nothing wrong with a well done spring over. 99% of the kits on the market are shit, 99% of the home brew ones i have seen are also shit. playing with suspension to that degree requires good knowlege of how suspension stuff works. for years i have been doing spoa setups for the following reasons- to clear 33's without hacking panels, to gain excellent wheel travel with minimal effort (on suspension components and chassis components), to keep underside of diffs clean, and the use of ONLY standard length shackles. most if not all kits just give you some perches, spacers and brake lines. this is a recipe for a shit handling vehicle. also, don't go welding large pieces of box tubing as perches, its rough and will give you too much hight. i'll give you the run-down of how i do mine.
- widetrack diffs only, if and only if i use tojo stuff it will be coils. tojo and spring over again way too tall for the width your getting, and those silly tojo centres hang down too far.
-perches welded at correct angles, this does not mean point to t/case- big mistake.
-all perches gusseted so they don't warp.
-new bottom of diff located shock mounts front and rear.
-new front upper shock mounts.
- longer shocks chosen for thier correct valving(no foam cell rancho gimmicks)
-new bumpstops and or spacers for propper suspension cycling.
- ome extra leafe in each pack of STANDARD leaves.
- hi steer.
- rear torque rod using rubber bonded bushes.
- longer brakelines.
- sway bar modified to work( they all left the workshop with one of these).
- if 33's were going on 5.1 diff gears fitted also.
it is a heap of work but done right will handle well. the biggest killer is too much weight. all it takes is a few short cuts and it will be shite. there are also a heap of tests we have done between various setups for stabilaty but i might go into detail some other time. at the end of the day the system can work if done right, same applies for coils etc. yes i have seen a lot of spoa conversions that are too tall, but don't use aftermarket springs with them. and lastly another one of my famous sayings- you can build an awesome car....but it only takes the person behind the wheel to make it turn to shit.
i don't normaly do tojos, but here are some examples of what i do. this was a shorty 70 that i put 60 diffs into.
notice how the perch is almost flush with the tube, i could have modded the old tojo u bolt plate but that would have gained too much height. also notice the hi steer arm, all tojo parts with some machining and joe trickery.
front diff with its own torque rod. also note the spring perch cut into the housing.
rear with A frame and sway bar fitted.
new longer shocks and front sway bar mod. all bumpstops also modded.
this thing handled well, even with 36 inch tyres.
