[zooktastic]

gday fellas, i have bought some 31 inch tyres for my zook recently (baja claws) and since my zook is currently stock as a rock what mods would i be needing to do to make them fit happily? clearance and gearing wise. and also what is required to make a g13ba from a barina work in a sierra? and has anyone had any troubles with their vacuum advance on the distributor in the past, cos mine is running like shit and thats all i can think of...

cheers fellas

[Warlock]

Hi Mate,
To get 31"s to fit you may be able to get away with only
2" Body Lift. if your suspension isnt too badly sagged.

You will need to take a hammer and flatten the guard seams down, if you look below your guard you will see what I mean.
I did that on my 94 sierra for a while, but off road it rubbed when you did anything fun..

So you really also need a 2" Suspension lift.

Another way (I didnt go this way) could be to fit extended shackels (in QLD that is one of the areas you definitley get legal hassles on).

Also depending on the rims your tyres are fitted to.. you may get the tyres rubbing on the suspension leafs (assuming leaf sprung Sierra model in my answer here!!) when at full lock. Some offset rims would help here.

Gearing wise:
You can forget about 5th gear when you are in 2wd on the road. I drive mine with stock transfer and 31s and I rev to about 4,000 rpm in 4th gear (equates to about 100klms ish) You can forget about your speedo also as it will be totally out. I use my rev counter and my approximate is as follows:

4th Gear
2,000 rpm = 60klms
3,000 rpm = 80klms
4,000 rpm = 100klms

If you are offroad you may find less control when going down very steep hills as the gearing isnt low enough in 1st Gear and 4Low in my opinion.
But you can still have a lot of fun! and perhaps eventually consider a 1ltr transfercase swap over (1ltr with 4wd switch is the one to look for), or a 'RockLobster' modded gearing from 1Ltr welded into your 1.3ltr transfer gearing, or somethng more expensive like Calami or Rockhopper gearing (check out Suzi Sport, Trailtough etc and you will see what I mean about expensive).


Good luck,
G.

[zimmyzook]

hey yeah i agree ive put maxxis bighorn 31's on my sierra had to get 50mm suspension lift, hammer guards like 'warlcok' said and also i extended my shackles just for that bit more clearance, since then ive got air born few to many time bounced as much as i wanta dn no rubbing,
ps watch out for those seems they rip up muddies pretty nicley :p
good luck

[31zook]

Go out and buy a 50mm body lift, a rear set of springs and you will be right. Put the rear springs in the front (if its a WT you only have to drill two holes, NT is another story) and hammer you seams down, this is what it will look like:

[nandor85]

if u have a coily (late 96 onwards) u will need 2inch suspention and 2 inch body otherwise u will rip them apart on ya gaurds like i have lol

[Rockhopper]

If you are using a 15x8 wheel with a - 24 offset, you'll need a 2" bodylift, 2" springlift and move your diff forward 20mm. 1-2" bumpstop extensions will be required also

[Santos]

qhat year is the sierra? it will tell us how easy or hard that barina motor will be

[want33s]

Sell the Claws before you do anything else... They are a pretty useless tyre offroad.. They are designed for a buggy blasting across sand at warp speeds (Baja 1000 desert race) and don't throw mud or clay out of the tread so gum up quickly resulting in no traction.

[zooktastic]

ill trial these tyres since i didnt pay alot for them, my zook is a 1989 wt soft top. i have given up on the g13ba motor as i did a quick check and number 1 had 110psi compression so i didnt really care what the rest had so its onto a ca18de conversion like i originally planned . im not really keen on lifting my body if i can avoid it, that may sound silly but ah well.

[weaves]

zooktastic wrote:

im not really keen on lifting my body if i can avoid it, that may sound silly but ah well.

Your right it does sound silly,

if you don't want to do a body lift, your other options are a virtual lift (requires cutting alot of the arch away and making a new higher inner guard), a spring over suspension set up (a huge undertaking if your not even keen on lifting the body i'd stay away from this) or bump stop it to the point where you can't flex at all anyway - and it will still probably hit.

bodylift is one of the easiest mods that will get you the clearence you require.

weaves.

[Gwagensteve]

want33s wrote:

Sell the Claws before you do anything else... They are a pretty useless tyre offroad.. They are designed for a buggy blasting across sand at warp speeds (Baja 1000 desert race) and don't throw mud or clay out of the tread so gum up quickly resulting in no traction.

I wouldn't even give them that much credit. I think they were designed because someone thought they looked cool.

They kinda work OK if the fronts are run backwards - and they are great in the snow, but they're nothing special. That's what I found anyway. (that's on my Gwagen, running 35's)

Steve.

[Gwagensteve]

weaves wrote:

zooktastic wrote:

im not really keen on lifting my body if i can avoid it, that may sound silly but ah well.

Your right it does sound silly,

X2 it is silly.

2" BL and you're basically away (well, after gearing and some seam flattening etc)

Any other way is a truckload of work. I'm all for low cars and I'm crazy for the long way of doing something, but you'll never regret the BL.

Steve.

[zooktastic]

hmmm okies i guess ill add body lift into the shopping list, does anyone know how to change the idle on sierras? i pulled the inlet manifold off 2day to retrieve a nut that fell into and thru the carbie anyways now its running but idling at 2000 or so. im not sure what i have done? any ideas???
the ca18de idea is looking really good right now

[nandor85]

theres a small srew on the firewall side of the carb located bottom towards the passangers side

[jimbo_jones]

You may have created a vac leak in the manafold when you removed it check for vac leaks did you put a new gasket on?

[zooktastic]

ah no i didnt replace it, the old gaskit looked ok as it was still stuck to the manifold and in one piece. im a bit dodgey at times

[Brett]

you can get the 31's on with no body lift. do some guard triming (ver lift) or a ruf, 2inch lift spring in the rear, hammer the guards and some bumpstop ext.

you might of left a line off your carby when putting it back together.