Thread: 04D2 Susp lift 20,25,35,40,45,50 ?? Help.

Depends what your trying to achieve. How longs a piece of a string?

Originally Posted by twr7cx

Depends what your trying to achieve. How longs a piece of a string?

For me, the length of the string is a matter of taste, best served from the bitter end.

Trying to achieve a moderate modification that will help the vehicle do its job.
Stiffen it up a tad, improve potential sag in the rear. I was considering a set of coil assist air-springs fitted to the rear within the new coil springs, to have on hand for loaded vehicle and boat / trailer tow situations. I dont want to go into the area of fitting castor correction bushes, so seek advice on how other vehicles have gone, with 20, 25 or 35mm spring kits. Cheers.

I would be looking to the higher end of the scale. There isn't a lot of value in doing a 20-35mm lift. With a Disco2 one of the other great benefits is the front bumpstop clearance, so even with stiffer springs it becomes more comfortable. I wouldn't go over that height though, you will start coming into other fitment and handling issues. 0-50mm is all well within range for the castor.

I went for 50mm Dobinson coils and Bilstein +50mm shocks. The springs are the Extra Heavy Dobinson as I have a fair bit of extra weight constantly on the vehicle. Before the weight went on they came out to a 65mm lift but then settled out to the 50mm mark.


I have found with this setup;

1. Touring and fast rough roads (corrugations and big holes) that it soaks up the bumps perfectly and gives a smooth ride. I tested it on the inland track at Bribie and the road out to Stanage Bay and at speed it was perfect.
2. On slow crawling kind of work (rocks through creek beds etc) I get a lot more body roll compared to a softer coil setup.

I have been tosing up the idea of going to 75mm flexi coils with poly air rears or alternatively a full air spring setup to help with the more adventerous driving and having the ability to level the car out when loaded for touring.

I would say though that for touring the setup I have is great.

Originally Posted by twr7cx

Depends what your trying to achieve. How longs a piece of a string?

It's twice as long as from one end to the middle.

Have just completed the same process, went with toughdog HD coils, and non adjustable toughdog shocks front and rear, with a RTC toughdog steering damper..given me about 2" lift, smooth as handling, have towed a camper trailer (mainly onroad) with little noticeable sinking in the rear..very happy.

Originally Posted by Shawrover

Trying to achieve a moderate modification that will help the vehicle do its job.

Ok, so what part of the vehicles job is it currently not doing? I mean a lift doesn't really do that much - it provides longer suspension travel, increases your approach and departure angle and allows the fitment of larger diameter tyres (it the larger tyres that I find achieve the biggest difference in increasing ground clearance) - I notice none of these attributes seem to be on your requirement lift.

Originally Posted by Shawrover

Stiffen it up a tad, improve potential sag in the rear. I was considering a set of coil assist air-springs fitted to the rear within the new coil springs, to have on hand for loaded vehicle and boat / trailer tow situations.

None of these improvements require a suspension lift. Fitting new standard height heavy duty springs will stiffen the vehicle up, improve handling and sag in the rear. Air assist bags in the bag end will also improve rear sagging especially when loaded.

My vehicle has a 4" suspension lift in order to accommodate the larger tyres. However, I wouldn't lift it a mm further than I have to, as the higher you go the more unstable it becomes and not as nice for on road travel.

So the question therefore is, do you need a suspension lift at all?

Personally i would avoid suspension lifts if you can, i'm a P plater right now, and before i had my Discovery 1 i thought you needed to lift everything and have big mud tyres, interestingly enough i have actually lowered my car (thanks to the winch and nudge bar LOL) and i do some pretty serious 4wding IMO, the Disco (98 tdi) does everything flawlessly although it is fitted with a set of STT's (standard size) the only place i've ever got it stuck was a big mud hole (bigger tyres would have helped here). I have a set of rear coils to go in the front to bring it back to level, but right now i'm contemplating buying a D2 in which case i'll strip the D1 back and sell it as a perfect, stock car. I will put a 50mm lift in the D2 as i've already collected the big rear end of it once offroad and that will allow me to fit 265/75-16 tyres. In my opinion you should do the bare minimum to a car to make it do what you want, an example of this was a guy in a 4runner out at boat harbour the other day who had at least 4 inches of lift and 35 inch mud chucker tyres, here i was in my stock Disco with 40psi in the front tyres and 26 in the back snatching him out, he probably spent more than i spent on my Discovery in modifying his toyota but it is still just a whitegood, it really depends on the driver, but the engineers set a car up to be really good at 1 particular thing, stock is almost always better and more reliable, modifying causes problems. Just think about what you need, not what you want, unless of course you have excess to make things enjoyable, then by all means

Sorry for the essay LOL

Cheers
Will