Yet another lift question post

[CrnCnn]

I need to go higher than 2.5"

How high you looking to go?

[Ascinder]

From the posts I've pawed through, I hear you can crank the t-bars out to around 4 inches. This is something not usually done by the average person doing tbar crank and OME912s because the extra lifting tends to really start playing hell with the CV joints. That is why I'm going to do the differential mount extension of around 2 inches. With the differential down lower, there is that much less stress on the CVs. Kind of like a negative lift for your drivelines. I plan on reusing the stock springs since there is nothing wrong with them and they will maintain the feel of the normal ride (in theory ). Using the larger spacers, I can jack the rear up four inches and the spacer will sit at the middle area of it's travel which is coincidentally very good for stress. I am at this point probably going to get the upgraded kevlar/steel braided brake lines, greaseable swaybar bushings, beefed up tie rod ends, and I am now looking at those Aussie lockers from independent4x. I plan on keeping my eyes peeled for those elusive 4.77 gears and am probably going to try and get a hold of the rear trailing links mentioned in the previous post eventually. We'll see.

[ZEUS]

Anybody try using these as opposed to new springs and spacers? This should allow me to crank the t-bars 4" up front, and I'll use two of the larger versions of these in the back.

If you are going to lift your VX 4" and a solid axle swap is out of the question then save yourself some time and just reindex your torsion bars instead of trying to crank 4" out of them, then realizing you need to take them out to reindex them anyway. Maybe you already realized this but 4" is a lot... your A-arms are going to be at a serious angle - great ground clearance but the handling and ride will suffer. You don't need to go 4" to fit those A/T's unless you want some heavily offset wheels. Just trying to help - I hope I don't seem like a know it all - I'm just trying to post based on my own experiences.

[Ascinder]

Ok, I'm not at all familiar with this reindexing the torsion bars thing. I just read in an older post that someone had accidentally gone up to 4 inches and didn't have a good way to do that with the rears and make the whole diff drop thing work. What would I have to do to reindex them? The reason I was looking for 4" is because when I look at a lot of these VXs with 3inch lifts, they don't seem to have very much travel between the fender well and tire. I was just looking for the extra inch to gain a little suspension travel. I talked with Ldub and he said he had to switch out wheels to go offroading so his wheels don't rub.

[CrnCnn]

Rubbin is racin buddy... Oh sorry... Wrong thing

Shake and Bake

[ZEUS]

Ok, I'm not at all familiar with this reindexing the torsion bars thing. I just read in an older post that someone had accidentally gone up to 4 inches and didn't have a good way to do that with the rears and make the whole diff drop thing work. What would I have to do to reindex them? The reason I was looking for 4" is because when I look at a lot of these VXs with 3inch lifts, they don't seem to have very much travel between the fender well and tire. I was just looking for the extra inch to gain a little suspension travel. I talked with Ldub and he said he had to switch out wheels to go offroading so his wheels don't rub.

The rear suspension has a lot of droop which is where the VX gets most of it's flex from - there is up travel too, but mostly down travel. The front is a balance of droop and compression. The more lift in the front, the less down travel you will have available. If you were to place your VX on jack stands you would see how far the A-arms can droop before hitting the bump stops. Ordering the low profile bump stops would give you a little more travel. The T-bars twist to provide suspension movement. The further they twist (travel), the more resistance the T-bars (springs) give. So the more lift in the front, the harder it is for the A-arms to reach their bumpstops on the upward swing. So it could get so stiff that your travel is further reduced. You can get to 4" of lift but it is at a cost of travel and possibly comfort. That's why IFS suspension kits have subframes that lower the pivot points of the lower A-arms and sometimes new A-arms too. Anyway, reindexing the T-bars involves the removal of the crossmember they go into and then rotating the bars (which swings the A-arms down) enough to fit in their mounts again. Then you fine tune the amount of lift by cranking on the adjusting bolts. Hope this helps you out.

[ZEUS]

Oh and about lockers... seriously consider the amount of torque and pressure you would be putting on your CV joints when you combine the leverage of larger tires, mulitplied torque of deeper gears, and solid pressure from a locker. Those CV's aren't cheap and they are difficult to replace on the trail; not to mention how hard it would be to get replacements in the middle of nowhere. Just a heads up. All these reasons I have been stating are reasons why the more serious wheelers swap a solid axle into IFS equipped rigs.

[Ascinder]

But how many people have seriously swapped in solid axles on the VX? I have only heard of one or two people possibly doing it and that was just rumor as far as I have read. I know Billy(Triathlete) talks about wanting to do it, and I have heard mention of it being pretty pricey. Before owning a VX I have done little to no offroading, save for getting out into the mountains to go shooting or playing some paintball. My reasons for lifting the extra inch were for tire/fender clearance, and the deeper gears were simply to regain that power loss of the slightly larger wheels. I really don't plan on doing anything even remotely extreme as far as offroading, since I really don't have the skill or inclination to do it anyways. On the original post of this thread, I said something to the effect that I am really just trying to make this lift as reliable and bombproof as possible, and I think that for the envelope I am expecting to use the VX in, it will be just that. A SAS is a little extreme for my intents, and for its steep price I think I could definitely afford any amount of CVs I may have to replace doing the generally more minor offroading that I would ever do. Do you, by chance have any good (pictures) walkthroughs or how-to's on doing this indexing by chance? I just don't want to screw it up if I end up doing it. I think I'll go measure the angles of the A-arms and see what they would potentially be at if I did go the extra inch vs. what they'd be at at just 3", and their lengths too. I do appreciate all the help by the way since it seems I would be running into some pretty serious potential snags if it weren't for the things you guys are bringing to light.