Stiffening up suspension with little/no drop

[randeez]

Truck looks great like that. So is this after settling a bit? Is it much stiffer now? That's been my gripe with my truck, find it too soft, especially on the highway. Also is the truck aligned or have a camber kit?

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I'm still messing with shock settings but yea, the sway bars helped a ton...masked the worn out front shocks for sure.
I'm went ahead and ordered longer front shocks instead of swapping back in stock spindles. Mostly to get a set of double adjustable up front, and a little bit longer so they'll be all I have to swap. after theyre in ill get it aligned, front has a noticeable amount of neg camber

I'll prob throw these up for sale, they'd be fine for no spindle drop, or smaller tire (ppv) with spindle to get pretty low. With a way better shock

 

[randeez]

V2 underway....ill see what happens.
These are qa1 dd501, 12" close/17" open (for ride height 13.5-14.5). Last time I had it apart I measured ride height at about 13.75 eye to eye on the shock mount for 17"center of hub to fender. I'm good with coming back up a little bit. Springs only preloaded about .5" looking for truck weight to drop them about 2" to get to ride height.

opened one of the shock boxes to find the bearing mounts was the steel one i needed to order for the other set, guessing someone bought/returned and lost them or something, shock was still in factory packaging just different bearing kit. and the thrust bearing kit and wrenches i ordered came with enough to do 4 shocks , so at this point all i have to do when i pull the other shocks out is swap one set of bearings and they can go right back in.

Also front left tire seems to want to roast anytime I get into it (worse than before) so I'll be playing with sway bar lengths, maybe move the battery to that underhood location....try and get more weight on it

 

[randeez]

filthy... and ready for wheels i think.
only did short drive seems much better with this set up, could prob have done 750 or 800lb springs for a little more drop but it rides nice for the little bit i drove. time to mess with settings next few days

 

[992dr]

Man, that looks great.
With V2, what did the drop come out to be?

Lookin forward to your updates.

 

[randeez]

Probably only an inch maybe inch and a half. Could prob loosen preload a little more but it's good. 750/800lb springs would work nice.

 

[992dr]

That looks great Randy, nice job.

Random question about the aluminum arms. I have aluminum lowers but steel uppers. Looking to get some aluminum uppers. Did you end up getting the aluminum uppers?

 

[randeez]

Nope still steel,
I think you need to do the aluminum spindle as well and it needed diff ball joint and tie rod ends.

I am pretty satisfied with the ride, seems to rain everyday I want to mess with settings...still doesn't launch worth a crap I'm thinking it may have something to do with some corner balancing. Driverside front just doesn't want to plant, kinda need to find someone with scales to mess around with end links ....I may try a few runs without it connected at all to see if it helps. Maybe try and run helper bags blown way up to keep weight xfer. Spherical bearings squeaking a little bit, I may try to use a poly on one side but not much I can do about it

@NORCAL SS , Tony, any chance you can still find dub future 24s in chrome. Ordered some they came back and told me they were discontinued

 

[992dr]

I ended up getting steel uppers again. Didn't want to take a chance on them not fitting and have to shuffle around for new arms. Bringing my front up about 2" maybe this weekend.

Any updates? Ride, handling, adjustability?
What drop do you think your at with this set up?

 

[randeez]

updates= not really

rear - I flipped the qa-1s over so the body doesnt rub on the rsb it has plenty of clearance now. did the free travel mod, it definitely needed to be done, allows me to adjust the rear pretty soft for cruisin around and throw it way up for f-around time at the track. i will probably need to grab some helper bags at some point if i ever need to tow anything. ive had about 20 boxes of tile (600lbs or so) in the rear and didnt squat or anything.

front - as it sits, im getting a little tire rub with 275 55 20s (32") on stock wheels so i will go to a shorter tire if i ever find 22-24" wheels i like. ride is great, 900lb may be to much see below.
I'm as "loose" on the 900lbs springs as i can go (barely any preload on coilover jamnuts) two things - wouldnt mind a little more drop so i may grab some 800lb'ers after i get a few other things worked out AND I think that the 900lb spring may be a little to much to control for what i want to do, im no expert so seek real explanation elsewhere as its hard to explain but: the 900lb spring has so much tension built up in it that when I go to launch the truck, that tension also releases throwing the front end up even more/faster. that same weight tension will be true for the 800lb spring but would have a longer/weaker release that may be more control able, and being lower would add a some rake back to front to help more. for any sane person that isnt an issue but trying to launch 5900lb/awd, having the much of the weight come off the front and transfer to the rear causes the front to spin, traction control/abs brakes to kick in, etc.

And the spherical bearings suck lol, squeak after a week


center of hub to fender, dont remember what stock was but i think it's 2.5-3 up front and 4" belltech drop spring without air shock is a little bit lower
front is 17 -3/4
rear is a little shy of 19


Ive got the other set of single adjustables if you wanna make a deal on them, are you on ppv wheels? you may be good with them ive got 800 and 900lb springs for them. with atomic mounts theyll be a little more than 3" of drop i think

Always dirty

 

[992dr]

How was the free travel mod?
Man, I load mine up and it sags like an old ladies, well you know whats
I do have helper bags but they did not come with the shrader valves or any fittings. Kinda pissed me off. I need to find them locally.

Are your stock tires 32" tall or are they aftermarket?
Mine are roughly 29", stock closer to 28" tall.

Hahaha, I gotcha. Trying to launch such a beast can pose a challenge. You will get it worked out for sure. I'm more of a street truck kinda guy. Actually never been to a drag strip before.

Spherical bearings? Are they in the rear bars? Spohn adjustable?

It's funny how you measure the height. That's how I measure as well. I see more people measuring from the ground to fender, not center of hub to fender.
As of right now mine measure
F- 16-1/4
R- 18-1/8
I will be leveling out the front with the rear and see where I'm at.

Hmm, do you have a part number for the coil-overs? I just want to check the availability and variety of coil choices. I'd like 1200 but would like to try as many as possible. I also went another route from Atomics as someone local was selling some ProComp upper mounts, so I'm actually waiting to meet up with him hopefully this weekend to check them out.