Just wanted to update ya all on how the truck drives after lowering the SAS lift a bit.
Details here. After several months of driving it, I'm loving it. The truck is no sports car by any means, especially without any sway bars, but it's far less scary going around corners than before. The ride is very nice and it actually feels like it handles much better on the highway. I seem to recall a little bit of wondering here and there before that is completely gone now. Tracks perfectly straight and is very easy to drive on the highway. Although I'm not exact sure how lowering the lift would affect that, unless it has to do with the steering alignment.
As for the minimal uptravel, that doesn't seem to be an issue off road. And after many miles of dirt road driving, I find that I rare bottom out, even going over potholes. The springs seem to just be perfect. Not too stiff, but even more importantly, not too soft. I'm sure if they were one ounce softer, it would be an entirely different story as far as regularly bottoming out. However, I do bottom out, when hitting extreme potholes at high speed and the one time it happened, I felt one hellava joilt. Although I think it would have still bottomed out with the original suspension. Definately won't be jumping the truck anytime soon. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
The next step will be going to 33" MTRs. I've already ordered them. Funny thing is, with the tread on my 35" MTRs being pretty worn, the total difference in hieght over what I have now will probably be less than 1". But my reasons for going to 33s are many fold. First of all, I'll still have my 35s as back up.
But with 33s, I'm expecting a little more power and fuel economy with my 5.29s, that I experienced years ago with that set up, and have missed ever since I went to 35s. Also, my 33" spare will be more effective, and that's pretty important if I'm hundreds of miles from the nearest tire store, much less town. I expect handling will improve a bit with the shorter sidewall and slight reduction in overall lift. And risk of breakage will be reduced with the lighter and smaller tires.
The truck is an expedition rig that sees many thousands of miles of long highway trips, with hundreds of miles of dirt roads and very little extreme off roading these days, so I'm sort of refitting the rig to better fit that role, while I decide whether to keep it or upgrade to a spendy Land Cruiser. Right now, I'm leaning towards the economical solution and just keeping truck for the forseeable future. Maybe do an EB rebuild on the motor this winter. Runs strong, but burns a bit of oil with about 220K miles on her.
