To lift, or not to lift...

Something thats been playing on my mind for a while now is the question of installing a lift kit. Aesthetically, a lift kit is awesome. Practically, if you are doing some serious offroading, a lift kit is a necessity.

But, my mind has been on the question of do I REALLY need one.

How much difference does a 2 inch lift make for articulation? I know it doesn't help at all for ground clearance. And I don't want to to go more than 2 inch.
How much does does this affect road handling, especially motorways (I do 70 miles a day on the M25, which should reduce in the next 3 months or so).

Lastly, I will need to get new shocks (and springs) as the outer casing on the rear shocks are a little cracked (low down, not affecting their basic use yet) so I am wondering what are the best for comfort. I was looking at the Trailmaster - Comfort set but at close on £600 I am wondering if there is a cheaper alternative since this is going to be used 95% of the time on road.

Thanks
Chris

You dont NEED anything. My jimny has lots of mods, i dont NEED any of them for my 7km road to work. What i need sometimes, probably 5-10 times a year, is the possibility to run 4wd. Rest of the year i dont need it. But i love the jimny, and had a vision in my mind of how i wanted it to look, and now it looks like that. I have spend over double the cost of the car itself, but thats how it is when passion beats sense

If you like how the jimny looks with a lift, do it. But you dont need it, the jimny goes everywhere without anything

I do plenty of pretty serious off roading and I don't have a lift kit. From what I've seen articulation is rarely any better than standard on 2" kits, and worse than standard on some.
Always bare in mind that when people fit new suspension, they are often replacing well worn parts with brand new so any comparison in ride quality is relative to the condition of the components they replace.
Also you should consider the extra things needed to lift the car properly. Extended brake lines are a must if you want better articulation. Castor correction is also important, and the castor correction bushes have less movement in them than standard bushes so will limit articulation to an extent. So you should weigh up wether you are happy replacing the trailing arms with non-type approved parts, or running with less castor which reduces steering feel and increases the likelihood of getting steering wobble.

My car had tired suspension (65K) and it needed to be changed. I chose to stay on standard KYB road springs with 15mm superpro seats and got the best dampers I could afford. AVO adjustables, they've been spot on. This set up was about £650 so a similar price to the trailmaster kit.

I wanted a car that looked standard but gives a little more on road, and off. The road manners are as good as you will get with solid axles, it's even surprised the odd hot hatch on tight and twisty bits. Off road, the cars performance is not the limiting factor, it'll drive over pretty much anything that I would choose to drive.

At standard height, the Jimny is a very capable off road driver. So capable that risking damage is my limiting factor, I don't want panel damage and I don't want to smash my drive train. That said, you'd be surprised at what a near standard car, can do......

I have to pick my way along the more aggressive lanes but the 4"+ lifted cars in the group just drove over everything and were all on unstoppable.

sniper

My car drives better on trailmaster comfort, than stock for sure. Most likely due to better shocks as Sniper say.

If you want the most offroad capasity possible for least mods, then good tires and a rear diff locker would be more important i would say.
Modding the car adds up reeaaally fast, but its also very fun to do

Thanks for the replys guys,

@Busta, with regards to the brake lines, I want to replace them anyway with a braided setup. Along with changing the rears to disc brakes. But this is a job for summer, so when I do this I can cater for the extra lift there.
I will look into the trailing arms, not sure on the costs of all this, but will add it into what makes sense here to do. Bushes are most likely due a change anyway, its was reg'ed in 03 and has done 87k miles and its all original under there.

@sniper, do you have a build thread, be interesting to see the suspension setup you went for. I think I would still go for the Trailmaster, but interesting to see other setups.

From what you guys have said, and what I have been reading, the stock setup is going to be more than capable with what I will end up doing. I do want to "upgrade" the suspension anyway but get the feeling that I could get something much cheaper than the Trailmaster (e.g Black Raptor) but comfort is king here.
Also, a lot of what I have read indicates that you need to upgrade trailing arms and do castor correction when you step up to 3 inch, but not much is said for 2 inch.

I think a good rule of thumb would be to lift the vehicle only as much as you think is necessary for your use. As Busta mentioned, there can be negative effects. That would also incude the increase in height of the vehicle CG. The possible improvement of articulation is also little to none.

A 2 inch lift is relatively mild and shouldn't have much negative impact on the vehicle. OME makes springs and dampers for the Jimny which are also fairly mild. Prices are about the same so you would need to see what the best deal is that you could find.

I have 2" spring lift along with 1" body lift
The springs came from vit mods £135 could be a bit more now
I would say the spring rate is good articulation is good
The 1000es procomp shocks i have fronts are perfect rears are to stiff but perform well off road
Rockwatt extended bump stop all round work well to stop the tyres catching 225/75/16 BFG KM2
3" castor arms x4 original polybush bushes antiroll bar removed steering has no problems self centring
added a steering damper because the tyres felt to bouncy on the road steering still self centres
After all this it still feels nice to drive not much different to standard form

Jack

I initially decided that I didn't want to lift my car as it was my daily driver and I was worried about making it worse on road, so I replaced my shocks with standard height Monroe's and I also replaced my springs because they were cracked. I can't remember how much it cost but it was quite a lot.

2 years later I decided to get a 2 inch lift and went with the Trailmaster Comfort and I have been kicking myself ever since that I didn't lift it straight away. It is still my daily driver and the only negative I have noticed from the lift/tyres is worse fuel economy, in every other way it is fantastic. It accelerates slowly, but it was slow before and other drivers don't expect it to move fast. Motorway cruising it generally unaffected - it sways in the wind, but I'm it isn't any worse than before (although I have a steering damper). It sits at 70mph with slightly lower revs than it did previously due to the larger tyre circumference.

In terms of advantages I disagree with those who say a 2" lift doesn't make much difference off-road, it completely changed my vehicle. With stock height tyres I would get grounded in almost every rut made by a bigger vehicle, but now I can generally manage the "medium" ruts without issue. The articulation has improved significantly and lifting the underside means that when I do get stuck I'm usually caught on my diffs and not right up to the chassis. This also keeps vulnerable components up out of harms way, especially the transfer case and radius arms.

This isn't meant to argue with any of the folks that replied. As usual, when we discuss suspension, and lifts in general, there is a wide array of answers. I think that, for a variety of factors, our experiences with the mods we do can have different results from others doing similar changes.

I will simply try to add some clarity to what I said here. Most of my responses to Chris' comments, and the data I quote, will be in red.

How much difference does a 2 inch lift make for articulation?
Without more significant modification than new springs and dampers, the most you could possibly get is about 30mm in the front and 25mm in the rear. More likely you would get none. See my later comments for an explanation.

I know it doesn't help at all for ground clearance.
Correct. Only a larger tire size will add ground clearance (distance from the ground to the differential). Some may confuse additional belly clearance and the (extremely) minor increase in break-over angle as ground clearance: it’s not.

How much does this affect road handling, especially motorways?
There are too many variables to answer this. It is part of the reason you will get so many conflicting replies. I think it would be safe to say that if everything in your steering and suspension systems were in good condition before the change, you wouldn’t notice any significant difference after a 2 inch lift (different answer with greater lift).

To understand some of the comments I make, I must first give credit to a Jimny owner living down under for the information that I luckily stumbled upon. It is a list of suspension measurements that I had planned on taking myself at some point. I’m glad he beat me to it. Note that these are measurements on an entirely stock Jimny. Probably the best place to start.

As he began:
“I played with the suspension a bit today, just seeing what potential there is in it. Shocks are measured from the centre of the eye to the top of the shock mount in the front and eye to eye in the rear”

Sway bar in:
Front: compressed side 330mm extended side 395
Rear: compressed side 350mm (hard on the bumpstop) extended side 435

Sway bar out:
Front: compressed side 312mm (hard on the bumpstop) extended side 425
Rear: compressed side 350mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 430

Unsurprisingly, his measurements indicate that the sway bar has some limiting effect on suspension travel (although I’m a little confused about the rear extended measurement).
He then pulled the shock to see if there was more travel available.


Front: compressed side 312mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 455
Rear: compressed side 350mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 455

The final measurement indicates the amount of travel that can be gained by eliminating the limits of damper extension. Without modifying components, he was able to increase the extension from 425 to 455 in the front (30mm) and 430 to 455 in the rear (25mm). Dampers capable of at least 455mm extension could possibly provide additional travel but only if they were also capable of compressing to a shorter length than the shown compressed dimensions. Also, since he was using ramps and tools to artificially exercise the suspension to its extremes, it would likely (though not definitely) be less in the real world.

zukebob wrote: This isn't meant to argue with any of the folks that replied. As usual, when we discuss suspension, and lifts in general, there is a wide array of answers. I think that, for a variety of factors, our experiences with the mods we do can have different results from others doing similar changes.

I will simply try to add some clarity to what I said here. Most of my responses to Chris' comments, and the data I quote, will be in red.

How much difference does a 2 inch lift make for articulation?
Without more significant modification than new springs and dampers, the most you could possibly get is about 30mm in the front and 25mm in the rear. More likely you would get none. See my later comments for an explanation.

I know it doesn't help at all for ground clearance.
Correct. Only a larger tire size will add ground clearance (distance from the ground to the differential). Some may confuse additional belly clearance and the (extremely) minor increase in break-over angle as ground clearance: it’s not.

How much does this affect road handling, especially motorways?
There are too many variables to answer this. It is part of the reason you will get so many conflicting replies. I think it would be safe to say that if everything in your steering and suspension systems were in good condition before the change, you wouldn’t notice any significant difference after a 2 inch lift (different answer with greater lift).

To understand some of the comments I make, I must first give credit to a Jimny owner living down under for the information that I luckily stumbled upon. It is a list of suspension measurements that I had planned on taking myself at some point. I’m glad he beat me to it. Note that these are measurements on an entirely stock Jimny. Probably the best place to start.

As he began:
“I played with the suspension a bit today, just seeing what potential there is in it. Shocks are measured from the centre of the eye to the top of the shock mount in the front and eye to eye in the rear”

Sway bar in:
Front: compressed side 330mm extended side 395
Rear: compressed side 350mm (hard on the bumpstop) extended side 435

Sway bar out:
Front: compressed side 312mm (hard on the bumpstop) extended side 425
Rear: compressed side 350mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 430

Unsurprisingly, his measurements indicate that the sway bar has some limiting effect on suspension travel (although I’m a little confused about the rear extended measurement).
He then pulled the shock to see if there was more travel available.


Front: compressed side 312mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 455
Rear: compressed side 350mm (still on bumpstop) extended side 455

The final measurement indicates the amount of travel that can be gained by eliminating the limits of damper extension. Without modifying components, he was able to increase the extension from 425 to 455 in the front (30mm) and 430 to 455 in the rear (25mm). Dampers capable of at least 455mm extension could possibly provide additional travel but only if they were also capable of compressing to a shorter length than the shown compressed dimensions. Also, since he was using ramps and tools to artificially exercise the suspension to its extremes, it would likely (though not definitely) be less in the real world.

Great info!

Do you know if the more known shocks we use for lift has longer travel than stock , so it gives this maximum travel?
I`ve removed front swaybar for a period, and i do feel it helps in several offroad situations, but you sure notice it missing on-road when pushing into turns. And i also miss to have swaybar in the rear on-road, as it would improve handling alot.

Conclusion would probably be, Jimny should have electrical controlled swaybar`s front and rear, + longer rear shocks