Travel Pre and Post BTF Lift

[SUL73NAZ]

Has anyone measured how much travel 3rd gen explorers have pre (stock) and post the BTF 2.25" lift? I know that in general droop/down travel is lost with these types of lifts. Just curious to see just how much is lost. I have a set of 2.25" front spacers that I will be installing shortly once my BTF upper uniball arms arrive.

 

[Ronin8002]

I'll post mine up with the 1.75" front/1.5" rear spacers later today if it helps.

Just to make sure we're all measuring the same way...you to measure travel at the strut right? From the center of the lower mounting eye to the top of the original strut mount? or to the top of the spacer?

 

[SUL73NAZ]

I'm gonna post a question and ask how to measure travel from the pros. I'll let you know in a sec....

 

[SUL73NAZ]

droop the truck out, and measure from one point. bump the suspension (compress it fully) and measure from the same point.

This is what I am told so I think we should all measure this way... my suspension is stock right now so I can get the baseline for everyone. I think we can use the center of the wheel to measure from.

 

[Ronin8002]

droop the truck out, and measure from one point. bump the suspension (compress it fully) and measure from the same point.

This is what I am told so I think we should all measure this way... my suspension is stock right now so I can get the baseline for everyone. I think we can use the center of the wheel to measure from.

Makes sense I think. we can measure from the center of the hub to the top of that "hat" that sits on the strut. That would be wheel travel I think. Measuring from the "hat" on the top of the strut to the center of the mounting eye at the bottom would be strut travel then.

Replied to your PM by the way...I could be way off with what I said but tell me what you think.

 

[Ronin8002]

I found this for our strut specs Monroe's and KYB's sites...I don't know how they measured this exactly or if it matches the OEM strut specs but it might help:

Front Struts:

Strut Length compressed: 16.660"
Strut Length extended: 20.840"
Total Travel: 4.180"

Rear Struts:

Strut Length compressed: 13.520"
Strut Length extended: 19.690"
Total Travel: 6.170"

that would be strut travel and not wheel travel I'm thinking...wheel travel would be more.

Could be wrong on this but when you install any kind of BTF spacer to those struts you would add the height of the BTF spacers to the length numbers...so for a 2.25" front/1.75" rear set of spacers:

Front Struts with 2.25" BTF spacers:

Strut Length compressed: 18.910"
Strut Length extended: 23.090"
Total Travel: ??? depends on how much binding you get from the spindle on the coil

Rear Struts with 1.75" BTF spacers:

Strut Length compressed: 15.270"
Strut Length extended: 21.440"
Total Travel: ??? depends on when the CV axle hits the frame loop

 

[Ronin8002]

And here is the info from Rancho's site for the Quicklifts:

Front (part number RS999904)

Strut Length Compressed: 16.550"
Strut Length Extended: 20.600"
Travel: 4.050"

Rear (part numbers RS999934/999905)

Strut Length Compressed: 13.980"
Strut Length Extended: 19.750"
Travel: 5.770"

 

[Ronin8002]

Hmm so check out the specs for the front Quicklifts for the 2006-2010 4th Gen explorers:

Strut Compressed: 17.350"
Strut Extended: 22.080"
Travel: 4.730"

and compare that to the Monroe specs:

Strut Compressed: 19.320"
Strut Extended: 20.420"
Travel: 1.100"

Either that's a typo or the travel on the stock 4th gen struts REALLY sucks. No wonder the Electrician was talking about how much of an improvement the Quicklifts gave him

 

[Ronin8002]

All right so I did the measurements. It was too tricky to get an accurate measurement to the hub so I measured from the top hat of the strut (the surface the BTF spacer mounts to) and the center of the lower strut mount eye. I did not include the BTF spacer in the measurement.

I have no idea if this is the way Monroe and Rancho do it so I don't know how it all compares to what I posted above.

Also I really had no way to completely compress the suspension so I just measured it with the weight of the truck sitting on the ground ("At Rest") and then with the suspension completely drooped out.

Keep in mind this is with BTF arms installed so that probably makes for different numbers than stock.

Anyway, here it is:

Front:

At Rest: 19.5"
Full Droop: 20.8"

The spindle started to touch the spring just after 20.5"

So right about an inch of downtravel from regular ride height. Plenty of uptravel since nothing would block that.

I will still need to disconnect the upper control arm and flex it out again to see how much extension is left in the strut. I'll post that up over the weekend.

Rear:

At Rest: 16.25"
Full Droop: 18.50"

The axle started to touch the frame just after 18.25"

Same thing with the front about needing to check to see how much more extension there is left on the strut.

 

[Ronin8002]

Ok so I disconnected the upper control arm from the spindle and let the suspension droop out all the way. Looks like the strut is extending to 21.25"

Just for fun I disconnected the swaybar but did not get any more extension from the strut.

With that figured out I think its safe to say that I am losing about .75" of possible strut downtravel due to my spacers being too tall. Looks like the maximum I can go is 1" spacers in the front which should give about 1.5" of lift. I have not yet figured what the max is for the rear axle but will do it in the next day or two.

 

[The Electrician]

great Job James

I have another way to measure the travel

try to find a ramp or stairs and climb the ramp with the 45 angle till one of the front tires and the opposite rear tire become airborne like in this picture

now measure form the center of the wheel to the bottom end of wheel well of the fender (right above the wheel)

on the same end (front or rear), one side will give you the full drop and the other will give you the full compressed

 

[SUL73NAZ]

Good way to measure travel. Do you have any numbers before and after your truxxx lift (spacers only) and numbers for with truxxx lift and rancho quick lifts?

great Job James

I have another way to measure the travel

try to find a ramp or stairs and climb the ramp with the 45 angle till one of the front tires and the opposite rear tire become airborne like in this picture

now measure form the center of the wheel to the bottom end of wheel well of the fender (right above the wheel)

on the same end (front or rear), one side will give you the full drop and the other will give you the full compressed

 

[The Electrician]

unfortunately I did not get any measurements

but from my observations I can assure you that I have better wheel articulation with this combo due to the extra travel of the Rancho Struts compared to stock struts (the Rancho struts have 1.25" more travel physically than stock struts for front and rear ends)

the spacers did not have any effect to the wheel articulation, they only pushed the struts further down

just one thing I want to remind you that, there is a deference in chassis design and suspension configurations between 3rd and 4th gen.

as I can see from James (Ronin8002) replay that, the rear axle shaft touch the chassis although he have 1.75/1.5 BTF spacers with stock struts while I don't have any touching at all with similar 1.75/1.5 Truxxx spacers + Rancho QL.

actually I still can install 1.75 spacers at rear + Rancho QL safely with out any touching

 

[Ronin8002]

I had some time this afternoon to check the rear suspension so this is what I found out:

I disconnected the hub to lower control arm bolt which will let the strut and lower control arm extend independently of the CV axle and upper control arm.

After doing this I measured and came up with what looks to be 18 5/8" Disconnecting the swaybar link gave no additional droop.

It looks like I wasn't losing much downtravel in the rear at all with my 1.5" spacers. The only negative thing was that the axles touching the frame at max droop.

I think based on this you can expect a 1.25" rear spacer to allow the suspension to fully droop with no axle to frame contact.

So to recap...if you want to do a spacer lift on OEM type struts and have your full suspension travel with no interference between springs, spindles, and axles:

-In the front (using the BTF arms) it looks like you are limited to maximum 1" to 1.25" height spacer which will give approximately 1.5-2" of lift. 1.25" may still cause the spindle to slightly contact the spring at full droop depending on alignment.

-In the rear you are limited to a maximum 1.25" height spacer which will give approximately 2" of lift.

It does not look like disconnecting the swaybar is of any benefit in terms of downtravel with a spacer lift because downtravel is already limited by other factors when you are using spacers larger than those I just listed. With the smaller spacer sizes downtravel does not appear to be limited by the swaybar.

Extending the swaybar links might be beneficial to restore that geometry back to factory specs and (maybe) reducing the tendency of the swaybars to squeak.