POLL: What color to powder coat lift | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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POLL: What color to powder coat lift

What color should I powder coat my lift?

  • Black

    Votes: 6 31.6%
  • Silver

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • Something crazy

    Votes: 9 47.4%

  • Total voters
    19

SUL73NAZ

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 15, 2010
Messages
250
Reaction score
2
City, State
AZ
Year, Model & Trim Level
02 XLT
I am going to be receiving my btf lift from Brandon in about a week. I ordered the front spacers and new control arms. My question is what color should I powder coat them? I was between black or silver...I'm leaning more towards silver but don't know how it would look in contrast to the my estate green and black ex. Here are some pictures:
DriverSide.jpg

PassSide.jpg

Front.jpg
 



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Yellow! Show off your bits!!
 






I second yellow!! :D:thumbsup:

I have the estate green too. I like the black trim, looks really good. I have that on my list.
 


















Yellow with a starlight or similar clear. There's no way that would look like a kid owns it.
 






I'd do black as well to keep it clean. i think it would look best with the colors of the truck. only other possibility would be the same color green???
 






I like contrasting colors..

So, I vote for Burns Green.

~Mark
 






I have always been a fan of the bright greens like that toxic


Or. Maybe the darker green flat camo to match the truck but not make them glaring out at you...
 






Wow thanks to all who chimed in! I appreciate the input and the added poll. The choice is still just between silver and black. Leaning more towards silver since I have these that are going on it as well...
QuickLift.jpg
 






Wow thanks to all who chimed in! I appreciate the input and the added poll. The choice is still just between silver and black. Leaning more towards silver since I have these that are going on it as well...
QuickLift.jpg

Be careful there will be a lot of stress with both at once...
 






I'm the only guy who voted for silver???

what gives??

I'm painting my under carriage yellow for my SAS so I wanted to choose a different color for you.
 












Be careful there will be a lot of stress with both at once...

Ya I will not be abusing this truck offroad since it is my daily driver. I was concerned with the added stress of combining lift components but saw that another member (TheElectrician) had combined his 2.5" truxxx spacers with rancho quick lift loaded as well and hasn't seemed to have any problems (that I've read). He is also running his stock upper arms or at least maybe was. I will be running the btf upper arms so this will relieve some stress from the components as well. The quick lifts do not seem to net people very much lift but I did not buy them for the added lift as much as my truck just needed shocks and these seem to be the best ones out there that are bolt on before going to something custom made.
 






SUL73NAZ I am glad to see you're trying this out...will be watching your progress to see how it all goes for you.

The BTF arms will help since the uniballs are stronger than the OEM balljoints and do better with the increased angles.

Where you may see issues is situations where you droop out your suspension completely. Just when running BTF spacers you get spindle/coil spring contact in the front and CV/Frame contact in the rear. By adding the BTF uppers in the front that seems to eliminate the spindle/spring contact (your uniball cups on the arms may still touch the springs at full droop...this is not that big of a deal though....just reduces downtravel some). Obviously the that does nothing for the rear though. But as you said if you're not using your truck in a way that puts your suspension in that position it should be fine.

I've never fully determined it but I believe the rancho quicklifts (at least the front ones) achieve lift by having a design that moves up the lower spring seats on the struts compared to the OEM type strut design. This effectively makes the springs "longer" which causes the struts to stay a little more extended when the vehicle is sitting in the ground, resulting in added ride height. It also looks like the upper mount of the front quicklift struts is also taller than OEM-design struts. I had originally thought that this might be a thicker part that rancho uses. After thinking about it a bit it very well may be that in addition the higher spring seats, the front rancho struts are actually longer than OEM also, at least as far as the extended length.

The springs rancho uses (at least from the Electrician's experience) seem to settle a bit over time, taking away a bit from the achieved ride height. This may have been partly due to the fact that he has given those springs quite a workout on the dunes. Or it could be that the diameter of the spring coils seems to be a little smaller than OEM and they don't hold up to abuse as well. Hard to say. But regardless of this, the adjustable valving features of the quicklift struts are nice for customizing the ride characteristics so that is definitely a plus compared to OEM struts.

I've got a short work trip coming up but when I get back in November I'm going to be doing some experiments with modifying the OEM type struts in a way that will move up the spring seats (got some GREAT input and ideas from Duner on this). Should be pretty inexpensive. My hope is by modifying the OEM-type struts and using very short (1") BTF spacers is that I'll get a good amount of lift on the suspension (the same amount I have right now actually) but with absolutely no suspension components contacting the front springs and no axle/frame contact in the rear. If it works out I will do a writeup.

EDIT:

Here's what I was talking about with the Rancho struts vs OEM type. (Pics taken by the Electrician)

The front struts are here. Notice the difference in the positions of the spring seats between the two kinds and the height difference of the mounting plates at the top of the struts (disregard the Truxx spacer there when comparing):

5734984716_8d5205d132_b.jpg


And here are the rear ones compared to each other. The top mounts seem to be the same height here but the spring seat on the rancho strut appears to be higher than the OEM one, so the amount of lift in the rear is less than in the front when using the ranchos. This makes sense seeing as most people want to level things out when they lift:

5734435945_9eae972ef1_b.jpg
 






SUL73NAZ I am glad to see you're trying this out...will be watching your progress to see how it all goes for you.

The BTF arms will help since the uniballs are stronger than the OEM balljoints and do better with the increased angles.

Where you may see issues is situations where you droop out your suspension completely. Just when running BTF spacers you get spindle/coil spring contact in the front and CV/Frame contact in the rear. By adding the BTF uppers in the front that seems to eliminate the spindle/spring contact (your uniball cups on the arms may still touch the springs at full droop...this is not that big of a deal though....just reduces downtravel some). Obviously the that does nothing for the rear though. But as you said if you're not using your truck in a way that puts your suspension in that position it should be fine.

I've never fully determined it but I believe the rancho quicklifts (at least the front ones) achieve lift by having a design that moves up the lower spring seats on the struts compared to the OEM type strut design. This effectively makes the springs "longer" which causes the struts to stay a little more extended when the vehicle is sitting in the ground, resulting in added ride height. It also looks like the upper mount of the front quicklift struts is also taller than OEM-design struts. I had originally thought that this might be a thicker part that rancho uses. After thinking about it a bit it very well may be that in addition the higher spring seats, the front rancho struts are actually longer than OEM also, at least as far as the extended length.

The springs rancho uses (at least from the Electrician's experience) seem to settle a bit over time, taking away a bit from the achieved ride height. This may have been partly due to the fact that he has given those springs quite a workout on the dunes. Or it could be that the diameter of the spring coils seems to be a little smaller than OEM and they don't hold up to abuse as well. Hard to say. But regardless of this, the adjustable valving features of the quicklift struts are nice for customizing the ride characteristics so that is definitely a plus compared to OEM struts.

I've got a short work trip coming up but when I get back in November I'm going to be doing some experiments with modifying the OEM type struts in a way that will move up the spring seats (got some GREAT input and ideas from Duner on this). Should be pretty inexpensive. My hope is by modifying the OEM-type struts and using very short (1") BTF spacers is that I'll get a good amount of lift on the suspension (the same amount I have right now actually) but with absolutely no suspension components contacting the front springs and no axle/frame contact in the rear. If it works out I will do a writeup.

EDIT:

Here's what I was talking about with the Rancho struts vs OEM type. (Pics taken by the Electrician)

The front struts are here. Notice the difference in the positions of the spring seats between the two kinds and the height difference of the mounting plates at the top of the struts (disregard the Truxx spacer there when comparing):

5734984716_8d5205d132_b.jpg


And here are the rear ones compared to each other. The top mounts seem to be the same height here but the spring seat on the rancho strut appears to be higher than the OEM one, so the amount of lift in the rear is less than in the front when using the ranchos. This makes sense seeing as most people want to level things out when they lift:

5734435945_9eae972ef1_b.jpg

Yeah to address the down travel issue I am going to be using limiting straps. I have not bought them because I do not know what length I will need until all the parts are installed. I am still waiting on the arms so when those come in I will powder coat them along with the spacers and then install everything. I had talked to Brandon about maybe scraping the rancho quick lifts completely in favor of some offroad racing shocks like ICON Vehicle Dynamics uses in his kits but those will have to be further down the road since their cost is much higher than that of the quick lifts.
 












Yeah limit straps are definitely the simplest way to avoid all the problems. The Icon coilovers would really be nice but I can't drop that kind of cash for a good while either so I'll be interested to see how you do the limit strap setup.

I'm gonna be getting my limit straps from SDHQ here in AZ (they sell awesome ones for $25.00 a pair) I am going to be doing them front and rear. I don't know if i mentioned it but I am not doing any spacer in the rear to avoid issues with the cv's interfering with the frame. I also like the front end a tad higher (prerunner/socal) look. I'll definitely post pics as the project progresses. My goal is to clear 33" tires on 17x8.5" wheels with the Rancho QL, 2.25" BTF Spacers, Upper A-Arms with the limit straps.
 






I clear 33x10.5r17s, stock.
 



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