Thread: Suspension for 130 HCPU dual cab??

Originally Posted by MIDDO

Thanks for all the info people, it's appreciated. Is it possible to keep the standard shocks as most of you stated and to lift it by 2inch?? sorry I am new to all this, and what would I need to buy to do it.

D you only want to lift the front though ?

The rear is bloody high on a 130 already.

How high you can practically go all depends on what your bump stop height is now.

Put it on a flat piece of concrete and measure between the axle pad and bump stop, (stock is roughly around 60-65mm on earlier models, depending on what's mounted up front)

Bear in mind that lifting a TDci has caused a world of grief to a lot of people on here, apparently the entire driveline is tilted back at a greater angle than previous incarnations (TD5, Tdi, etc) and it puts the font driveshaft at a fearsome angle when lifted.
This seems to lead to vibrations/rapid failure of the uni's.

Land Rover Australia will also void your warranty with anything related to the suspension or driveline if you change/lift the suspension apparently.
There are quite a few threads on this here.
Have a search, it's caused a lot of heartache and gnashing of teeth.

With that little disclaimer out of the way........

When lifting anything I like to go with longer dampers to maximise or at least retain droop, (if you raise your static ride height you reduce the amount the suspension can drop or sag, suspension people call it droop)

If you don't try and maximise droop travel, your recently lifted car will tend to lift wheels more readily off road than it has in the past in cross axle situations, limiting performance off road.

Maximising droop entails a bit of engineering and fabricating as the top shock absorber/damper mounts at the front need raising to accommodate the longer damper, etc.
If you just bolt a longer damper into the stock mounts, most times it's closed length will be quite a bit longer than the stock shock absorber, which means that the damper will go metal to metal before the suspension bottoms on the bump rubbers.
This isn't good, it destroys dampers internally.

Two alternatives are available to alleviate this.

1. Longer/spaced down bump rubbers.
This compromises bump (up) travel. This almost defeats the purpose of raising the suspension and fitting longer dampers.

2. Raising the top damper mount to maximise bump and droop travel.

This requires a bit of thought, a bit of measuring and re-engineering and a bit of fabrication, depending on what dampers you end up using.
One of the points to consider when doing this is the amount the bump rubbers compress. This compression can be up to 20mm.
Any less bump stop compression allowed and the dampers will go metal to metal

Another engineering point to consider is steering caster.
Raising the front end also reduces static caster.
Caster (the tilt of the steering king pin axis in plan/side view) gives the steering directional stability and self centring.
Depending on how high you go, this may be reduced to nothing, making the car wander terribly.

There are several 'fixes' for this, again ranging from the compromised and easy to the better and more difficult.

Easiest solution is caster corrected radius arm bushes.
These unfortunately compromise the already compromised articulation from using radius arms. ie. they limit wheel travel by having the bolt hole offset in the bush, full crush/distortion of the bush is limited, and this limits articulation.

Caster corrected radius arms are available, but these increase uni angles on the driveshaft, something the TDci doesn't like.

Slotting the swivel balls to increase caster is a good solution IMO, but the front end needs to come apart to do it, and there is a potential legality issue in doing this engineering modification.

Changing something like lifting a vehicle isn't easy, if you want to maximise the gains and do it properly

Don't lift it. The 130 has good HD front springs, and the rear as rick says is high enough.
If you want more performance in rough stuff go for taller tyres. leave the standard ride height IMO.

JC