all of us is a HUGE help, and I thank you for sharing them.

I guess it all boils down to how much risk someone is willing to take. In your case, the risks paid off wonderfully. I wish everyone the same success you have found with your suspension.

Greed-- please don't take my advice as a dismissal of your fab skills or engineering knowledge. I can't know someone's background, and therefore I choose to play it safe and offer conservative advice with respect to vehicle modifications, ESPECIALLY suspension on a vehicle known to have death wobble issues.

Justin

 

IIRC you can buy the 1" longer control arms from Les Schwab. They are Tuff Country..

 

If youa re going to make your own, make a long arm kit. WAY better handling and driveability.... The long arm kit is not very hard to make if done right.

Dima

 

Thanks Justin, I appreciate the compliments, especially from you

Greeds22, if you can hold off a few more weeks, DT Profab is coming out with a 4" kit that includes arms, coils, Bilstein shocks and a track bar. I'm looking at some of the CAD drawings right now and it looks like it will be a true performance suspension, not just a lift kit. I talked to David today, he's finalizing spring rates. It should be competitively priced with upper end kits from SJ, BDS, etc.

4" will allow you to run a 35-36" tire.

 

How do you think it would compare to the KORE suspension?

 

Are longer control arms needed with the D25 coils?

Buddy of mine is wantin to lift it truck just enough to run 33X14.50s.

One guy with 01 CTD around here has the coil spacers in the front and helper air bags in the rear and is runnin the 33X14.50 without rubbin but I've also saw a CTD with the D25s, helper air bads with com trimmin of the back of the fender rtunn 36X14.50 baja belteds.

 

Wow. A lot of replys. Thanks.

I should have explaind more what i wanted to do. I wasnt planning on making my own lift kit. I have a bumper that i made, kind of like the offroad alloy bumpers, on the front of the truck. i wanted to leveler out and figured the extra inch would help. But i wanted to keep all the front end parts in check so i figured i would lengthen the control arms.

So if i have this correct 3 lift has 1 in longer control arms?

What do you all sugjest for the track bar?

Thanks again
Eric

 

1.5" more lift, other than that similar to the KORE Pace kit, although the KORE kit doesn't include or address the control arms and track bar.

 

With a 3" lift, you don't need to do anything with the control arms. Stock CA's will work fine. Guys do 2-2.5" levelling kits all day long without touching the CA's. Bad idea to try to lengthen the stock CA's, the'll never be as strong. DT has some really nice replacement CA's that are 1/2" longer than stock, they'll work for up to 4" of lift. They're ~$300.

As for the track bar, you really don't need a drop for 3" either, it might move the axle 1/4" to the left. Since the stock track bars are garbage anyhow, I would recommend Thuren Fabrication or DT Products for an aftermarket replacement.

 

here is what I would do if I were you. instead of spending 2-300 on parts that you are going to be throwing away later on, then spending close to 3k on skyjunker stuff, only to most likely take most of it off later on, save up about 1500 and buy:

Dick Cepek long arms, DT track bar, skyjacker 7 inch coils, some shocks, a skyjacker drop pitman arm, and some decent leaf springs for the rear and or a shackle flip and addaleafs. that is what most of the guys on PS.com have done or are planning to do, and it is the cheapest lift and flexes the best with the best ride.