Long Travel w/ drop Bracket Lift? HELP!

Basically everyone here and including the shop recommended spacers. She didn't want spacers so the shop next brought up a long travel kit. She chose long travel. Yeah it's crazy, but it's not our money.

 

Holy Fawk, I've been planning this for months now, and here it is!

Not sure what all the hate is about, there are a bunch of FJ's and Taco's running DB's and Long Travel. My only hurdle is finding the right coil over. I'm at the point where I will either have a custom King 2.5 made, or cut and weld up my own brackets to fit some 8" Fox or Kings.

My DB's are beefed and tied into the frame, not worried about them in the least. My plan is to run 37's. I hate belly draggers, and I like having an increased break over angle, could care less about the fast stuff, but would like more wheel travel for rocks ect.

Sure I could SAS, but what is the fun in that.

 

The hate comes from the DB kits needlessly raise COG, which isn't a great idea if you put yourself in off camber situations with any regularity. They also don't actually increase the ground clearance on the front end due to the fact the DB sticks down and gets hung up on rocks. The only additional ground clearance you get in the front is from larger tires. Most people on this site are utilitarians at heart, and drop bracket lifts just aren't as useful for offroading as a standard 3" CO lift. There are threads on this site where people found that out the painful way and ended up removing their DB lift and installed a normal lift.

If it works for you then great, I'm just explaining the general consensus on DB lifts.

 

It looks like your limiting straps are maxed out, not the shocks. Did they put different length straps on the front?

This is kind of the down side to not working on your own truck, cause you have to pay a shop to work out the little kinks. You have to check maximum compression and drop, and make sure the shock is not over extending or compressing. It looks to me like it doesn't need that top spacer. I believe those Fox's should have around 6" of travel, so they should work, you might just have to drop the front end back down to the 6" lift at ride height.

 

I hear ya, I made custom skids for my setup, and I'm curious how my clearance compares to a midtravel ~3" Lift. Big benefit I see is I can fit 35's with 4" lift with minimal rubbing, and I haven't done a CMS yet.

Worst case I tear it all off, sell it and SAS

 

Mythbusters moment - it is a complete misconception that drop brackets hang down lower. in reality a 3" CO lift truck with an after market skid actually has 1" less ground clearance than a drop bracket lift. go look in the 6" lift thread and you will see a long post i made last year with photos proving this point.

You are also speaking only to your personal off roading preference and for some folks break over clearance matters a lot.

CoG issue you mention is also offset completely by the lt kit and the additionally widened stance of 35's or 37's. So much so that a 6" lift with lt and 35x12's has a better height to track width ratio than OE.

 

You're gonna have to help me out with a link to this post buddy.

How much ground clearance does a DB lift have with skids? The way you worded your statement sounds like you compared a mid travel truck with skids to a DB truck without....that's not apples to apples. Also with this photo evidence how did you control for tire size and tire wear differences? Also did you verify it was actually at 3" on the mid travel and did you also verify the same PSI?

Also not sure what you are saying is my personal preference? If its about the COG issue I'd be interested to hear a situation where a higher COG is preferential.

Or why not just put on a LT kit by itself and keep the lower COG instead of putting on a DB as well?

 

I think it's more about frame clearance with the 6" added. My rig on 35's has more front axle clearance than my buddy has with his SAS Toyota on 37's. Having said that his truck can get over things that I would never try because I know that I would get high centered.

 

My situation was that I already had the 6" DB lift. I had them measure for custom coilovers. We ended up having Sway Away build them, and they arrived last week. I will post update pics when I get them on. Sad to take the Fox's off, but excited to see how it rids w/ the custom SAW's.

 

@Vero Keep us updated. I'll be in the same boat soon.

 

FYI, there was a guy on here that did this. I'll try and do some more digging but he was running a drop bracket with long travel and pretty much got bastardized (if that's a word) looked like it worked for him. So it has been done

 

Yeah, I'm REALLY happy with my build so far. I have a new hobby of seeing how fast I can take turns, it's pretty damn impressive for a 8" lifted truck! New coil-overs are going in Thursday, will keep u updated.

 

Your new hobby can be a fun game, until you lose.......

 

Don't worry, not even close.

 

So I had the custom Sway-A-Way coilovers installed. I've been really busy so I haven't driven the truck much since...but can tell the difference just driving around (especially highway speeds). The front end doesn't seem to lift up as much (always felt like I was catching air before). Here are some limited pics, let me know if u want a different angle or view.

 

bullet proof suspension makes 8-10" lifts

 

did you get ext length axles and ext length LCA's slapped on? or standard LCA's stock axles?

 

I meant that I've never seen someone with one.

 

Put a complete LT kit on front w/ BDS lift. +2" LT upper/lower control arms, longer axles

 

So, @Vero, how's your setup treating you so far? Any issues? Anymore pics? Instagram?