lift kits

[Skatedownpdx]

im looking at purchasing a lift kit for my 91 loyale. what is a good lift kit i should use. it is my daily driver and i want good ground clearance cause im up at hood everyweekend. also i read in a post about 5th gear being compeletly useless can someone fill me in?

[Jibs]

There are a few companies who make lift kits for soobs. Ozified.com has them, alliedarmament.com has them and SJRlifts.com has them. SJR has a 3 1/2" kit and the others have a 3 and 4" kits. Normally when you lift a soob and put bigger tires on, 5th gear becomes nonessential as the gearing is affected and 5th gear doesn't get much use. Look into those guys, and maybe try a search to find out what lift kits other members like.

[Numbchux]

It's been discussed.....

 

but having just tweaked the heck out of the rear crossmember block on a BYB lifted wagon, on a trail that my AA lifted wagon (with smaller tires) had no trouble.......I'd definate get AA or SJR.

[Phizinza]

I'll just throw in a bit of info on what a "lift kit" really does.

 

A "lift kit" for a subaru is a body type one. This means all it does is lifts the body off the "running gear". The running gear is, engine, gearbox, rear diff, rear torsion/swing arm, and struts. The reason they don't do "suspension lifts" for Subaru's is because of the independent suspension. If you lift the suspension you will break the CV joints.

A body lift doesn't give you more ground clearance. Basically all it does is add more room between the fender guards and the tires. Which allows you to install bigger tires. When you put bigger tires on a car the gearing changes, because you will travel further on one rotation of the wheel. If you get a 4" lift you should be able put 27" tires on without cutting/bashing anything. This will increase your gearing by about 20%.

just my 2 cents.

 

Cheers, Phizinza

http://www.offroadingsubarus.com

[gunslinger]

.

A body lift doesn't give you more ground clearance. Basically all it does is add more room between the fender guards and the tires. Cheers, Phizinza

 

 

wrong. seeing how a subaru is a unibody, no frame, any lift manufactured to drop the suspension from the body would be classified as a suspension lift.

 

if you were to body lift a toyota pickup, yes, it would simply give you more clearance for tires from the fenders. because it has a frame.

 

an easy way to prove this point. measure the body clearance of the bottom of the body of a car with no lift. then measure the body clearance of a car WITH a lift. higher number = more ground clearance = suspension lift.

 

henceforth - any lift manufactured to drop the suspension from the body of the car (subaru), would be considered a suspension lift. seeing how its unibody and all.

 

and thats MY two cents......

[Uberoo]

I'd rather run 930 CV's and actually raise the height of the diff before bigger meats.But seeing how I don't live in the land of money trees...

[88HatchMonster]

wrong. seeing how a subaru is a unibody, no frame, any lift manufactured to drop the suspension from the body would be classified as a suspension lift.

 

if you were to body lift a toyota pickup, yes, it would simply give you more clearance for tires from the fenders. because it has a frame.

 

 

PK/Ozified is a body lift. Period. The running gear/suspension is untouched, and the body is literally raised 3-4 inches.

 

I guess you could say that the AA lifts are a somewhat of a combination body/suspension lift because they lift the body and also tuck the rear diff up higher increasing the resting angle of the rear axles.

 

Phizinza's point was a good one. A lift kit on a Subaru will definately improve your approach and departure angles, but it won't give you any more ground clearance because the body is not the lowest point on the car. The rear diff is in the back and the Y-pipe and oil pan is on the front. Larger tires or cranked up suspension is the only way to elevate those points.

[Rollie715]

One more thought.

Since a Subaroo does not have a full frame, a lift kit will give you more clearance underneath in some situations. In particular the center of the car between the front and rear axles is higher allowing you to drive over sharper ridges without high centering.

 

The following car would have driven right over the shown obstacle if it had a 4" lift:

 

 

Rollie

[Subarian]

Phizinza's point was a good one. A lift kit on a Subaru will definately improve your approach and departure angles, but it won't give you any more ground clearance because the body is not the lowest point on the car. The rear diff is in the back and the Y-pipe and oil pan is on the front. Larger tires or cranked up suspension is the only way to elevate those points.

 

This is true up to a point. Even if you only lift the body so you can put on bigger tires, the increased tire diameter will give you more ground clearance to the lowest point on the car. In fact, if you just put on the biggest tires you can without a lift (I think you can fit up to around 27") you'll increase your clearance by 2 inches.

[gunslinger]

A lift kit on a Subaru will definately improve your approach and departure angles, but it won't give you any more ground clearance because the body is not the lowest point on the car. The rear diff is in the back and the Y-pipe and oil pan is on the front. Larger tires or cranked up suspension is the only way to elevate those points.

 

wrong AGAIN. man. figure it out guys. if this was true then EVERY lift kit for EVERY truck wouldnt be a "suspension lift". you can shove 28" of lift under a solid axle truck an still have 9" under the front and rear diff if you dont put bigger tires on it simply because "thats the lowest point of the vehicle". and you cant really classify it as a body lift because it doesnt have a frame. like everything else on or about a subaru, its in a class all by itself. whatever. im over it.

[Phizinza]

Wow..... chill out gunslinger... We all like subies, we just have different ways of understanding things. Please play nice and friendly.

 

As I see it, with a 4" lift and no different tires that MY would still get stuck. Haven't you forgotten that MY's use a 1 piece propshaft. This means even once you put your 4" "body lift" on you will still have the same clearance under the propshaft, rear diff, exhaust, engine, gearbox, and swing arms... So, the way 'I' see it, if this clearance hasn't changed there is no need to call it suspension lift. Because, well, you still don't have clearance on what you want to keep safe! And what is the point of lifting (giving all drive parts a nice new view of all the rocks) if your not going to use that lift to put bigger tires on... Ask just about anyone on this board with a lifted subie and they'll say you'd be nuts to lift a subie and run stock wheels...

 

Ok... So you will get more clearance on each side of your propshaft... And you will get better approach and departcher angles... But you will Not get more clearance under what I call the important things...

 

I can see what your on about gunslinger. But I think you are miss understanding what I am on about too. We can leave it here, I will be happy to do so. But i would like my point of view noticed.

 

On soild axle vehicles a suspension lift moves the axle away from the chassis. I does this because then it has more room to move upwards (back towards the chassis) for what we would call "suspension travle"

A "body lift" on a soild axle vehicle lifts the body upwards from the chassis. Essentially twe get the same results when "body lifting" a Subaru. Which is (the way I see it) giving the ability to attach bigger tires into the fender wells.

 

Hope you all under stand what I am saying.

Sorry about the post being so long, and if I wasn't nice in any part, sorry, but I'm a little tired. As you can see by my grammer being so far off..

 

Cheers, Phizinza.

http://www.OffroadingSubarus.com

[Scott in Bellingham]

whatever you got , go out and have fun with it , my present road car( white EA82) has 3-1/2" lift at the frontstruts, I have kept the front radius rod mounts up in the stock place and modified the radius rods, I have dropped the engine cross member 2" and the tranny mount 1-1/2" , so on the front theres a extra 3-1/2" at the body and a extra 1-1/2" extra at the y pipe over stock, at the rear the only thing dropped is the diff 2" at front and 3" at rear with the shocks lifted 4" , so all that plus whats gained by tire size lets me go places I never could go with the all stock set up, throw in a welded diff and some mud tires and it makes for a great trail rig:brow: enjoy:cool:

[ezapar]

 

Ok... So you will get more clearance on each side of your propshaft... And you will get better approach and departcher angles... But you will Not get more clearance under what I call the important things...

 

 

 

 

Depends on the lift kit. The U.S. version of the BYB kit uses 1 inch shorter blocks at the crossmember. This makes the angle of the driveline and exaust dramatically different. Tucks it up much better than without the differnt size blocks.

 

But you're right, the most important thing in my book is the Y-pipe. There's just no getting it up higher without bigger tires, or a lift big enough to fit a transfer case.

[Numbchux]

or a lift big enough to fit a transfer case.

 

and a tcase opens a whole new can of worms with the front diff mounting, and crossmember.

[scrap487]

to each their own... typically when I hear "suspension lift" I think of lift that is produced by more spring... call it whatever you want, the body/unibody gets lifted above the engine and the rest of the drive train using solid blocks. if BODY lift doesnt work for ya, call it uni-BODY lift then

 

anyways, except for the few people that produce lifts for subarus, the ratio of custom subaru lifts to non-custom(ie AA BYB SJR etc..) is pretty high and not all lifts are going to be done the same way, and especially with subarus because of the independant suspension and unibody there are far more options and possible ways to go about lifting/modifying than your convential body on frame truck, many of which you can't really compare.

 

anyways, if you go bigger tires you will find that you use 5th gear less and less, and usually when you lift something, you tend to not drive it really fast on the highway even further limiting how much you use 5th. the only way you'll probably use 5th gear is if you drive around in low range all the time like me(removed rear axles for street - also welding diff soon)

[Subaru_dude]

with bigger tires, doesn't it effect your low range in a negative way because you can't crawl quite as slow as you could with smaller tires? or is this point not discussed because the lift affords so much more capability?

[A DOG]

with bigger tires, doesn't it effect your low range in a negative way because you can't crawl quite as slow as you could with smaller tires? or is this point not discussed because the lift affords so much more capability?

 

That is a good point. stock size tires for an EA81 is 22.6 in, but once you get a lift you can fit up to 28in tires. That'a a 23% difference. So yes bigger tires will make your 4lo a little bit higher, but you will gain a lot more ground clerance. So its up to you what you want. I just make up for the higher 4lo with more power.