[rodw]

Hi guys,

I am in the process of putting a lift in Rod's Rig and have chosen to go with OME and put the rear springs and shocks in today. The front is not far away. On some forum (can't remember where) I found this link that has some suspension components for the Vitara and Grand Vitara:
http://www.vttr.com.tw/e4X4.htm

I emailed them and got a reply today. Freight will cost me USD 45 so I can get the drop brackets for both diffs over here by airmail for about AUD $215 and get some spacers from Bruce. I have put the individual USD prices in the photo captions.

So what do you reckon? Would it tbe safe to stick the OME struts and springs in with the spacers and flip the strut mounts as well? With both diffs dropped, do you think it would handle the extra travel without stuffing CV's ?

This sounds a whole lot cheaper than the Calmini thing.

All feedback and advice will be appreciated.

[Bruce]

I sell spacers for vitara's, Like lots of them each month

[rodw]

Bruce, I know you sell the spacers. Could you PM me the prices.

I was more interested in the concept of the drop brackets. Any thoughts about them?

[rodw]

Bruce has let me know the price for the spacers and they sound good. I thought I'd clarify what I want to do. The Rig is a Daily Driver so it needs to stay legal, but it gets driven places it probably shouldn't because I am the only zook in a 4wd club full of big vehicles.

So I was thinking if I used some spacers to get the OME lift from the standard 30mm to 50-60 mm, then the drop brackets might lower the axle so that the CV angles are similar to the standard (safe) OME 30mm lift. If the axle is lower than what it usually is because of the drop brackets, the pressure will be off the CV's. If that is the case, then perhaps I could add to the Rig's capability by flipping the strut mounts to give more down travel and the CV angles might be similar to a standard OME 30mm lift setup.

[royce]

I only know one person to use the brackets and the whole frotn diff used to twist and break lots of CV's, since taking them out it was a lot better

[rodw]

VVTR have given me the specifications for the Diff Drop brackets. The front brackets drop the front diff by 30mm. The rear bracket drops the diff by 50mm.

So in the absence of customised lower control arms (eg. like Calmini), with OME suspension all round which gives about 30mm of lift, what might be a good setup without being illegal or over the top?

I was thinking strut mount flip, 10-15mm spacers in the front and 30mm spacers in the rear which will give a total lift of 50-60mm. I am guessing I will probably need camber bolts as well.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this proposed setup would be appreciated.

[royce]

get rid of the spacers and it'll be fine, otherwise your reducing travel for the sake of clearence, just skid over the higher stuff, its easy in a vit

[rodw]

Thanks Royce. I had heard that if you flip the strut mounts with the OME struts, you can do CV's fairly easilly. I thought the spacers would accommodate the strut mount flip and still let the OME strut use all of its extra travel.

royce wrote:

I only know one person to use the brackets and the whole frotn diff used to twist and break lots of CV's, since taking them out it was a lot better

Were the brackets that you said twisted from VTTR or someone else?

[royce]

you can do CV's fairly evenly anyway, even a little bit of steering lock is a lot more angle than any amount of travel in the front end

you might get some extra downtravel but you lose up travel with spacers so you dont really achieve any benefit other than more height
I am not keen on the rear bracket either, as you are altering the geometry of the rear suspension, the ball joint will be OK with any shock you can fit into the standard mounts IMHO

they were calmini mounts in a GV

[rodw]

Thanks. cj tells me that Calmini uses a 1/2" hole instead of 12mm so there is a bit of slop (0.7mm) in the holes that allows the Calmini brackets to wiggle. Perhaps that caused the problem?

Royce, I'll take on board your comments regarding travel before I make up my mind on this and appreciate your excellent advice once again.

[cj_zuki]

royce wrote:

you might get some extra downtravel but you lose up travel with spacers so you dont really achieve any benefit other than more height
I am not keen on the rear bracket either, as you are altering the geometry of the rear suspension, the ball joint will be OK with any shock you can fit into the standard mounts IMHO

they were calmini mounts in a GV

More height under the diff is a good thing, at least offroad anyway. Maybe you don't need it up there but in Vic more clearance is better. I'm not a huge fan of spacers myself but I have used them in the past and in fact have some on one of my current Vits. Having said that I would always prefer to use the right spring if possible. Seeing as you haven't got your front springs yet Rod maybe an option to consider is the OME#950 from the V6. It has the same no. of coils and free height but at a higher spring rate giving you more lift. The ride will be a little firmer at the front but it will be fine especially if you ever upgrade your battery to a larger one or duals.

The rear diff bracket is not a bad thing. What most people don't realise is that when you lift the Vit, the ball joint is working closer to it's operating limits and the more you lift the more wear and tear you are placing on it. They eventually flog out and the back end starts doing bad things and yes you can fit long enough shocks in there to cause problems. Even Calmini realised this hence their revised rear arm and mount.

[royce]

yeah I guess the difference is in states, up here we dont have the massive mud ruts like you guys do so generally can place a wheel on the high point to get round, hence why travel is good

I have whatever number (cant remember now) ranchos in the back of mine and at full droop the joint looks alright and the shocks are too long on compression, I think a lot of people fit rear hocks that are way to long on compression for the sake of a bit of extension

what does the spacer do for the rear geometry? I have never bothered to plot and see

[rodw]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Worst case, I think the rear geometry could be addressed by using some Vitara Rear Trailing Arms from Snake racing ( http://www.snakeracing.com.au ) They seem reasonably priced. I would think the extra length should allow the joint to line up properly again if this is not accommodated for in the actual rear drop bracket itself.

Wow! I looked again this morning and they have a Calmini kit on their site! Wish I knew that a week ago!

[cj_zuki]

royce wrote:

the shocks are too long on compression, I think a lot of people fit rear hocks that are way to long on compression for the sake of a bit of extension

Shocks are not bumpstops. Organise some bumpstop extensions before you kill the shocks.

Maximum travel is determined by the available travel of the strut or shock in use. Other factors will determine if that is available to you on the car and how much of it is up or down travel. Things like open and closed lengths, bumpstops, limiting straps, swaybars, mounts, diff position(IFS & IRS) and coil bind all have a bearing. It would be more correct to say that spacers CAN limit travel depending on other factors at work.

Rod,
If you really wanted the Calmini kit then you could have ordered it direct for less than Snake are selling it for. You would still want to change the struts at the least and the spring rates are pretty high too as they are designed for a fully loaded rig with bars, winch etc.

[royce]

yes I have suitable bumpstops in there, my point was that people become fixated with extended length and how far the wheel can drop compared to total travel, IE whats the good in gaining 60mm droop if you lose that in compression anyway (and I mean that in real terms of the compressed length is 60mm too long but extended may be 100 longer but not useable do to bind and not enough weight in the driveline to draw the tire down)

I base my spacer comments from experience with vitaras, the spring rates vs weight of the car mean you need some pretty huge loads to compress the spring all the way to teh bumpstop, especially on the front
I have some in the rear and it effects travel but its not a concern as their are other enforced limits like the tires hitting the guard so its not a problem for me

[rodw]

cj you are right. I did not really want Calmini. I have heard too many stories about them to put me off them, including the wiggle in the drop brackets! As you say, the setup probably does not suit Austrailan conditions without some tweaking so it becomes an expensive option. Besides 3" ain't legal, so I figured that a less aggressive, but well thought out approach might provide a more capable vehicle without adding too much stress anywhere. I thought about deviating from the OME by using King springs instead, but decided the savings was not worth it and I drive past ARB to/from work every day...

[VitZook]

I did the rear diff spacer thing (see attached) to reduce angle on A arm joint. With nearly 4" lift in the rear and long 9179 ranchos the joint would bind. The link arms are std at the moment and my diff angle is a little upwards because of that. It does not worry the tailshaft/spline on output of box as I measured it at full droop and compression. Even though the tailshaft angle is out of plane it hasnt caused any problems, no vibe and I replaced the joints (@140K) last weekend. They were fine except for a few cracks in seals. Must do is the bump stops, found mine at truck wreckers..
I was looking at getting Calmini arms as well..

[liam]

Lifting the rear joint on a vit diff is a crap idea....your changing the distance between the upper and lower planes at one end only-now the upper arm and the lower arms are fighting each other. As the diff cyles up and down instead of the points staying the same distance apart, the a arm will be trying to lengthen the lower arm going down and shorten the one going up ( hello vibrations, less stability and rooted bushes)
The factory didn't just pick that point randomly and say lets whack the a frame here....

[VitZook]

Fair point, however my "crap" idea cycles just fine (tested without springs in) and does not bind anywhere. Plus I get very good articulation! All joints checked and are fine after 80,000 K's. I figured getiing the diff back into plane would be a good thing by adjusting lower arms..

[rodw]

Liam,

Not sure I agree and am certainly not a suspension guru, and have been out under the rear with tape measure but need to draw up some arcs to understand fully.

At rest the suspension will sit at some point on the arc determined by the lower control arm (LCA). If you raise the rear by 50mm with a lift kit, the ball joint has to be closer to it's limits as the LCA has pivoted downwards, bring the axle slightly forward and downwards of its rest position. You can see from VitZook's pic that the ball joint is angled to travel along the LCA Arc.

Your comments hold if you simply raise the ball joint with an upwards spacer, but if you raise the ball joint AND move it backwards (which seems like what Vitsook has done), you are effectively increasing the length of the A frame. The correct amount to move the ball joint back will be determined by plotting the arcs of the LCA and the A frame.

I think a well engineered rear spacer could create another equilibium rest point that places less stress on the ball joint that is 50mm lower than the stock position. The problem is that the more you lift, the closer the tyre will get to the front guard, so on a huge lift, you might also need to increase the length of the LCA to move the tyre back into the centre of the wheel well, but this would also impact on the amount the top ball joint is moved backwards on the spacer.

[royce]

altering the height of an arm can affect lots of things
anti squat amount, simply when you accelerate you can use the rotaional force to plant the tire into the ground for traction (think like the back of what a drag car does) much this up and you get a wobbly wheel spinning mess
roll centre, the point the body rolls around, can help with handling by reducind bodyroll and centre of gravity
rear steer, whether the rear moves up and down straight or in a bad arc

plus millions of other little things that can add up to a rig that works well or is a floppy mess, I cant say what affect a spacer has because I dont understand it enough but I am interested enough to measure mine up and compare with and without

I have a spreadsheet at home that allows you to track lots of variables in suspension design to see what effect mods have

[rodw]

Royce,

This is what I measured on the four door.

Lower Control Arm length (centre of bush) 465mm
A frame length (from front bush to Ball joint 240mm
The A Frame front bush centre sits 220 mm higher and 185mm behind the centre of the front Lower Control arm bush

I did not attempt to locate the ball joint position at rest and realise now I need to measure from the Rear LCA Bush to the top of the ball joint.

I was going to plot the positions of the two front mounting points and draw the arcs for the LCA and the A frame. The Rear LCA bush must always track the LCA arc and the balljoint must always track the A Frame Arc. The spacer can actually influence two variables. The A frame length (by moving the ball joint back or forward relative to the existing mounting position and the distance between the Rear LCA bush and the ball joint.

Of course, we have not taken into account sideways movement/articulation, but I doubt that is an issue as that is why we use a ball joint to allow a pivot point. The LCA's will move sideways using the flex in the bushes to accommodate this rotation, but I think this will cancel out in the axle centre where the ball joint is and the joint will more or less track the upper arc.

[royce]

rodw wrote:

The LCA's will move sideways using the flex in the bushes to accommodate this rotation, but I think this will cancel out in the axle centre where the ball joint is and the joint will more or less track the upper arc.

thats the thing, it might look like that but if the geometry doesnt want to then you get bind
plus articulation (one wheel moving up while the other goes down) is the last thing you want to worry about as thats not to hard to make happen, compared to being able to power up a big bugger of a hill with decent traction and down a steep ledge without the rear lifting up and tipping you

[VitZook]

Bloody hell !! best I start over then !!
but it works well traction and handling wise...

[rodw]

Cool, I'm with you VitZook!

[christover1]

Well its been over 3 years since this thread was a hot topic.
What are peoples thoughts, opinions and ideas on a rear diff A arm spacer now?

[rodw]

christover1 wrote:

Well its been over 3 years since this thread was a hot topic.
What are peoples thoughts, opinions and ideas on a rear diff A arm spacer now?

Chris, unfortunately my rig was totalled just before these were fitted because the steering failed and it hit a tree and rolled. These days I drive a Hilux as it was too hard to get back into a used car after a pretty horriffic accident.

I sold all of these bits and they went to different homes so I am not sure how it would all work together. There must be some more pics on threads I posted of these bits. I think the rear spacer was well engineered as it set it at an angle rather than just a spacer block most have used. You may need to extend the drive shaft which I was prepared to do by retubing it which I could have got done for about $200.

I did make some enquiries about availability after the write off about these parts and there had been a change in distribution arrangements so I am not sure if they are still available.

Since my Vit died I have set up an online store (mainly for the Hilux) at www.vehiclemods.net.au so if people have some interest in this stuff, maybe I could add these components to vehiclemods store. Maybe send me a PM or email the contact on the web site if interested. (Stay tuned as a new look professionally designed web site is almost ready to be launched).

[christover1]

Thanks for your input, sorry about the crash, that sux.
I am still researching and hunting.

[christover1]