Fabtech, ProComp 6" lift or more. Pictures

I have a 6" Fabtech w/2.5 dirtlogic coil overs. What would be my best option to adding an inch or two to the front? Im going to get new springs for the back.

 

If it's for crawling malls use spacers with more preload (horrible idea)

If you care about ride quality and have the monies, custom coils like Evenflow did. I wouldn't order spring until you are for sure set on a height for the front.

 

Finally biting the bullet and getting the bds 6" lift with the coil overs. I've read through hundreds of pages on this thread and now I have a few questions. Can anyone list anything else I would need to buy for this kit? Spacers, brake lines, etc... Also I'm leaning towards 17-18" wheels on 35's.. Some input on that would also be appreciated. I know some re gear and some don't with 35's. If I was to do some rare super light off-roading and using the truck as mostly a daily driver would I still have to re gear? Thanks in advance

 

The kit doesn't require new brake lines but when I installed my kit I just went ahead and installed longer lines ss ones from allpro that way you aren't moving the factory bracketry.
Since you are going to use the truck mostly for a dd you can always just run a 34" tire and keep an eye on tire weights. Usually the mt's will weigh more than a nice at tire. 295/70r18 or 285/75r17 is a good size to run. On your wheels try to stick with a 4.5 or 4.75 bs as well.

 

This is sound advice

I run a 34" Toyo ATII but they are heavy tires. I will be going to a 35x12.50r17 next because I wheel a lot and they are lighter than the Toyo. Since you will be mostly a street rig, look into the Toyo or Cooper ST. Both are great AT tires, great tread life and do well off road. A 4.75 BS for wheel is good but 4.5 may be better. I'm not to sure about the BDS, but my tie rods come very close to my wheels. New brake lines make a big difference on brake pedal as well. This is a good upgrade to make. The allpro lines are a bitch to install BTW

 

You don't go offroad

 

Hahaha!! Good one patticakes!!

Are you going to the camping trip next week or is it too far from the malls you be crawling?

 

What camping trip? Is it in your thread? Where at?

 

Yea, its in my thread. There are 24 trucks going but I'm just going up for Saturday.

 

Good to know. I have ponder this quite often. After the lift and tires I just didn't see enough loss in performance to regear. I did notice that it highway speed 55-60 it seems to jump from 4-5 gear depending on headwind or incline. I am more likely to just reflash the ecm to change my shift points being that I'm an automatic.

I did the same as you. Hundreds of pages, tons of threads. The more informed I was the better I figured my decision would be. Everyone will have an opinion about this company or that one, but BDS is a great lift. It's middle of the range price wise and they have a great warranty. I went with a Fabtech lift. It was a little more expensive but I like the quality of the kit, the warranty of their product and the fact that they are they only 6 in DB kit that I liked that suggest the ability to use a 17 in rim. All other require an 18 in rim or bigger to clear the sway bar on the knuckle. An 18 in rim with 35 in tire keeps the closest to the factory specs of rim to tire ratio but the price and selection of the 18 in tires are very limited. Also I retain more sidewall on the 17 in tire to allow for deflation if/when I need it, ie the beach, trails ect. the 4.5 in backspacing is a must to help elevate trimming and cutting of tire well. I did not have to do the cab mount chop, only slight cutting on the plastic inner fender well. I will say that the very first thing I noticed was the lack of stopping distance that I now had. in town at low speeds it was acquit at best. On the highway I thought I would never get the damn thing to stop. I immediately brought it back to see what the problem was. I did not have to take the calipers off so air in the brake lines was not the issue. I confirmed it was all of the additional weight and extra rotational mass that was the cause of the increased breaking distance. I looked into brake upgrades but so few had gone down this road I didn't pull the triger. I will though when my factories need to be replaced. At this time I have gotten use to the extra distance required to bring my beast to a stop from speed. I hope some of this will help with your decision.

 

Thanks for the great info and suggestions! I'll post some pics when things start arriving. Oh and one more question... since i'm going with the BDS 6" Coil-Over Lift and it requires 18" wheels.. what brands should I be looking at? For tires i'll probably go toyo mt or nitto grapplers

 

You can run a 17" with the bds kit

Both of those tires are very heavy mt's. If you plan on not wheeling it then go with some nice at's and save yourself some weight.

 

^^This^^. I run 18" 35x12.5 Nitto Trail grapplers with ATX rims and each wheel weighs 120 lbs!

 

Sorry, honestly not trying to be rude but I just want to clarify a couple of inaccuracies here for new folks looking at this thread researching a lift kit :

1. FabTech is not the only kit you can run 17" wheels with, it is a simple matter of back spacing and clearance.

2. Your sway bar link is not the issue that requires a different rim diameter, the issue is that the aftermarket spindles that come with the DB kits require you to flip the tie rod over to the top of the mounting location vs how the tie rod stock comes up from the bottom. This is done to maintain the correct tie rod angles, if your tie rod angles are not correct in relationship to your control arms it causes bump steer. The position of the sway bar end due to sway bar relocation can place the actual sway bar itself very close to the back of the tire but this has nothing to do with rim diameter it is one of two factors why DB kits generally need a 4.5 back spacing first to clear the sway bar itself and second to clear the actual new spindle since the new spindle is a monster compared to OE.

3. There is no such thing as a need for maintaining a ratio of rim to tire vs factory. The only relevance with rim to tire size is that the more sidewall you have the softer and more comfortable a tire will feel BUT it is also important to understand that the sidewall difference from a 17" to 18" rim is only 1/2" on each side of the rim which makes very little difference. Depending on the actual brand of tires purchased you could have one truck with a 17" rim and 35's and a truck with an 18" rim and 35's and the truck with 17's may only have 1/4" or less more sidewall because there are huge variables from tire brand to tire brand in true OD of tires. Tire sizes are created by the molds not the actual finished product on the truck. A common example is A Nitto 35 is only 34 1/2 at best.

4. Next thing I am going to say about why any comparison the factory wheels and and tires is irrelevant is that the factory tires are basically car tires, super quiet, super soft comfortable low load range tires. These AT and offroad tires are 99% load range E tires so ANY discussion of one rim and tire size being more comfortable than another is useless IMO because you are basically using tires intended for full size trucks and on top of that they are intended to be stiff and strong on that full size truck.

There are two reasons you did not have to do a cab mount chop with the fab tech kit :

1. Is that they add an enormous steering stop to the spindle which severly limits steering and in turn keeps the outside back edge of the tire away from the cab mount etc. This is more of a problem than a good thing IMO and Fabtech is the only one that limits the steering so severly.

2. Is that they put 700lb springs on those CO's and you have very little suspension up travel. So the reason you are not rubbing is that your steering and suspension travel are not allowing you too.

It is important to understand that most of the DB kits are strictly intended to be mall crawler builds and they build the kits to avoid average customer complaints such as tire rub and body roll.

My last comment will be to say that all things considered the BDS kit with the Fox CO's is the best out of the box DB kit IMO and understand I don't own one so I am not trying to defend my own product. I have a feeling that the vast majority of the experienced guys here would agree.

 

I'm running Fuel Trophy's and Duratracs weighing in at 86 lbs at each corner. I like the setup but these are AT's not MT's.

 

Yeah I was doing some reading on here and the people running bds kits with 17's use spidertrax spacers(hub centric adapters) are these spacers ok to use? I just like the look of meatier tires and a smaller rim. Thanks again guys for the input.

 

And I'll probably go with a bigger tire maybe I'll meet some members on here and they can show me the ropes on a little Off roading over here in the PNW

 

I've had the Spidertraxx for almost 3 years, no issues. With the spacers I was able to run 16" wheels.

 

Tomxtom,

You may want to check your local laws as some county's/parishes restrict the amount of tire that pertrudes past your fender.

 

It's 4" past the fender flare here....I'm at 6.5" lol