[tom240]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I get a bit puzzled about the obsession with Vitara front wheel travel. It's close to irrelevant - vitara's don't pick up front wheels anyway. Unless you are chasing high off road speed, it's a CV busting waste of time. The only reason it's possible to chase all this droop is because Suzuki penny-pinched and didn't fit rebound rubbers like every other IFS design, and relied on the strut to limit droop and keep the CV's alive.

Limit travel, go all steel, and 26 spline if you can. That's what ail hld CV's together. Another couple of inches of front droop aren't ever going to make a difference to getting up a track or not.

Steve.

thats really interesting, i cant work out why more droop wouldn't be good, is it not the same as having more flex? cheers (sorry if im being a noob)

[Gwagensteve]

As someone with a car that had far too much droop (in the rear) I can assure you too much droop is worse than not enough.

Vitara's follow the front. (that is, the body sits at roughly the same ground angle as the front wheels are experiencing.) even on steep climbs. It's really, really, hard to get a vitara to lift a front wheel, and if they do, they will often only carry it for a few feet and then put it down again.That's the opposite of a Sierra. It's the rear of a Vitara that will dangle in the air. adding a little bit of travel to the front, at the risk of reduced confidence in the CV's, is a poor tradeoff, IMHO. It might flatten the body out a touch more on a climb, but thats just a "feel" thing. It's not letting you drive something you couldn't before.*

As an aside, if you add 2" of travel to an IFS front end, you get exactly 2"more flex. If you add 2" of travel to a sierra live axle, you might get 6"of added flex. That's not a value judgement, it's just a comment, and it's part of the reasoning that chasing added IFS flex is all about diminishing returns, especially if it means the CV's get flaky, especially when Vitara's don't lift front wheels anyway.

Steve.

* if you want to go fast, more travel is always better than less travel, but that's way different, and has nothing to do with 4WDing.

[DarkHorse]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Lots of smart stuf...

Steve.

Kind of what he said... although I'm as guilty as anyone of chasing as much travel as I can get - I've just found the limits of stock units. I also have to dispute the asssertion that Vitaras don't cock a front leg - of course they do, it's probably just not as spectacular as when a Sierra with a solid axle does. Carrying a front wheel for a few feet can and often is the difference between getting up an obstacle or not, especially if you're not front locked.

When I had OME struts with the Calmini spacers on top my CVs were spontaneously combusting. Spacers out and they lasted much longer. I was still going through them, but not at the first hint of articulation.

When/if I can get my hands on a Hilux CV conversion I will try the spacers again, just because I like pushing boundaries and am clearly a glutton for punishment.

[tom240]

thats really interesting info and thanks heaps for sharing.

i agree that trading a bit less wheel lift (which doesn't happen much apparently) for CV's that dont break at the first sight of articulation is a good idea and will be removing the spacers. i was also planning on locking the front diff and so it wouldn't matter that much if a wheel lifted anyway.

[christover1]

My front diff lock made a huge difference to my Vits off road ability, more so than my rear did.
I reckon I break less cv's now, as we no longer get spinning wheels grabbing the ground suddenly.

Low gearing helps, too, as I can drive it more gently.

[tom240]

christover1 wrote:

My front diff lock made a huge difference to my Vits off road ability, more so than my rear did.
I reckon I break less cv's now, as we no longer get spinning wheels grabbing the ground suddenly.

Low gearing helps, too, as I can drive it more gently.

yeah, thats what i've heard, should be good