Suspension lift - 95 R20 Mistral

[hoff7mm08]

Hi guys,

I've been trolling the posts on here for a while now. I have a 95 mistral and its mainly used as my main form of transport and its does a bit of mild 4 wheel driving on my days off.

I want to raise the suspension slightly and get some MT tyres for it.

Whats my cheapest option for raising her up? I was thinking of just cranking up the front torsion bars, but what spring options are available to raise the back end.

[Crash bandicoot]

http://www.offroadexpress.kiwi/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=43065&hilit=R20

Cheap grand Cherokee springs in the rear of poly spacers.

RAW WD21 shocks, (come standard 2 inches longer )

Calmini or tough dog upper control arms

re index the torsion bars to raise the hieght but keep the factory spring rates in check.

Just winding up the torsion bars limits the down travel and makes it near impossible to get the wheel alignment correct as the fulcrum has to be shimmed out way too much in turn over extending the inner tripod joint on the CV's + more acute operating angle combined with M/T's leads to exploding cv's.

Due to the design the diff drop mod will only gain you maybe 20mm of correction on the cv operating angle...

Then there is the steering, it's as weak as cheese when trying to operate when lifted, combination of a poor draglink design and small shank tie rods, makes it very easy to bend, then there is the swiss cheese idler arm that you can bend with a 12 inch powerbar let alone when you hit a big hole or rock.



Mt's are Mt's any thing with good voids and 15mm+ tread depth but you will still be limited to 32 inch tyres without a body lift.

[hoff7mm08]

Cheers. Was thinking probably just 31's
What year jeep spring do i need to look for?

[BlakeNZ]

'94-97 ish ZJ grand cherakee. (V8 FRONT springs) will give 2.5-3 " lift,(expensive new, cheapish 2nd hand from wrecker) which may be too much for you, so maybe just 30mm poly spacers at the rear?

[kiwinoz]

cool, do Tough Dog do UCAs?
Rear springs are about $300, and the biggest shocks I can find are about the same...
Mine has sagged a lot in the front, and may need re-indexing. or new Tbars.

Has anyone seen, a winch bar? apart from Crash custom one?

New to these, but keeping my D21.......just in case

[Crash bandicoot]

build. one. otherwise you will have tobuy from the E.U.

[BlakeNZ]

well i had the 30mm coil spring poly spacers put in on top of the rear springs (1997 Mistral), and the ride height has increased by 60mm. Yes , 60mm! I can't explain it. Can anyone? Mechanics said it is to do with spring rates, but i just can't get my head around it. I think a 30mm spacer should give a 30mm lift.

[churchill]

Your spring rate hasn't changed. Are the springs and poly bushes seated and indexed correctly? Did you change anything else in the rear suspension e.g. shocks?

[BlakeNZ]

They tend to be fairly thorough , and they are pretty sure they have the spacers located properly. Admittedly, it needs to be taken for a drive to see how much it settles initially. But 60mm just seems wrong. I understand about progressive spring rates, but one of the advantages of using spacers is the factory spring rates are retained. So i'm struggling to grasp any theory of additional lift. The mechanics are too, however they have experienced it before, and had it explained to them by some rep, but it seems it is over our heads.
The shocks haven't been changed, however if the lift remains at 50-60mm then i may need to install my longer shocks, as i could possibly over extend the factory ones?
I wonder at what point i should invoke the pan hard rod "drop bracket"( designed to be used with a 3" lift)?

[stovanovich]

well i had the 30mm coil spring poly spacers put in on top of the rear springs (1997 Mistral), and the ride height has increased by 60mm. Yes , 60mm! I can't explain it. Can anyone? Mechanics said it is to do with spring rates, but i just can't get my head around it. I think a 30mm spacer should give a 30mm lift.

Perfectly Normal, spacer size does not = height of suspension lift as it is simply adding 30mm to the factory spring rate (easiest way I can explain it). 30mm should be around 2" once settled a bit. I actually run HD springs with 30mm spacers in the rear which gives me just above 3" in the rear of my WD21 (kept the front down around 2" for bumpstop clearance).
Isuzu Bighorn springs w/ the spacers on top will make your ride super comfy, i used to run those for a while as they are same diameter as our factory springs.

[BlakeNZ]

Thanks.how much bumpstop clearance should i aim for up front?