Help with lifting my Dakota
#1
08-15-2010, 06:41 PM
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Florida
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Help with lifting my Dakota
ok, i want to lift my truck to fit at least 31's. i was going to get a leveling kit with 4" block rear lift and with 1" spacers on top and bottom of my front coil springs, BUT i looked and found out i have shocks instead of coils and now im dumbfounded about wat to do. i want to make it cheap, somewhat at least. and everything is stock on my truck( i have to completely change my right shock kuz its leaking ). so if anyone can give me any tips, or places to order from, or just start from step 1, that would be GREATLY appreciated.
MY TRUCK: v6 02 dodge dakota club cab *stock*
MY TRUCK: v6 02 dodge dakota club cab *stock*
#3
08-15-2010, 10:41 PM
Legend
#4
08-16-2010, 05:00 AM
First off...your truck either has torsion bars (4wd) or coils (2wd) in the front. It's impossible that you just have shocks in the front.
-If you have a 2wd truck then yes you can use a leveling kit: as you said "one inch spacers on top and bottom"
-If you have a 4wd truck then all you need to do to gain 1-2 inches in the front is crank your T-bars, do a search on here and I guarantee you will find a walkthrough on how to do it.
Problems:
A) If you have a 2wd truck and decide to use the leveling kit then great, you managed to lift your front 2". The problem with the back is you CAN'T use blocks on a 2wd dakota, simply because the axle sits on top of the leaf springs. For a 2wd dakota to achieve "4 inches in the rear" you will have to do a combination of add-a-leaf's and extended shackles or an axle flip, or a body lift and shackles...
B) Coil spacers on top and bottom of your front coils may not be too safe. You see on the bottom of the factory coils there is a groove milled out of the coil and on the LCA where the coil sits is a notch which keeps the coil from moving side to side or out of the LCA seat. If you put a coil spacer on the bottom the coil no longer has that notch holding it in place and could easily slip off of the spring spacer when flexing.
C) IF you were able to use a 4" lift block in the rear: IN THEORY the front already sits about an inch lower than the rear straight from the factory. We call that rake. Lifting the front 2" would sit the front an inch higher than the back without lifting the back. Adding a 4" lift block in the back would then make the rear 3" higher than the front. Your truck would look like this except reversed, the front would be 3" lower than the rear.
If you have a 4wd truck, do the T/S Lift (torsion shackle) crank those T-bars and get shackles and congratulations you have just achieved 2" of lift in the front and 2" or more in the back depending on what shackles you go with. Then when you can go ahead and get a 3" PA Body lift and you should have yourself in total 5-6 inches of lift depending on how high you go with the T/S Lift. You would be able to clear 33" tires without trimming if you lift your dakota this way...possibly even 34.5-35" tires with trimming.
To give yourself an idea of what that lift would look like I have my 2wd dakota with 4" up front, 5" in the rear on 32" toyo's on cragars. Overall, there is about 1" of rake on the truck which I wanted to keep.
If you have any other questions feel free to PM me or just post back up here.
-If you have a 2wd truck then yes you can use a leveling kit: as you said "one inch spacers on top and bottom"
-If you have a 4wd truck then all you need to do to gain 1-2 inches in the front is crank your T-bars, do a search on here and I guarantee you will find a walkthrough on how to do it.
Problems:
A) If you have a 2wd truck and decide to use the leveling kit then great, you managed to lift your front 2". The problem with the back is you CAN'T use blocks on a 2wd dakota, simply because the axle sits on top of the leaf springs. For a 2wd dakota to achieve "4 inches in the rear" you will have to do a combination of add-a-leaf's and extended shackles or an axle flip, or a body lift and shackles...
B) Coil spacers on top and bottom of your front coils may not be too safe. You see on the bottom of the factory coils there is a groove milled out of the coil and on the LCA where the coil sits is a notch which keeps the coil from moving side to side or out of the LCA seat. If you put a coil spacer on the bottom the coil no longer has that notch holding it in place and could easily slip off of the spring spacer when flexing.
C) IF you were able to use a 4" lift block in the rear: IN THEORY the front already sits about an inch lower than the rear straight from the factory. We call that rake. Lifting the front 2" would sit the front an inch higher than the back without lifting the back. Adding a 4" lift block in the back would then make the rear 3" higher than the front. Your truck would look like this except reversed, the front would be 3" lower than the rear.
If you have a 4wd truck, do the T/S Lift (torsion shackle) crank those T-bars and get shackles and congratulations you have just achieved 2" of lift in the front and 2" or more in the back depending on what shackles you go with. Then when you can go ahead and get a 3" PA Body lift and you should have yourself in total 5-6 inches of lift depending on how high you go with the T/S Lift. You would be able to clear 33" tires without trimming if you lift your dakota this way...possibly even 34.5-35" tires with trimming.
To give yourself an idea of what that lift would look like I have my 2wd dakota with 4" up front, 5" in the rear on 32" toyo's on cragars. Overall, there is about 1" of rake on the truck which I wanted to keep.
If you have any other questions feel free to PM me or just post back up here.
#6
08-16-2010, 04:26 PM
