Rear Shackle flip kit with rough country lift...

I have the rough country lift kit on my truck currently and was thinking about adding the armour tech rear leaf spring shackle flip kit to add more travel capability. It says that it will add about 3/4" of lift. I just wondering if the Rough Country rear shocks will be enough to handle it.

 

3/4" is not that tall. To know for sure is pull the shock off but measure it on the truck and add 3/4" to that and see where it sits. Then do the shackle flip kit and do full droop on the rear and see. Are you flexing the sh*t out of your rear suspension all the time? If not, I highly doubt 3/4" will be a problem for those shocks?

 

You'll need to get the shackle flip on, then cycle the suspension and measure the needed shock travel. You can only add so much travel with the stock shock mount locations.

I would consider a brand other than Rough Country for your suspension needs. But that's me.

 

I went to the Rough Country website and according to the part # the shocks that come with the kist are good for 2-3" of lift. The blocks that come with the kit are 2" so I'm pretty sure I'd be good. I haven't really had the chance to do some extreme off-roading yet so I duno about the flexing part yet.

I am in the future but for now it works. Probably Fox Racing or Billies up front and custom leaf's for the rear eventually.

 

Does the shackle flip cut your up travel and gain you down travel? How much? How much shock travel to you have left to gain from extra droop? Remember shackle flips trade up travel for down travel. They do NOT simply add travel.

 

No, but it will put your leafs in a bit more negative arch. If you think that matters.

Relocating the shock mounts and going to longer shocks is necessary to maximize travel benefits. In reality, you're pretty much just cutting off the entire stock suspension and building a custom one from scratch. The only parts of my rear suspension that are stock are the axle housing, frame, and front leaf spring mount

 

So the flip kit adds more down travel, not up?

 

Doesn't add shit til you change the shocks and bumps, as they limit travel in either direction. But yes, when you re-arrange the other appropriate portions of your suspension, you can gain quite a bit of downtravel.

 

If you are trying to gain 3/4" lift all that work of relocating the shackles isn't worth it IMO. You can't flex that well with 2" blocks and stock leafs. If anything it'll make your stock leafs go to a negative arch faster. I would ditch the blocks and get a full leaf pack if you are looking for flex. If you are just trying to gain 3/4" lift for more lift in the rear due to camper shell or the front being higher then the rear, like I said all that work for that amount of lift to gain is pointless.

 

Yes a shackle flip trades up travel for down travel directly. The spring is attached to the shackle and to frame and axle to spring. The overall travel, if you remove shocks and bumps will be the same. Our trucks have reversed shackles to get the most up travel with lowest vehicle height. Know how a part works before putting it on your truck.

Shackle flip is a good idea when you need what it does. You need more shock droop travel to access to need it.

 

Ok, well thanks everyone for the input. I'm not that worried about it anymore. I honeslty don't think I'll ever be in a situation to ever make use of it.

 

This is only true if you stay with the stock or a stock length shackle. Adding a longer shackle increases the effective length of the spring/shackle assembly and does indeed add travel.

Furthermore, it's not a 1:1 trade. The inverted shackle setup Toyota uses stock actually fights downtravel at full droop; there are a lot of engineering reasons why Toyota would want to do this, and you'd have to ask them what the final reasoning was.

However, however, by flipping the shackle you allow the shackle/leaf assembly to rotate into a fully lengthened position, something the stock setup doesn't do. Therefore, you can gain travel from both a lengthened shackle and the increased shackle travel itself.

"loss" of uptravel is largely a function of spring rate and how quickly you get into negative arch. One could find out the MOIs, degrees of shackle travel, etc. and run the numbers to find out what the ratio is of uptravel lost to downtravel gained, but that's the hard way.

Easier is to just get it on there, and compare new travel measurements to old ones. As long as it's within the range you're looking for for your application, keep on motorin'.