Nevermind. Hi-jacked.

Could you 2nd and 3rd gen guys with 2 or 2.5" lifts please post how much down travel your rigs have?

I have an 2008 that I put Dobinsons IMS coilovers on. Still waiting for the springs to settle but I've only got about 1.5" of down travel which seems like not a lot.

Looking forward to hearing what you guys are getting on your various lifts. Thanks!

 

If you only have 1.5" of down travel how are your kidneys still functioning? How did you measure?

 

That’s a big problem. You’ll be maxing out extension of the front springs very easily. What’s the measurement from the center of your front hub straight up to the bottom edge of the fender. Did you take pre-lift measurements? Stock is ~21.8 on average (unless your truck is new and the stock suspension hadn’t settled any). If you’re not running any armor or winch, take the measurement I requested and subtract the 21.8”. That’ll be a close estimate of the lift you got.

 

Also, you’re the 3rd guy in a week with the same complaint with the same lift.

 

Yeah.... you've got to be wrong in how you came up with this measurement.

 

Thanks for the constructive input! I really do appreciate it.

I have been tracking my ride height over the last several days as the new springs settle. I am at 25". Slightly higher on the passenger side even after I removed passenger coilover and set it to the lowest setting to account for the driver side lean. So yeah, definitely sitting higher than the advertised 2.25" lift of the Dobinsons 610 springs.

If I take the same measurements with the front wheels at max droop (just off the ground) I get 1.5" of down travel. Not binding or hanging up on anything. This is limited by the coilover, likely because the coilovers are lifting me higher than advertised.

I bought my truck used and the previous owner had a spacer lift on it so I have no way to compare my ride height to what it was stock. I am running a bumper and winch but I have only had the winch on for a day. I want to give these springs a chance to settle before I raise the alarm but a "2.25" inch lift with only 1.5" of down travel (droop) in the suspension worries me.

Also, I feel like a couple guys who responded to the tread don't understand the issue at all. Down travel is the amount of travel the wheel can move down relative to the vehicle. Think about what what a wheel does when driving over a dip or a pot hole. Uptravel gets all the glory for letting a guy hit bumps at high speed and soak them up. I have uptravel for days now. I am concerned with downtravel. It's good that the tires can stay in contact with the ground when my truck gets "light" going over whoops and dips. Also good for articulation when crawling.

I have 1.5 inches of downtravel. What do you have?

 

So you measured from bottom of fender to center of hub normal and then raised it till the front tire was at full droop and re-measured? Your response above was cut off. Also.... where assuming you're talking about the front... since you didn't specify.... but you did mention coilovers

 

My OME lift left me with .75” downtravel. No, I didn’t measure wrong. It lifted my truck 4.75” but was supposed to lift 2.5-3”.

 

Thank you for sharing that. Very helpful to see real world data from others. Hopefully other people chime in with their numbers.

 

I didn't measure wrong either!!!! Hahahaha. Man oh man.

 

Ok... no one is harping on you two here now...I just measured mine so I'd know about my truck. I lifted from my front skid plate until both front tires where barely touching. My front end, beginning from the bottom of front fender to the ground was 44" and 50" at full droop.....FYI I have a mid travel suspension as well so I don't know what the factory numbers are here. I have icon coilovers that are set to 2.5 inches.
***edit***
I'm also on 37s so my height numbers will be different from yours....droop shouldn't be that far off from factory though

 

Is the height adjustable on those? If so post some pics of how they look now so we can all count the threads and either say "dang man crank them down!" Or "holy crap you're all the way down???"

 

.75 inches means something definitely needs to change here!

 

If you're talking to me, all name brand aftermarket coilovers are adjustable.

 

Just need to measure from the lower bolt to the top hat of the front shock. Measuring with the tire gets a little iffy since the sidewall height, load range could affect this.

 

Height is adjustable. Similar set up to the 6110's - C clip to adjust the height of the coil base. I have the passenger side adjusted to the lowest position. Driver's side is one up from the lowest to account for lean. I'd have to get softer and/or shorter coils to get the advertised 2.25" lift even with my bumper and winch! Hopefully they settle a bit more. I'm a solid inch over where I want to be. Not the end of the world but I don't want to sacrifice downtravel just to gain height. I want my tires to stay on the ground as much as possible when I'm driving quick on double track and whatnot.

 

You are correct, those are additional variables in this, that is undeniable. Measuring to the center of the hub negates most, but not all of the tire deformation under load. Measuring to the center of the hub is plenty close to get the info I'm looking for though. Thank you for your input.

 

Ok... that only cut out quarter of an inch... so...5.75" of droop..... so the tires didn't really affect this...... unless you're the guy with .75" of droop

 

Still curious what the stock droop is on these trucks

 

The stock assembly is a coilover. OME and a few others are not adjustable, so could be a set like that. If these have threads or clips then I'd say move em down... until he mentioned they are down.

@RJVA if you're at the lowest setting, assuming all is installed correctly, that's a bummer. There is no way your spring perch is upside down right? I've seen guys do that on 5100s. I'm not familiar with this particular assembly.

You are fine measuring from your fender to hub, thats the best way to measure. Your method of measuring while your truck is on the ground, then raising the truck to measure again is correct.

Did you measure this immediately after install? By that I mean the truck just hit the ground and hadn't been driven or aligned yet? When you first set an IFS truck down, tire friction will prevent the suspension from fully compressing. Driving forward and backward a bit relieves this. Alignment typically lowers the truck around half an inch as well, raising the truck puts weight on the outside edge of the tires when camber goes positive. Alignment corrects the camber and flattens the stance.

 

The proper way to measure this, so everybody’s number coincide, is from the center of the front wheel center cap straight up to the bottom edge of the fender.

my numbers now are
25.5 DS
25 7/8 PS

 

My numbers were, when I only had .75” of downtravel, were:
27.25” PS

26.75” DS

Right after I swapped to the shorter 614’s:
26 3/8”. PS

25.75”. DS

 

Guess I could have specified "Name brand adjustable coilover" and to take any further confusion out....Icon, Fox, King, ADS......even Falcon

****edit****
To further remove confusion you should probably mention what all you have as far as aftermarket suspension goes and what settings that you're on.

 

Not a big deal. All those except Falcon im familiar with. Dobinsons I have not seen in real life, pictures I looked at appeared to be threaded.

A few first gen guys got more lift than they wanted from dobinson coils as well. I suspect their lift ranges are calculated with heavy bumpers/armor in mind. OME is pretty known for over-delivering lift on coils as well.

 

I could be wrong... so correct me if I am, but I believe these mentioned brands have an inch or two more of travel over stock. Aftermarket UCA also allow you to make full use of this as well. I'm still not understanding how @The Patriot 1776 can only have around .75" of down travel. I'm not saying he's wrong, because clearly he's measured more than once.... just wondering what the issue is.

 

Great input here from you.
I have had the lift on for a couple weeks. Not a lot of miles driven yet but I did do an aggressive snowbashing/wheeling trip right after I had my alignment done. Still sitting an inch higher than I want but I didn't add my winch until yesterday. I'll give it 500 more miles with the winch and see what the springs do. Also the spring perches are definitely on right, there is a relief that interfaces with the pig tail side of the coil. Spring sits nice in both perches.

 

Your shocks probably are not the limiting factor on droop. Your sway bar will limit the droop, then probably the tie rods, then the shock. Some manufacturers make a coilover with a bit more extension to work with aftermarket upper arms, others stick to stock compression/extension to avoid liability.

As far as Patriot, without knowing what his truck has going on he did mention stock height is roughly 22" hub to fender and he is around 26". His lift is using up his down travel. I believe these trucks have either 11 or 12" total travel in stock form, if he used up 4" for lift he won't have much left. He might find an extra inch if he removes the swaybar.

 

I forgot to mention I took my sway bar off when I installed my lift. I definitely feel like the coilover is the limiting factor. If I loosen the four top bolt for the shock mount and let it hang down a bit it allows the LCA to drop more. Tie rod is not stopping it but I am sure cycling the tierods that low while driving will result in some undesirable steering characteristics.

 

I measured my down travel and it's only about 2.5" right now. The IMS shock is definitely the limiting factor. I'm not sure if Dobinsons did this to keep the CVs alive but there is room for more. Here is a shot at full droop.

 

Just measured mine because I was curious. Bone stock: 21.5" hub to fender and 25" when I jack it up and both front wheels are floating. So I got 3.5" down travel but you could accuse me of sagging when it has weight on it since the suspension has 150k on it.

Edit: Because math is hard