I'm looking at a 3/5 or 4/6 drop for my dakota and I need some advice. The back is really easy to drop with shackles and blocks but which is better for the front, control arms or drop springs? how easy are they to install?

thanks

 

Check the current issue of Truckin' magazine. They're doing a 3/5 drop on a Dakota using DJM Suspension's kit. It includes new control arms for the front, bushings, ball joints, shocks, etc. For the rear, it comes with new front leaf spring hangers and shackle extenders, bolts, nots, etc. No blocks are used on the rear. The total cost for the kit, according to the article, was $682.40 (not including labor).

 

I have a subscription to Truckin' and I read that article and it was pretty helpful. I'll probably refer back to it if I decide to upgrade my brakes. The DJM kit, however, is a little more than I wanted to pay. I can drop the back of my truck up to 6" with a few parts from my local pep boys for under $50. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to drop the front if I am going to buy the parts separately.

 

Are you going to drop the back 6" using only blocks? I don't know if it's good to have that much of a block in there. It puts a lot of extra force (rotationally) on the leaf. In other words, there may be a good engineering and safety reason why DJM used the front bushing relocation brackets. That's just my suspicion though. I've seen up to 3" blocks, but I don't know if going beyond that with only blocks is recommended.

As for the front, you could not achieve a 3" drop with lowering springs. There's not enough travel in the front suspension geometry to allow that to happen. You'd either need different control armsor drop spindles, and I'm not sure drop spindles are available for our trucks (but they might be).