180sx Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 michiganave - Can you rehost the pic? They are not showing for me. Or maybe its just my work comp? hmm... But good answer. That post should be stickied! SFD how-to! Jose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanAK Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Wow, this is great!! I have been wanting to start a post like this for a long time but didn't want to ask a bunch of questions until I was ready to start. I think I will be ready to start in about 2 months but I am still not sure if I want to do it. I can get all the parts made up for free and I will have it installed by a shop that builds rally cars. But all my off roading is done in that sand, and my problem is that I want an awesome truck but I am pretty sure if I do this lift my R50 will not actually do as well off road because it would mess up my roll over angle. I am actually so disturbed by this problem I am thinking about just buying another R50 and having one with just the small lift, and make the other into a monster. Or I might just give up and get a new Xterra as my truck to modify. MichiganAve, I never thanked you for the info you gave me before, it was very helpful. After I got your message I had to go to Azerbaijan for a month and forgot to write you back. I am thinking to compromise on my lift and do a 2 in SFD to have about 3 or 4in lift total. How do people feel in their rides after they have put on there lifts, do they feel unstable off road or on? And dose anyone think that the SFD would have trouble with high speed sand driving? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morpheus Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 michiganave - Can you rehost the pic? They are not showing for me. Or maybe its just my work comp? hmm... But good answer. That post should be stickied! SFD how-to! Jose I 2nd the motion to sticky great writeup... makes me want to do it to mine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiganAve Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 michiganave - Can you rehost the pic? They are not showing for me. Or maybe its just my work comp? hmm... They are posted directly as attachments on the message board. Anybody else having problems with the pictures? You should be able to click the attachment and have the full photo open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissandoms47 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 if you do anything less then 3.5 for a subframe drop you'll run into steering shaft problems. But im sure that can be modified and to work with another type of steering extension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Could alwasy do that block spacer where the rubber thing is instead of the joint... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 They are posted directly as attachments on the message board. Anybody else having problems with the pictures? You should be able to click the attachment and have the full photo open. OK I gotcha. Thanks. Those are great pics that show what everyone wants to see. This definately needs to get stickied at once! MODERATORS! ADMIN!! HELLO!!! lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new4x4r Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Morpheus, I'm down for doing a SFD if you are! It looks pretty straight forward :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissandoms47 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 If you do a block spacer and do not add another joint the joint will bind up, i dont think you can even get it at enough of an angle to line up with the crossover box.... You need another joint for any kind of subframe drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 I don't know. From the pics i've seen of the other SFD's overseas, they always just had a block. Maybe they adjusted the steering shaft itself? And YAY for this being stickied!!! (or pinned...whatever) Jose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissandoms47 Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 They could have rotated the rack and pinion, maybe it has soemthing to do with that all those overseas r50 sfd pictures are right hand drive i dont know. Id just stick with the extra joint.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted September 19, 2009 Share Posted September 19, 2009 Another quetion. What size are the blocks. i mean how wide are they? 2" 3"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 My blocks are all 2.5" x 3.5" with the 3.5" becoming the lift. All blocks are also 6" long. The struts sit at an average angle of 12 degrees off the vertical axis (going from side to side of the vehicle). I'm going to fab the strut spacers so the strut stays at the same degree. On another thought, although alot harder to design and fabricate, a much better solution would be to put the spacer at the bottom of the strut where it bolts to the spindle. Has anyone seen something like this before? It would provide ample tire clearance as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiganAve Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 My blocks are all 2.5" x 3.5" with the 3.5" becoming the lift. All blocks are also 6" long. The struts sit at an average angle of 12 degrees off the vertical axis (going from side to side of the vehicle). I'm going to fab the strut spacers so the strut stays at the same degree. On another thought, although alot harder to design and fabricate, a much better solution would be to put the spacer at the bottom of the strut where it bolts to the spindle. Has anyone seen something like this before? It would provide ample tire clearance as well! Bottom of spindle would certainly be possible. One person played with the idea actually, but I don't think he made it work. If you are feeling adventurous, I really think coilovers would be the way to go! With the original strut spacers on top, 33x12.5 barely clears my strut with 3.75 backspacing. But it works. 35x12.5 has been done as well. You are correct that the strut spacer must be made at an angle. I seem to remember 11 degree range? I couldn't find the specs searching though. Perhaps Tyler, Keith, or Alex are willing to share what they used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted September 21, 2009 Author Share Posted September 21, 2009 Bottom of spindle would certainly be possible. One person played with the idea actually, but I don't think he made it work. If you are feeling adventurous, I really think coilovers would be the way to go! With the original strut spacers on top, 33x12.5 barely clears my strut with 3.75 backspacing. But it works. 35x12.5 has been done as well. You are correct that the strut spacer must be made at an angle. I seem to remember 11 degree range? I couldn't find the specs searching though. Perhaps Tyler, Keith, or Alex are willing to share what they used. Coilovers would be nice but unfortunately can't be used in place of struts. Struts act as an upper control arm which is why they have a much thicker piston shaft among other things. Plus they are really expensive. I may pursue making a lower strut mount extension, I just have to check the minimum amount I'll have to lift to do it. The angle really depends on the condition of your struts and I didn't remove the wheel or anything so I just got an average over a couple measurements. If you design it around the angle when the system is fully dropped, it should be within spec at all ranges and it will be consistent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 What honda U-Joint is used to extend the steering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted September 22, 2009 Author Share Posted September 22, 2009 All right so strut spacers it is. After drafting up our strut suspension in Autocad, it occurred to me that we would need at least a 5" suspension lift and the steering axis would be thrown off requiring us to either relocate the strut upper mount or make longer a-arms. Although longer A-arms would be ideal, but i'm not quite ready to produce a set of those yet, unless I had a donor arm to make a jig with Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissandoms47 Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 How'd you come to this conclusion? I never had any problems with my setups.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted September 22, 2009 Author Share Posted September 22, 2009 How'd you come to this conclusion? I never had any problems with my setups.. I'm talking about adding a spacer on the bottom of the strut in my previous post. It will mess up the steering geometry unless fixed by the items I suggested (or similar). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted September 22, 2009 Author Share Posted September 22, 2009 Maybe I'll explain myself a little better. First of all, our struts sit an angle of 12 degrees side to side and 5 degrees front to back (with suspension at full droop). Now I measured this on my driveway so it might be off a little bit due to the angle it was sitting at on the ground. Now, if the 5 degrees is changed, it will not have a great effect on the vehicle. But if we change the 12 degrees, then we are messing with the alignment and the tires will wear unevenly. I think most of us knew this already, that's why it was agreed that we need angled strut spacers to maintain alignment. So while making angled spacers isn't that big of a deal, it puts unnecessary forces on the strut mounts and ultimately the body. What I mean by this is that the stresses are no longer axial, but a torque is applied to the mounts as well. Basically, I'm trying to avoid making angled strut mounts to keep the stresses near stock. Anybody know how much in and out play I have in the CV axles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted October 14, 2009 Author Share Posted October 14, 2009 Here is the strut spacer flange Autocad file that I drafted up. To anyone that I sent the previous file to, this one is updated and fits a little better. I got 4 of these cut out of 1/4" mild steel and they will be welded to 4" ID 1/4" round steel tubing cut angled at 12 degrees I'm slowly accumulating all the parts I need to put together this lift. I have everything really except the rear spacers and the steering shaft (which I will probably have to do a design-build on) as well as some misc stuff. It would go a lot faster if this vehicle wasn't my winter DD! R50 Strut Spacer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiganAve Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Sounds like you are making some nice progress. Keep us up to date! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180sx Posted November 22, 2009 Share Posted November 22, 2009 I can't pull up the file..damn it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift220 Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 So this afternoon I started the tear down. Its now jacked up high in the air with everything torn apart. Blocks have been fitted and I'll powder coat them tomorrow morning. All that's left is to see if the strut spacers will work, figure out the steering spacer and reassembly! Pics to come very soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
01silvapathy Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Sweet Man, didnt even know you started building stuff, take pics of, where you are putting everything, and especially the engine lift blocks as those are the most difficult to install, or so I have heard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now