Who's running 52" up front? Design a lift system.

[gemiller]

If I do the 14BFF and Dana 60 swap I want to run 52" up front. I want a total of 5-6" of lift.

Rear plan is shackle flip for 4", zero rates for 1"ish, then perhaps shackles to get to 6" depending on what I need to get a matching rear to front.

Front, I want to do the 52 conversion, does that net any lift by itself? IE, do I still need rear 4" lift springs to get an actual 4" lift or does the swap make it so I need 2" lift springs to get to a total of 4"? My brain says i'll still need 4" rear lift springs, zero rates, and shackle to match the rear, but I want to confirm with someone that has run this setup before.

 

[firebane]

From what I heard 52" springs up front is not good for a daily and can make the truck squirrely.

 

[gemiller]

From what I heard 52" springs up front is not good for a daily and can make the truck squirrely.

I've heard mixed opinions on it, this truck will be like 50% street, 30% dirt roads and 20% off road parks. So it'll also be nice to see who has this setup and what they think about it in general then.

 

[hot dawg]

I posted this in the "Offroad" section yesterday:

"I vote for the 52" front/56" rear setup! I run 52" all the way around and I love it! They flex like crazy and ride great. I have 1" zero rate add-a-leafs as well for a total of 5" of lift and my truck clears 42" TSLs with normal fender trimming. It would clear 40" tires easily. I wheel my rig very hard several times a year and have only broken one 52" spring, they are easy to find and most of the time even free. I hope this helps."


"I love the 52s on the street. Granted my current rig does not see much street time but my last one did. It was a 1981 GMC K10 short bed with 52s in the front and it was driven 95% on the street. I modified the sway bar so I could use it and shimmed both sides of the spring eyes at the hangers and shackles to center the spring and it worked great. The 52s are narrower than the front spring hangers so I would agree that if left that way it would probably drive horrible! I used washers from the hardware store on mine but you could always get some spacers made at the machine shop. That GMC saw 100-120 mph several times and always drove straight as an arrow."

 

[hot dawg]

Also to answer your question, stock 52s up front will get you 4" of lift. They will squat a little with a big block but with a shackle flip in the rear and a small block in the front it will sit level.

AND the 52s up front will move your axle 1" forward, so put that into your calculations. Now if you run some B52 mounts from DIY4X then you have more options as far as spring placement goes. I just moved my stock front spring hangers forward to the next set of rivet holes and made longer shackles.