Ammon Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 1990 3.0 SE 5 spd First off Im wondering if anyone knows where to find any torsion keys to get 2 in lift in my front suspension. Also If I can find a torsion key to get 2 in the front Im looking at putting a 2 in coil spacer in the rear(that or 2 in taller coils if I can find them not sure yet). Then doing 2 inches body lift. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Would I have to make mods to gas lines, brakelines, TF case, etc? Any places to look. I've been googling and looking on 4x4parts.com. 4x4 seems to not have much choices and not what I'm looking for. What's everyone's thoughts on this? I'm kind of on a budget and I know that budgets and quality lifts don't really go hand in hand but I've got tools, welder, and a few fabrication resources on hand. So if anyone has any ideas let me know. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewebster Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 I'm not really a torsion bar suspension expert or anything, but my understanding is that people don't really use different torsion keys for WD21s. They just crank up the torsion bars, "re-indexing" the spline engagement at the front if necessary. Replacement aftermarket upper a-arms can be used, some of which properly modify the upper ball joint angle and allow for proper alignment. There are also some ball joint spacers/angle adjusters floating around, but these are less common. It is pretty common to go up to 3" suspension lift in the front this way. Search the forum and you should find tons of info on doing suspension lifts and body lifts. 2+2 is no problem. 3+3 is more common and might actually be easier because of that. With 3+3 you can fit 33" tires withou issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamzan Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Best lift "on a budget" is the JGC springs and a t bar crank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammon Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 I'm not really a torsion bar suspension expert or anything, but my understanding is that people don't really use different torsion keys for WD21s. They just crank up the torsion bars, "re-indexing" the spline engagement at the front if necessary. Replacement aftermarket upper a-arms can be used, some of which properly modify the upper ball joint angle and allow for proper alignment. There are also some ball joint spacers/angle adjusters floating around, but these are less common. It is pretty common to go up to 3" suspension lift in the front this way. Search the forum and you should find tons of info on doing suspension lifts and body lifts. 2+2 is no problem. 3+3 is more common and might actually be easier because of that. With 3+3 you can fit 33" tires withou issues. Thanks a lot, yeah it looks like I already have OEM replacement torsion bars. Just cranked those as high as possible, I have 32.25'' from ground to fender right now. I have 31x10.5 tires and they fit fine, just a little rubbing when cutting all the way in reverse. Based on what you say 3+3 is better for me. Is 4x4parts the best place for that? Also, any idea of how much adjusting I'll have to do as far as brakelines, gaslines, TF case, etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammon Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Best lift "on a budget" is the JGC springs and a t bar crank. I cant find this anywhere. any idea where i could find them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammon Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 4x4parts says these upper control arms will provide 3in of lift in the front, I was wondering if it means it "can" provide or "will" provide that 3in. Also how. Seems like it's much harder to find front SL components for WD21s than rear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puckstoper9 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 The control arms don't provide any lift. The lift is achieved by cranking the torsion bars. Replacing the upper control arms is done to correct the ball joint angle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahardb0dy Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 "JGC coils" are coil springs out of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, usually taken from a junk yard vehicle. 31's came stock on most pathfinders so you shouldn't need to crank the torsion bars all the way up to fit them, unless you are using an aftermarket wheel with different back spacing than the stock wheels or a wider wheel than stock. How much space do you have between the bottom of the upper control arm and the rubber bump stops? If you have the bars cranked all the way and the upper control arm is sitting on the bump stop than the truck is going to ride very rough with no downward suspension travel. Can you post a pic? Here is my 94 PF with 31's on the stock wheels after I re-indexed the torsion bars, with around 1/2" clearance between the upper control arm (UCA) and the bump stop: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewebster Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 The FSM has instructions on how to set your t-bars to factory spec. So you might want to do that and then raise it a certain amount from there, if you care about getting an "accurate" lift anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammon Posted February 3, 2012 Author Share Posted February 3, 2012 "JGC coils" are coil springs out of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, usually taken from a junk yard vehicle. 31's came stock on most pathfinders so you shouldn't need to crank the torsion bars all the way up to fit them, unless you are using an aftermarket wheel with different back spacing than the stock wheels or a wider wheel than stock. How much space do you have between the bottom of the upper control arm and the rubber bump stops? If you have the bars cranked all the way and the upper control arm is sitting on the bump stop than the truck is going to ride very rough with no downward suspension travel. Can you post a pic? Here is my 94 PF with 31's on the stock wheels after I re-indexed the torsion bars, with around 1/2" clearance between the upper control arm (UCA) and the bump stop: "JGC coils" are coil springs out of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, usually taken from a junk yard vehicle. 31's came stock on most pathfinders so you shouldn't need to crank the torsion bars all the way up to fit them, unless you are using an aftermarket wheel with different back spacing than the stock wheels or a wider wheel than stock. How much space do you have between the bottom of the upper control arm and the rubber bump stops? If you have the bars cranked all the way and the upper control arm is sitting on the bump stop than the truck is going to ride very rough with no downward suspension travel. Can you post a pic? Here is my 94 PF with 31's on the stock wheels after I re-indexed the torsion bars, with around 1/2" clearance between the upper control arm (UCA) and the bump stop: Thanks a bunch, Ok my bad, I've been looking around the forum and I've seen people saying they use cherokee springs and didn't even put 2 and 2 together for JGC. By chance do you know generally how much those springs lift the rear? If not I'll look around the forum. I had my 31's on before I cranked up the torsion bars, I just cranked em up yesterday to see how much more I could get out of them. 1/2 inch is what I got. Still have a whole inch between the rubber stoppers and UCAs and LCAs, so no problems there. Here's a pic for you. I did a lot of searching around last night to find out about lifting the front end suspension. My conclusion is a t-bar crank, UCAs and ball joint spacers. Not all, but some people mention getting calmini t-bars. This is my main question now... is getting new t-bars required to lift the front end? Or if I get UCAs and ball joint spacers will i be able to get more lift out of my current T-bar(keeping in mind I have fairly new OEM replacements, still pretty stiff)??? Do I have to get new T-bars? Now I've looked around a lot and cannot find a definitive answer. Thanks a lot for the help, I just don't fully understand how T-bar suspension works so this makes it hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andreus009 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=17038 Have you tried this yet? After market torsion bars are generally stiffer than OEM; therefore for each turn of the adjusting bolt you get more push so theoretically can get more lift. Keep in mind at some point you will need those other upper control arms so your tires can be correctly aligned. If you raise the vehicles enough to get the wheels off the ground and look at the tires from the front they look like this \ /. Sitting on the pavement it should look something like this | |. Crank your T-bars and don't do alignment is like raising the vehicle so your tires starting looking like this \ /. With enough cranking there isn't enough adjustment with stock upper control arms to get back to | |, so you end up replacing upper control arms. That is the best I can explain in a few paragraphs. There are other posts here abouts going into the details of lifting these vehicles. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammon Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Thanks! your description and that how-to Is exactly what I needed to know. Now I just need to figure out exactly what I want to do. Thinking of seeing how much I can get with my t-bars, then bringing it back down until I get the UCAs, ball joint spacers and rear springs. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahardb0dy Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 You can crank the stock bars, the aftermarket bars tend to hold the amount of lift longer and they are also slightly stiffer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trogdor636 Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Rear Springs Info for the Jeep Grand Cherokee springs is in that thread. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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