Thread: A question of lift and its pros/cons

Suspension stuff make a good kit for the discos.

Fit all your other gear first, get a front/rear axle weight at the nominal load, provide those figures (doesnt apply for the $700ish kit) and you'll get the right springs and shocks for the job

No, I've never had a uni last over 100K Km but thats because I replace them at that service interval regardless of condition. perfect world you could probably get that out of them but I wouldnt be trying or reccomending it.

Cons include the desire to fit bigger wheels, which costs you in economy and tyre cost not getting into covered carparks and reduced driveline life. your roll over angle goes down and the handling can get a touch wiggy.

pros... it can look the goods and gives you better approch, departure and rampover angles. It can help you in not getting stuck.... but when you DO get stuck you'll be stuck more properly than someone in stock configuration.

Similar view to Blknight.

If you go off road then I consider a 50mm lift very worthwhile, especially if you have coils, as in my case. I had a 50mm lift done. Best improvement was departure angle. Downside is front double cardan joint suffers from the increased angle and life is shortened. I got about 100k km out of mine, 75k km with the lift. Also, steering wanders a bit at speed.

I have slightly larger tyres so, with lift, car parks in older buildings and in the city (Sydney) are often a problem

My new springs and shocks gave about a 50 mm lift. The new tyres (245/75) gave another 15 mm.

This amount of lift looks good, increases ground clearance, but seems to have had some effect on steering as the wheel is now about 15 degrees to the Rt of centre. The car still tracks well however. I'm not sure what it will do to the drive train - no problems so far.

My first suspension upgrade was with King Springs and Bilsteins. The front end failed catastrophically after very little use. On a very corrugated trip I noted smoke coming from the engine bay. Opening the lid revealed that the Bilsteins were smokin'. Being 700 km west of Alice Springs we had little choice but to press on at a very slow pace. From the diving and bouncing of the front end we were aware that the Bilsteins had let go completely. Soon after, the L front Bilstein broke up and lodged itself transversely through the spring and jammed against the road wheel. We were going nowhere.

At about this time I read of the Mercedes assault on the Canning, where their shocks all failed.

Moral of story is that shocks designed for the autobahn do not work on corrugated outback roads.

My new setup uses adjustable Tough Dog shocks. It is yet to be tested.

Originally Posted by Roberto

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This amount of lift looks good, increases ground clearance, but seems to have had some effect on steering as the wheel is now about 15 degrees to the Rt of centre.
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I'm pretty sure this is not true in most cases. Certainly I have had no such problem with the same lift.
The handling changes slightly, but it only takes a short while to get used to it.
A worthwhile, cheap mod in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Roberto

This amount of lift looks good, increases ground clearance, but seems to have had some effect on steering as the wheel is now about 15 degrees to the Rt of centre. The car still tracks well however. I'm not sure what it will do to the drive train - no problems so far.

The steering off centre is as simple as the Rod needing adjusting...
As you lifted the vehicle the axle pulled slightly off its previous position.
Changing the length of the rod from the steering box to the LHF wheel will fix this.

It can be done at home with no issues with actual wheel alignment.

Originally Posted by Roberto

My first suspension upgrade was with King Springs and Bilsteins. The front end failed catastrophically after very little use. On a very corrugated trip I noted smoke coming from the engine bay. Opening the lid revealed that the Bilsteins were smokin'. Being 700 km west of Alice Springs we had little choice but to press on at a very slow pace. From the diving and bouncing of the front end we were aware that the Bilsteins had let go completely. Soon after, the L front Bilstein broke up and lodged itself transversely through the spring and jammed against the road wheel. We were going nowhere.

At about this time I read of the Mercedes assault on the Canning, where their shocks all failed.

Moral of story is that shocks designed for the autobahn do not work on corrugated outback roads.

My new setup uses adjustable Tough Dog shocks. It is yet to be tested.

Sounds very much like incorrect (std height) shocks were fitted...

Mind you, not knowing how you were driving, or how your vehicle was loaded / accessorised prevents accurate analysis.

I've seen Bilsteins with the paint peeling off, they are that hot...
But they kept on working fine...

I've ran them all, and the 7100 Bilsteins can't be beat on a D2...

Skuilnaam

I would have thought that Bilstein would be one of the most popular shock fitments to Land Rovers, if not the most popular. You'd be unlucky to have one fail or the fitment is wrong. I've been running them for a lot of years and they cop an absolute flogging and they just keep going. I would argue that these are the strongest regular shock that are on the market with its operational design and the walls in the body are just thick.

MR Auto are adamant that even a +50 lift will cause grief. I think if you upgrade the unis to greasable and replace the rear rubber donut with steel, you chould be ok unless regularly flexing at med-high speeds.
BDave.

Unless you are breaking the rotoflex I would try to keep it in there is possible. The rotoflex absorbs torsional driveline vibrations. On the Disco2, as you lift it, the rotoflex doesn't really change in angle unlike the other LandRovers which have a different suspension setup that doesn't keep the pinion pointing at the transfercase output.

For the front propshaft, what I have found with my lift is that the standard 1300's are not big enough and when the uni joint fails it also destroys the centre bearing in the DC joint - which will then lead to a total failure. I then went to 1310 uni front shafts which were significantly better. I could still manage to eventually break the uni's, but these lasted I think 2.5x longer than the 1300 unis, and when they did fail the centre bearing in the DC joint was still more than servicable. The life limiting factor on these shafts is the centre bearing is not greasable and so will eventually go dry. The current shaft from Tom Woods now has a greasable centre bearing and I expect these to be a permanent fix..... unless I forget to grease them, so that now makes me the limiting factor.

This is all with a Disco2, 4" lift, up to 34/5" Simex when offroading and diff locks.