Hey all.

I will be getting my Daystar 2" leveling kit soon, and was wondering how its going with others who have 2" or more of lift in the front? If anyone remembers, a while back I actually had the Trailaster kit inside the strut, for 1.5" of lift, but I only had it for about 8,000 miles, and had to have it removed for warranty work on a steering rack.

The daystar 2" is different, it is like a ready-lift kit, it mounts on top of the strut plate, moving the entire assembly 2" down. This kit is a little different from the Trailmaster, because it allows extended droop beyond what could be achieved by the stock suspension. (which isnt the greatest thing)

I know that people have been replacing ball joints early, even WITHOUT a leveling kit, with stock ball joint angles, but does anyone have any input?

A while back me and my buddy tried to install a Auto Spring 2.5" leveling kit on his dakota, and the upper a-arm ball joint was at a pretty bad angle. That's an extra .5" though.

I will be tackling the install myself, probablly with a friend to get that extra set of hands that I am going to need. When we did his 2.5" kit, we had a hell of a time getting the upper ball joint to bolt back up, we just couldnt get the lower a-arm to come up enough, to bring the knucke up to the upper ball joint, due to the strut being longer with the kit on it. Even when jacking the a-arm, the whole truck would lift off the jack stand and the a-arm stayed put, lol. A longer upper a-arm looked like it was needed.

Plan is to do the 2" kit and possibly 1" blocks in the rear, but I need to see how the truck sits with the 2" kit in first before i decide on the rear block.

(last time i had 1.5" in the front from the TM, and 2" blocks in the rear, and the rake was ugly. It was 2.5" rake, which is .5" more then stock, but it looked bad.)

Any tips? Any ball joint input?

 

NJJer WHERE ARE YOU?

From what I understand the 2wd are the same suspension as the 4wd. The thing is they dont have cv shafts to deal with. However they have the same ball joints. NJJer has a 3.5 inch lift on stock control arms (I THINK) you need to get with him.

I am in the same boat as I have ordered a 2 inch front top mounted lift from CCM offroad (insane quality and craftsmanship) anyway... I will be able to help you when I get mine on this weekend. I will give you some more feedback but for now we need to get with tall 2wd guys and find out what they did about their Ball joints. Also I am very tempted to get one of the sets of control arms from chassis tech to fix our problem. Just not sure about the quality...

If I may add I may be going even taller if I can fiture a way to drop the front axle to align cv angles better. Dakotas also have different part numbers for cv shafts for the off road TRX4 trucks as well. Need to find out what is so different about them.

 

Yeah I have to find out how some of these guys were able to combine two leveling kits and not have that upper a-arm nearly into the spring, the ball joint HAS to be over all the way. If its not, then thats good news, because then I will be able to pull of 2" fine.

I think NJJer just did all his balljoints if I recall correctly.

 

I wish someone would test those upper arms from chassis tech, but that still would not solve the cv shaft issues. Not to mention ball joint wear. If only MOOG made after market joints that bolted in, then I would feel much better. I think we can only get the ball joints from dodge, and you have to buy the entire arm with it. That's pretty expensive, lol. And at that rate, maybe your money would be better spent to get the 2 longer chassis tech ones, and bolt MOOGs on them.

 

To the OP, MonkeyWrench, I don't mean to jack your thread, but didn't wanna post in your latest thread, I was wondering what your thoughts are on the DS leveling kit vs. the TM kit. I know you've had both so I figured you could give me an unbaised opinion. Any pros and cons of either would be helpful. I'm leaning towards the DS kit, but just wanted to hear from someone who's had both. If all goes well, this will be my next mod, so I'm in the market now to pick one up. Also did you make the blocks for the rear or did you purchase them online somewhere? Thanks!

 

Well FirstDodge05, there is sort of a big difference between the two kits.

The reason I went with the daystar kit was because a forum memeber sold me the kit brand new for $50, and the deal was too good to pass up. The daystar kit gave me 2" of front end lift. The good thing about the DS kit is that it mounts on top of the strut, so the strut simply is relocated to a lower position. The strut is not extended at all, so there is no increased chance of the strut blowing. The BAD thing about this type of kit is that since the strut has been lowered, the entire suspension can now drop lower then intended, and at full droop, mostly happens in offroad conditions, you can wear your ball joints faster.

The TM is sort of the opposite..

First off, the trailmaster kit gets installed inside the strut, and pre-loads the strut's spring, giving lift. My TM kit was 7/8th inch thick, and when installed provided 1.5" of lift exactly. So keep in mind its a tad bit less lift. The good thing about this kit is that because of the way it is installed, prevents the front suspension from drooping beyond what the suspension was designed to be able to droop. However, with this kit, you DO stretch the struts out longer, and you change the feel of the front end, as well as risk strut damage. No one has really had an issue with that though.

So..

Daystar, 2" lift, mounts on top of strut, maintains factory strut length and ride feel, can cause a suspension droop beyond specs.

Trailmaster kit, 1.5" lift, mounts within the strut, ride becomes stiffer due to increased "stretch" of strut, no risk of any full droop issues while offroad (less of a chance of maxing a ball joint to its side, etc.)

Pros and Cons to both really.

Everyone has there opinion. Alot consider the trailmaster kit to be superior becuase of the fact that it doesnt have the droop issue. BUT, it provides the least ammount of lift out of all the options.

As far as the lift blocks go, I just picked up a painted steel block kit with longer u-bolts at advanced auto for $20. Autozone has them too, but they have aluminum blocks only. The blocks are non-tapered, and the rear end has no vibration issues. axle blocks are a budget option honestly, but do the job. Hell Ford Rangers and Z-class silverados have rear axle blocks on them for lift right out of the factory.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the information man. That's exactly what I was looking for!

 

I havent read of any failures on here, maybe i missed them... but whats the worry with only 2 inches?

 

Well no one has reported any failures due to either kit, I am just stating general information. I do however have a link to a site that shows some negative effects of different sort of spacer lifts, with pictures and everything, but with the 2" spacer, everything seems to be ok.