more travel out of your torsion bar suspension?

[sikamikanico816]

cranking the torsion bars gives our explorers a lift of a couple inches, and we can achieve more travel if using longer shocks with it. well, what about increasing travel without lifting the truck? looking at my suspension, i ask myself "what is really stoping the control arms from moving up and down even further?" First off, the actual torsion bar? how far would it let the a-arm extend downwards if you disconnected everything off the a-arm? second, how far would it compress upwards if you cut off the bump stops? im trying to prerun my explorer, guys. keeping my truck relatively low in height, and maximizing travel are an obvious key factor. do any of you out their have any info that would help. the main question here is, if i relocated my bump stop to a higher position, would it increase my compressed travel? thanks

 

[BigDave!!!]

well here i am again!hahaha. ok the things that are limiting the front end are the arms, for you it is most likely your ball joint in your upper arm and for me its my lower arm since i have a uniball, we limited mine so the arm would not hit the spindle at full droop due to the angle of the arm. cranking the torsion bars wont do anything because they are more capable of pulling the 10 to 11" max wheel travel you can get out of an explorer. yes if you relocated the bump stop you would get more up travel but you would have to cycle the suspension to see how far you would really want to move it up so you dont break anything. now if you are running a stock shock that is limiting the droop about an inch or 2, there really isnt much more to do to an explorer to increase its travel unless you go full long travel

 

[Hartman]

If you move the bumpstop, things like shocks and balljoints will limit your travel. You have 8" of travel stock, so if you're looking for a better ride, you can achieve it without increasing the amount of travel.

 

[sikamikanico816]

so with uniballs, how much more travel do you pull out?

 

[410Fortune]

You cannot just install a uniball, it is a cusom upper control arm

 

[sikamikanico816]

You cannot just install a uniball, it is a cusom upper control arm

sure cant, theirs a offroad fab shop here in chula vista which for sure will be able to do this for me, im just wondering if its worth it for the money and for the performance upgrade.

 

[BigDave!!!]

if you are serius about it it is worth every penny, with unis you will pull 10-11 max, stock pulls 8"

 

[Robb]

But he already has 10" of travel stock somehow?

 

[sikamikanico816]

But he already has 10" of travel stock somehow?

thats actualy my shock travel size, i am aware, the actual travel is near like 8 or 9. my mistake.
after uniballs, what is limiting it from going further, control arms?

 

[BigDave!!!]

after unis you shock would be limiting it but since you are running a 10" stroke shock you will be fine,then you lower arm will limit it by hitting the bottom of the spindle and putting the ball joint at a harsh angle so you you want to strap it before it hits that. what kind of shock are you running in the front again and did you get something fabbed up or just stock position for the 10"?

 

[sikamikanico816]

ya just stock setup with bilstein 5100. im thinking of repositioning the bump stop and relocating the shock mount a little higher. on that note, any of you guys have info on air bump stops? im not familiar for what their advantage is compared to having another shock to replace it. are they strictly just to prevent harsh bottoming out?

 

[BigDave!!!]

you wont need airbumps unless you are going longtravel and yes they help slow down the suspension motion upward before bottoming out because they have a 4" stroke

 

[sikamikanico816]

would uniballs in replacement for the lower balljoint do anything?

 

[BigDave!!!]

yeah give you a huge headache trying to figure out how your gonna fab a uniball into a stock explorer lower a arm.

if you are really looking to get some travel numbers you are better off just spending the money for a real kit instead of piecing it all together and trying to get a lot of wheel travel out of using stock suspension components, there is really no cheap or easy way around it

 

[HappyGilmore]

yeah give you a huge headache trying to figure out how your gonna fab a uniball into a stock explorer lower a arm.

if you are really looking to get some travel numbers you are better off just spending the money for a real kit instead of piecing it all together and trying to get a lot of wheel travel out of using stock suspension components, there is really no cheap or easy way around it

yeah, what he said. if your gonna prerun your X, do it right. other wise your gonna waste valuable time and money screwing around with the stock stuff, when your just gonna end up buying an LT kit in the end. if there was an easy and cheap way of doing it, every explorer would look like mine and Daves

 

[BigDave!!!]

yeah, what he said. if your gonna prerun your X, do it right. other wise your gonna waste valuable time and money screwing around with the stock stuff,

yep been there and done that i learned the hard way, for as much money as i have put into my front end (wasted about half on spindles, shocks, new T bars, upper arms, etc. etc.) i would be able to have either the dixon LT, the new camburg LT, or maybe the set up i have now with a cage. i tried to do it the cheap way and it bit me in the ass

 

[freaker]

yep been there and done that i learned the hard way, for as much money as i have put into my front end (wasted about half on spindles, shocks, new T bars, upper arms, etc. etc.) i would be able to have either the dixon LT, the new camburg LT, or maybe the set up i have now with a cage. i tried to do it the cheap way and it bit me in the ass

The Dixon Bros. lt kit is actually a real good price. Good quality. I wish i had the cash.

 

[sikamikanico816]

ya, thats my plan...im saving up as we speak. have u seen it in action or anything. im also curious in how their explorer bumper looks like.

 

[BigDave!!!]

there are a few vids of one guy who has the dixon kit on his 4x ranger and it looks like it works really well, i saw a pic of the bumper on a ranger but i dont really like the way it looks, skid plate looks a little too big, just my opinion though

 

[sikamikanico816]

do you know where i can find this vid? Yeah i think it would work good, i like the fact that the kit is compadable with my current lift spindles, my only worry is if you need to replace a ball joint, would u have to get a new (expensive) control arm? thats the only worry.