Hey guys I need some help. I am getting a 88' pickup and plan on making it into a trophy truck/prerunner but i'm having a few problems finding the info I need to make the proper front suspension plans. First of all how long are the stock lower a-arms... from what I could see I was guessin 12 to 14 inches. Does anybody know the actual length. Second, what is the max angle with the stock cv joints? I know that with suspension lifts the most you are supposed to be able to get is 4" because it wears the cv joints with anymore. Doing some calculations I figured out that a stock suspension setup with 4" of lift would double the angle of the cv joint over stock with no lift. Is this correct? If this is true that I think my design should be ok. The third thing I need to know is what the sprung weight of each front corner is individually. The spring rate calculator I'm using asks for this and I have no idea how to figure it out... I'd appreciate any help and after I get all this info I should have a pretty good suspension design to share with you guys.

 

I don't think stock a-arms and other suspension components are strong enough to be modded into a long travel set-up, if that's what you're planning on doing.

You need something like this:

http://www.chaosfab.com/95200.html

 

You should really weigh YOUR truck - there can be considerable differences depending on how many mods you have, what you carry, wheels/tires, etc.

What length are you looking for on the arms - from where to where?

For some reason 23* comes to mind for the stock CV's. You can get up to 29* with Porsche inners.

You can't get 4" of lift with the stock CV's - to get that much, you use a bracket to drop the diff down. 3" of lift will pretty well spell death for the CV's/

 

Oh i'm talking 30" long home made a-arms and 25 inches of wheel travel. Not the measley total chaos kit that gives you like 12" travel

 

Oh geez ... here we go again ...

(NOTE: Link may contain some non-family-friendly language!)
http://www.ttora.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121847

 

also i might mention that i plan on moving the a arm mounting locations in if possiable

 

also while i might be being a noob... i'm not being a dumb noob, I've done around 7 months of research on and off for this Just throwin that out there

 

I'm not sure if there exists a CV joint that can accomodate 25+ inches of travel...unless the center shaft is like 3' long...

 

Then you would realize that multi-million dollar trophy trucks with the best chassis-engineering minds in the world barely pull those kinds of travel numbers, and they are 2WD.

Pulling 25" of travel reliably with 4WD is a considerable engineering challenge. Not saying it can't be done ...

 

You could make a solid front axle with 25+ inches of up and down travel...

Probably wouldn't ride very well though.

 

Robbie gordan's trophy truck is 2wd and has 35" of front travel... The pro 4 class in corr racing that are in fact 4wd run 30" of travel. Also might i add that most trophy trucks are actuallly around 300k and not multi million dollors, and they are only 300k because they only use brand new parts and everything, and i meen everything is custom... I just think this wouldnt be quite as hard as everybody makes it out to be, it would be challenging, but then again its challenging to make every other custom made part with just an idea

 

Ya it would most likely be a little rough

 

In all seriousness, I was dead set on doing a long travel set up when I got on this board, and after a lot of research, I figured out that it would be outrageously expensive and that I just don't have the money/time to do it. Now I'm (after months of research and setup) going after a killer rock crawling style setup that I think will give me a good all around vehicle. I still expect to spend several thousand dollars (that sounds outrageous but if people started counting receipts around here you'd see it isn't) and several months (if not years) getting my truck to where I want it to be.

Heck, it took me almost 8 months just to chop my 4Runner bed, and it still isn't quite done. Granted, I'm still in college, but still.

It's deceiving, you may think you just have to get the suspension setup and go, but you need fenders, all kinds of bracing, new rear suspension to match your wider front track, all kinds of stuff.

Jumping/going too fast breaks things like no other, jars your teeth, breaks fingers in steering wheels, trashes components, etc. Nobody (generally) breaks stuff going really slow and steady, things get broken when you bind up, get a wheel up/spin it then hit the ground, or start hopping.

 

Check your numbers, those are rear wheel travel. Post a link if I'm wrong and those are indeed front travel numbers.

 

Ok first of all t1000, total buzz kill lol... and tc, you might be right on that one, it looks more like upper 20s front and upper 30s rear... but i coulda swore i read somewhere he had 35" front travel cuz i remember being like... holy !@#$ 35 inches front, what would the rear travel be...

 

whats the difference between travel and articulation?

 

I think they're the same thing

 

I thought travel was how far up and down a wheel can move, and articulation was how far up and down a wheel can move without negatively affecting another wheel.

 

That's why TC posted that link to TTORA: Because another guy came on there (Though not nearly as nice And went on and on about 33" of FRONT travel.

You need to be clear when you talk about this, because well... I hate to say it, it's a running joke on 4wheeling forums and it's a quick way to get ribbed for being a noob.

Hope you can work something up though!

 

you might get some good solid answers if you ask this on dezertrangers or racedezert. all they do is desert trucks and racing. lots on skilled people when it come to this kind of suspension stuff.