How to upgrade current mid travel kit to either stage 5 or long travel without going LT?

Hey guys:

Simply put I want more travel without cutting through the bed? lol

Wondering on what particular components I have to add [or subtract] to upgrade my current mid travel kit to either a stage 5 mid travel or as much travel I can get without going long travel lol

(After doing some research its basically a stage 4 mid travel kit??).

Front end:
Fox 2.5 Factory series coil overs with DSC
1.25 uniball Camburg UCAs
Stock Lower control arms

Rear:
Fox 2.5 Factory Series Rear Reservoirs with DSC
J66 series Deaver progressive leaf springs (10-pack)
Stock/Factor shackle hangers
Stock/Factory bump stop
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What would I have to do add or replace?
After market Lower control arms - 2.0-3.0 bypasses in the front?
Archive garage hammer hangers?
Rear Shock relocation kit?

Thanks for the feedback!!!

 

In the front you are kind of limited unless you go Long travel. +2 inches over stock seems to be the sweet spot for mid travel upfront. Not much more you can do honestly. The rear however you could get up to as much as you need but you'll be sacrificing bump travel and ground clearance with anything really over 12 inches. @ARCHIVE can help you. He's the local expert lol.

 

Im running 12 inch foxes HH with poly bushings. I get about 12.1 inches of travel in rear.

 

Thanks for the fast response @Brian422,

With your extended rear setup, is your truck at a nose diving angle?

I guess I should also note: I want to keep as a daily driver, but I want to be able to handle whoops and "prerun" a bit more efficiently -- wondering if increasing the rear travel (like you suggest) with the @ARCHIVE kit would assist with this?

 

Rear doesn’t really have anything to do with nose dive. You could absolutely use it as dd level. I’m not sure about prerunnimg my truck setup for trail riding

 

bump.

 

stages don't really mean much as it varies by vendor and/or manufacturer. Accutune has their own stages, as does Icon, and so on and so forth. But if you want more travel, then you need to get more travel. Adding shocks like bypasses doesn't add travel. Or was is it you are trying to accomplish with your suspension? If you're chasing travel numbers, then at most you can make sure your fox coilovers are the extended version, if they aren't or you are not sure then Accutune can assist you along with tuning. But you can't just bolt on a longer lower control arm, it has to be both lower and upper. And you can't just bolt in a longer coilover, as your UBJ, LBJ, and CVs will be your limits, not to mention a longer coilover would require extending your bumpstops. Basically, for the front, you are about as good as it gets. Something else you can do is, like mentioned above, get your coilovers tuned, along with some durobumps or superbumps. That'll finish off the front while staying stock "mid" travel.

If you want greater suspension travel, then you'll need a long travel kit. There are plenty to choose from.

I'd just add superbumps or durobumps to the rear as well. Besides that, maybe some hammer hangers if you'd like. Also, look into trying to make sure your deavers clear the driver's side shock. The bracket is making contact with the shock body.

Basically, just throwing some options and opinions out there because I am not sure what exactly it is you are pursuing. I am not an expert, just a tinkerer.

 

Basically just copied my suspension

 

If you do all Archive stuff, daily driving comfort and handling gets better, while increasing travel. There's no negative charachteristics
You can get 12-14" travel out back without going through the bed or losing bump travel with the Archive 2.5" shock Relocation kit.
Hammer hangers are a key component in ride quality, handling, increasing chassis composure so you can go faster. The stock hangers are atrocious, and flex so much they inhibit chassis composure so it becomes uncontrollable.
Then you want our Stealth HD Ubolt flip option 3, our Archive bumpstop has soft engagement, and slows weight down over a greater distance.

For speed with SOA, you need more rear lift than the J66 provide. Unfortunately, there isn't a light duty leaf that has 2.5-3" lift, so maybe have Deaver add arch to J66 and throw in an extra leaf

 

In the 4th pic, is that shackle rubbing on your shock body?

 

How would you compare this to a LT kit? Is it better or worse for people who have the daily driver/trail blazer.

 

There's always the Stealth LT kit from Simmons industries. It uses a cantilever design where the shocks are placed lengthwise under the bed, mostly bolt on with the exception of welding on the mounting brackets onto the axle.
Here's a FB video showing off the kit on a second gen.
https://fb.watch/5BPU9cX5C4/

 

Go ahead and avoid that kit, it’s a great idea (not his own and been around for years) with terrible execution, he’s local to me, I had it on for 14 months and it was cracking in multiple locations, he skimped on materials and welding was lack luster, which led to additional cracking, he doesn’t cap his tubes so you might as well just cut it’s life span in half, he used 12” travel shock for the long travel and the motion ratios are wack. After stringing me along for repairs for several weeks and failing to deliver on a new one as promised I said fuck it and got a prefabbed bed cage and cut through the bed for some 16s, much less convoluted. That cantilever kit of his is a pipe dream. He’s been faking it until he makes it. Pretty sure he has several law suits against him for scamming people out of money without delivering on jobs. But like me, someone comes along, thinks it’s cool, makes the mistake of giving him money, and walk away with broken shit.

He’s one of several scummy scam artist “fabricators” operating here within Utah. 10/10 won’t let him touch my truck again.

***Also, this bed cage is leagues better than the rusted and cracked pile of Simmons scrap metal sitting next to my dumpsters. That is all.

 

Damn!

Thanks for the info. Sorry it’s been such a shitty situation for you. I’m debating on what I want to do though. I think I’ll most likely end up using 12” shocks with archive garages relocate.

 

I apologize for the bitch fest but I was naive to listen to him and I was patient so the smaller things didn’t get to me until he flat out lied and admitted he wasn’t surprised the kit was falling apart (wasn’t shocked because the previous four customers had their kits break all over too) kind of made it my mission to steer people away from him and his business model.

You live and you learn, but hey I’m set up how I wanted to be in the first place now.

 

It’s funny that you ask how to get more travel but still have your sway bar installed

 

Hey no worries man. I’m glad this was brought to light. Pretty messed up that he hasn’t seen where he’s failing and corrected the issues.

I just followed your IG. It’s a sick build for sure.

 

Haha he’s seen where he’s failing, yet he continued to survive and thrive in the environment of offroad and overland culture. Oh well. But thank you! The truck is a constant work in progress.

as for your build you’re smart to go with archive garage hammer hangers, but the BAMF relocation kit is much more cost effective, if you can or know of someone whose a capable welder then you’ll be golden!