ok, I was just thinking about this.. I have the re indexed torsion keys for the front with the blocks in back. But my front is still quite a bit lower, I seen before people welded strips on these stock keys to bring them down lower.. is this possible to do with the reindexed ones for even more lift, or will this weaken everything too much?

 

Well what you need to understand about the independant front suspension is that you can only get the front as high as the bump stops will allow the control arms to go, and the re-indexed keys can crank the bars tight enough to max the control arms out. The idea of welding the strips on was to get the bolt hole further from the frame, allowing the bolt to tighten the bars more.

What I did on mine was I cut the bump stops in half, removed the sway bar (cause it will put a counter force on the torsion bars at that height), and tightened the torsion bars up until the bump stops were just touching, but not smashed.

 

OK, any chance you can get a pic?. Im not sure what you mean bumpstops .. cause I know what they are.. but, im not erally understanding, wouldnt the bumpstops get further away the more you lift it?

 

There are 2 bump stops... one that stop it in each direction. I'll run out and get a picture though.

 

oh ok, well I guess that makes a bit more sense. How bout the sway bars, does that actually give more lift? How does it handle on the road.. as I do alot of that as well.

 

The sway bar doesn't give it more lift, but it does put a counter force on the torsion bars... which makes you have to tighten them even more to obtain the same lift. So taking them off will allow you to tighten them all the way up with a slightly more comfortable ride since the springs aren't AS stiff. And when you have the bars that tight, you don't need the sway bar cause the springs are so still the truck won't rock side to side anyway. Most of what this truck sees are back country winding highways and I can go around those curves at 60-70 mph without feeling like the truck is going to flip or fly off the road.

DSCN0340.jpg?t=1254245572

 

The sway bar will make it tip a little bit more during turning. Weather or not it bothers you probably depends on your driving style and comfort with the truck. It doesnt bother me, but its noticable. Or was,,,I guess back when I remembered what it felt like to have one.

Yes it will give you a little aditional lift. When the bars are fully cranked the sway bar acutally pulls down on the suspension.

 

thats great, thanks for the help, and the pics. So.. in other words you can add plates to the key, just if you need to may need to cut off a little of the bump stop?
another question. Im swapping the V8, will this lower my front.. should I , and how hard is it to put the V8 torsion bars in?

 

Swapping torsion bars should take about 15-20 minutes if you have a torsion bar unloading tool, slightly longer if your using some kind of makeshift unloading tool. All you do is set up the unloading tool, and round the bolt all the way out, and then let off the unloading tool until there is no preload left on the bar. Then take a BFH and pound the bar out of the control arm. Then pound the new bar into the control arm, set the preload with the unloading tool, and put the bolt back in. Do this on each side, and then comes the fun part... level the 2 sides.

And I would agree since you want to lift your front end higher and your putting in a v8 and you still have the v6 bars, that getting v8 bars would be very much worth your while.

 

alright, thats what im going to do then, Im not going to touch the sway bars for now though.. il see later. As in the torsion bars.. I will deff tackle that.