NISSAN LONG TRAVEL KIT/NISSAN LIFT

[The_Magicians_Eye]

Yes, but generally long travel 4wd is for high speed....solid axles dont do that well. I want high speed performance and rock crawling.

 

Yes i want my cake and to eat it too.

 

You need to spend a little more time checking out the rigs that run the Hammers with solid axles. These guys are hauling ass through the desert. Back in the day it wasn't practical but now days with the shock technology and the the solid axles setups it's a whole different ball game.

[ahardb0dy]

I'm sure it was a repeat, but on TRUCKS this weekend they did a feature on shock tuning with Bilstein on site and they were saying that tuning the shocks for high speed driving works very well when rock crawling. They showed the truck with cameras on the chassis before and after the shock tuning, made a big difference. I guess anyone, for a fee (large I would guess) can have Bilstein tune their shocks.

[Balln]

^ like he is saying look into the king of the Hammers style rigs Or Rock Racers. Rock crawler/Trophy truck Search Shannon Campbell he is the @!*% and his shop is right down the road from my house. He did some wrok on my dads jeep before i knew who he was. Him and his Brother Nick are cool guys and there Work is flawless

 

And let the fun begin

 

[Heloflyboy]

They have a jeep cherokee class in desert racing and they haul @#@ through the desert with a solid front axle. Not that long ago all 4x4 trucks that competed in BAJA 1000 were solid front axle. If you are not building a trophy truck and want something good in rocks and desert, just do SAS.

[The_Magicians_Eye]

Here is the problem with making a long travel 4x4 kit. "Long Travel" will result in a very limited mid travel when compared to true long travel suspension. Think about it, there is still a very long "dif" that looks more like a solid axle with CVs on the ends stuck in the middle of most production trucks. Now keep this in mind, there are two ways to get long travel suspension. #1 you can install longer axles and longer arms. The problem with this is that you'll end out with the front suspension about a foot wider than the rear to get some real long travel suspension because of how wide the front dif is in a production truck. #2 you could cut the whole front end off the truck and completely redesign the drivetrain. You'd have to install a center mounted dif that is essentially just the pumpkin with CVs mounted directly to it and move those long arms and axles closer to the center of the truck to limit the width of the front end.

 

You would be basically be building a race truck and if that's the case might as well buy a race ready ultra 4 from someone and save some money on trying to build it yourself.

 

Take a look at this pic of a pro 4wheel drive race truck. The engine is located basically in the passenger seat area to insure that the front drive line runs down the center of the truck to the center mounted diff. Also see how close those upper and lower arms are mounter to each other? This is what needs to be done to get a real "long travel" suspension out of IRS 4X4. I hope I'm not coming off like a dick or anything. Just trying to pass along a little more insight on the subject.

 

 

Personally I really like the mid travel red pathy in the pics with it's 4x4 setup. However I go back and forth with whether I would want a setup like that. I don't like how wide the front suspension is compared to the rear end at all. Id have to widen the rear too. But then I ask what's the point in doing that when I'm only going to get about 5 more inches of travel. That's a ton of money, time and effort for very limited results. I'm constantly having to remind myself if I want a race car then I need to build/buy one rather than trying to make my daily driver capable of performing like a race car. It would be cheaper to just buy a race car. This is why people build those ugly ass rock rigs. It's cheaper because they don't have to worry about all the details that they would have to worry about if they needed to drive the thing every day.

[The_Magicians_Eye]

 

Looks like the solid axle is working damn good to me.

[The_Magicians_Eye]

You want some fskced up news? That red Pathy sold for $4000 just like you see it in the pics. It was forsale for about a month at that price on the desert rangers forum. And he threw in a 4 inch wider rear axle with it.

 

That brings a tear to my eye. If I would have known that before today I would have bought it.

[Slartibartfast]

Just watched the vid... is that a duffel bag tied to the back (starting one minute in)? Hope there was nothing fragile in there LOL

[Mr.510]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eCYMiHl9Us&feature=g-vrec&context=G2b02a6bRVAAAAAAAAAg

Looks like the solid axle is working damn good to me.

 

I'd say no. Not compared to even a decent bolt-on long travel IFS setup like they run in Frontiers and Titans. Notice how much time the front tires spend off the ground? That truck's speed is severely limited over the whoops by the tremendous amount of unsprung weight up front. There's also nothing in that video of the truck going over a diagonal water bar or offset whoops where one tire hits the bump before the other. That kind of stuff puts solid front axle trucks on their head.

 

It is entirely possible to build a stock-width, long-travel IFS Pathy with no seriously expensive or exotic hardware. Use an R200 housing from a 240SX with Pathy gears swapped in mounted centered in the chassis. That makes the oil pan a serious bugger, but it's do-able. You're going to need a baffled, high capacity pan to run at speed in the desert so you gotta build one anyway if you want the motor to live. Getting the driveshaft past the bell housing is a question mark, next time I'm under a Pathy I'll see if the U-joint angles and bell housing clearance look possible. A notch could be cut out of the bell housing and a small diameter driveshaft built if necessary. Next you obviously throw away the stock arms and the T-bars. Build custom LCAs with pivot points on the chassis a foot or less apart and upper arms so long they almost hit the headers. Locate the coilovers just behind the CV shafts to reduce the amount of twisting load on the LCAs. I would modify and fully gusset the stock Pathy spindles as they allow you to retain stuff like readily available cheap CVs, hubs, and brake components. If they prove to be weak they could be replaced with something custom built from scratch.

 

Then you have to work out the steering. It might be possible to run a short version of a center link with the idler and Pitman arms indexed inward when going straight ahead. Or maybe just move the inner TRE pivot points closer together on a custom CL that's stock width? I'd have to work up some baseline numbers on the A-arm angles to know if that's even remotely feasible. Worst case you'd have to put a Trophy truck rack in it or something, I imagine there's a ton of outdated, used off road race hardware out there for (relatively) cheap like there is in all other forms of racing?

 

Next you need some custom long half shafts, this can be done the way Jimmy Baja did for his wide long-travel setup by sleeving them with some DOM tube but that's not exactly the 'right' way to do it. The right way is custom billet shafts and they are gonna be about a grand.

 

I'm going to guess such a setup's limiting factor would be the stock-based spindle and bearings. You could probably run 35s but due to the drop in unsprung weight 33s would probably be better for high speed use.

 

If it were done by sleeving the CV shafts and running a weird center link that retained the stock box and idler, and there's room for the front driveshaft, I think I could pull it off for less than $5k turn-key. Who wants to be first in line?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, didn't think there'd be any takers!

[The_Magicians_Eye]

Not saying it impossible I'm saying it's impractical. I'd be willing to bet that it couldn't be done, work properly and be reliable for anything close to $5000. But until someone is willing to put there money where their mouth is this is all pointless.

 

Saying it could be done for $5000 is like these shows on tv that declare we can build ?whatever? for $5000. Then you find out they got $20000 in free parts from some place and they didn't account for all the nickel and dime expenses that added up to a few thousand dollars. Or they just happened to have high dollar parts laying around their shop that they didn't declare a value for.

[The_Magicians_Eye]

I'm not sure what most of you expect from a long travel 4x4 but these seem to be doing everything I'd want to do just fine. With a solid axle.

 

[Mr.510]

Not saying it impossible I'm saying it's impractical. I'd be willing to bet that it couldn't be done, work properly and be reliable for anything close to $5000. But until someone is willing to put there money where their mouth is this is all pointless.

 

Saying it could be done for $5000 is like these shows on tv that declare we can build ?whatever? for $5000. Then you find out they got $20000 in free parts from some place and they didn't account for all the nickel and dime expenses that added up to a few thousand dollars. Or they just happened to have high dollar parts laying around their shop that they didn't declare a value for.

 

So you're saying I can't accurately quote a custom built long travel front suspension system? Projects like this are what I do for a living! I have 20 years professional experience designing race car parts. The (likely) world's first triangulated four link coilover rear suspended 2nd gen. Frontier is being built in my shop right now. There are lots of people on forums that talk out their a$$ about stuff they know nothing about. I am not one of them.

[The_Magicians_Eye]

Not trying to insult you or get into a pissing match but I stand by what I said. Feel free to build it and proove me wrong on the cost and I'll gladly retract everything I said.

 

Just keep in mind Total Chaos sells a mid travel 4x4 frontier kit for $2540 and that only comes with arms, hardware, brake lines, and bushings. No axles, no spindles, no coilovers, no steering, no glass fenders (their kit requires it), no installation, no spings, no nitrogen to charge the shocks, no shock hoops or proper hoop support required for coilovers, and the list could go on and on for it to be built properly and hold up to real abuse. So yeah I still stand by my opinion. Take it for what it's worth. It's just that, an opinion.

[Reshma]

Sorry to revive the dead but is there anyone who makes a long travel REAR suspension kit? I'm going 2wd long travel rear but I can't seem to find any kits anywhere. Was hoping it would be out there before forcing me to go custom. If I need to go custom I might aswell save myself the trouble and drop a hardbody rear end on it so I can use leaf springs.