Designing your own suspension

[Agent_51]

Well because there is no good suspension systems out there for our second gen explorers. I have decided that im going to try and make one myself. Im in the process of getting AutoCAD2002 right now and ive been looking all over at web getting ideas for the upper shock mounts. Im going to have to design completely new upper arms as well as redesign the lower arms and beef up the mounts. Is this ambitous, yes. Do i have all the necessary skills to do this, no. But everyone starts somewhere and this stuff interests me so its what im gonna do with my spare time for the next few weeks.

My question to you guys is does anyone have diagrams of the front suspension on our trucks. Something with dimensions so i dont have to go out and measure everything myself on my truck.

If i ever get it finished i have a connection with a guy who has been a TIG welder for 10 years so it might see the light of day.

Any ideas you guys have, names you want to call me, anything like that feel free to do it in this thread.

 

[mrboyle]

One thing I'd recomend before tackling any major redesign is to first learn as much as you can about the curent suspension. How it works. Why it works. What effect do things such as weight, cornoring, braking, etc.. do to the suspension. Basically what I'm trying to say is do as much home work as possible before you make any modifications.

 

[sirhk100]

I completely agree with the above statement. One thing I would highly suggest is to go out and pull out your shocks and torsion bars. Obviously support the frame on jack stands. This will allow you to use a jack and cycle the suspension from full droop to full compression. You'll get to see exactly what happens as the suspension travels through it's cycle. It'll also let you see what limitations you have to deal with like ball joint angles and CV joint angles. I guarentee that these will be the two biggest limiting factors on gettin more travel outta the new front ends. You can always upgrade to porsche CV's which will give you more flex and cut out your ball joints and replace them with uniballs to get more flex there. Depending on what you've got in mind moving control arm mounting points or making longer control arms may be the best options. Basically crawl under there and figure out what Ford did, then figure out how you can make it better for what you want to do...

Khris