Just finished my lift... quick questions!

First, for some background. I bought this truck with 7k miles about a year ago. It had Tuff Country front spacers installed, but stock UCAs. The alignment has been noticably off, and I finally had the cash to fix it right, so I went with some Camburg Ball-Joint UCAs and assembled my own Toytec coiloevers with Bilstien 5100s.

Now that it's all back together, I have a couple of questions.
1. When I pulled my original coil overs off of the truck, there was a ~1/2" spacer above the top plate on each side. They didn't look stock, nor did the label, so I wasn't sure if I should put them back in with the new coils. I did not place them in for the time being; please correct me if I am wrong.

2. The instructions for the adjustment collar said that 1" of thread below the nut would yield 3" of lift, and not to exceed 1.5" of thread. I put the passenger side at 1.125" and the driver's side at 1.325" to try level to front and drove around the block. After letting it settle, I would suspect that I have a maximum of 1-1.5" of lift currently... way off from the 3" the instructions suggested. Did I do something wrong?

3. Could someone measure from the top of their 285s to the painted fender and give me a measurement to go off of? I mistakenly forgot to measure before starting, so I'm going from eye, but it's clearly lower than before.

Thanks!

 

I think the instructions you got are wrong like mine were. Check this thread out (esp. the last page) and let me know if this helps.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/suspension/32572-toytec-adjustment-question.html

 

Thanks for the big help. Just looking at the coilovers, I would have kept wrenching on them. I bought the kit instead of the pre-assembled coilovers, and I know that with 1" of thread there isn't a lot of preload on the springs at all... but I heeded Toytec's instructional warnings. Maybe in a couple of hours I'll go back and adjust them correctly... I've already spent 1.5 days getting the coil overs and UCAs installed (don't ask.)