4" lift with ACE

[slunnie]

With this lift I designed it to be able to hold all of the crap that gets loaded onto a D2 for touring and playing, and to run the largest tyre that would fit without cutting the body work. As a result its a relatively stiff setup to carry load, but it still plays very very well with the other rigs in the bush.

The front end is Lovells springs that were designed to give a hub to guard change from 485mm (215mm installed length) to 570mm (300mm) though the ride height come out at 585mm (315mm) when fitted giving a true 4" lift. The spring rate is 230lb/in. Most aftermarket D2 springs are between about 180lb/in and 200lb/in, where as the D1's were about 230lb. Apparently this comes back to the additional length on the rear of the Disco affecting the front end, though on the weigh station the Disco measures up at 1.1t front and 1.2t rear and the percentage change in spring rates does not correlate to the change in front axle weight. I went to 230lb/in after chatting briefly to John Lee from Expedition Exchange in the states who thought that the 180lb/in is just too soft to support the vehicle, and I had also seen on the Aussie Disco2 group that those running the 180lb/in 2" springs were back down to roughly standard ride height when running bars or bar and winches. 230lb/in seems to hold its height, and interestingly ARB arenow working with Team Raider indeveloping a 230lb 2" lifted D2 front spring. The front doesn't bottom out much unless you hit something pretty hard while playing or tour loaded through dirt causeways with the cruise set fast.

The front shocks I'm running are Rancho 99143's which I think are GQ Patrol rear spec. These just bolt up, but Auto Alliance the Rancho importers needed to organise the bar pin for the lower mount. BTW, the bar pin they have made looks massively strong compared to the stocker. This shock length (655/393mm I think) will allow a little dislocation of the spring on the front half of the lower perch. They sometimes click in and out when they dislocate. The Bilstein equivilent on paper is about 30mm shorter, but in reality I think it will be closer to 10mm shorter because the Bilsteins don't seem to have the internal extension bump stops, and this may prevent some of the dislocation problems. If you go the Bilsteins, based on info I have from somebody running the 7100 series buggy shock, the 360/80 valving is about right.

With this setup, I have not extended the bumpstops, though coil bind is what seems to stop the suspension up travel. In terms of down travel the X member will have to be removed to prevent the prop shaft from contacting it. I ended up reinstalling mine for warranty reasons and had to space it down 50 or 60mm. I did this with RHS, though using that type of material cross section is really only token and really should be done properly. The brake lines have to be extended by 70mm, which is the eq of the extra length in the shocks, but the ABS lines will just pull through without extensions. To do this though you just pull the plug out of its holder under the bonnet and pull the wire through.

On the top of the front swaybar links I have machined up and fitted 6mm spacers to raise the height of the ACE hydraulic. It just gives it a little more room from hitting the Panhard mount during maximum droop. I comes in pretty close here, but its ok.

On the rear the factory ride height hub to guard spec for a coil rear end Aus specification is 470mm (265mm spring installed height). Hunting around though I did find a Disco with a hub to guard measurement of 495mm (290mm), and so I based my specs on that one. I asked then for a hub to guard 580mm (375mm) and the lift produced came out at about 595mm (390mm). The setup here also changed a tail down attitude on the Disco to a 10mm tail up attitude so it looked a bit better, and the lift on the rear is about 5" up on most Disco's. The spring rates I based on the mid OME setup, and sits at 300lb/in until after the 25mm of compression, and then they progress up to 340lb/in. The rationale was for some comfort while unladen and some carrying capacity when loaded.

Shocks that I ran were the Rancho 99143's again, though these clapped out pretty badly while touring, something I have found typical of Ranchos. I've gone across to the Bilstein 10" 6100 series buggy shock now and had them revalved to 360/80 with a linear progressive shock graph, which is just ok when unladen, though could probably go a bit stiffer again I think. The rear shocks are set at an angle, the springs are stiffer and the sprung weight is greater so the shocks will work harder than the fronts. The Ranchos just bolt in, but the Bilstein buggy shocks require some spacers to be machined up to fit, and I've also clearanced some of the lower mount to make sure it clears the shock body when articulating. Again the rear of the springs dislocate slightly when articulating and sometimes do this with a click. Perhaps a revalved version of the Bilstein Patrol shock will help with that problem. On the rear I wouldn't go longer in the shocks as this setup max's out the watts linkage without modifying it. In fact I've put a small scallop in the axle mount to give one of the links a little more clearance just in case. When loaded up and touring you can use the full suspension travel with these rates, and a lot of the reason behind this I think is that the load (and fuel) sits after the axle which levers the suspension down in the rough stuff. I booty fabed up some 50mm bumpstop extensions to stop the shocks and chassis from being destroyed, though these may be a little on the tall side.

Brake lines need to be extended by 70mm to work, and the ABS lines also need to be extended. To do the ABS extensions we just bought extension lines from Wabco (Wabco manufactured these parts for LR) in Victoria. They are about 500mm long, so I've just wound them around the chassis and zip tied them into place. Doing it this way is factory quality and reliable unlike the splicing and soldering of wires that some people do.

For the swaybar on the rear, I have fitted front D2 swaybar links on the rear. This raises the ACE hydraulic by about 70mm and flattens the bar angle out. To do this mod you must have at least 50mm bumpstop extensions, and even then the hydraulic comes very close to the body. Without this mod there can be some instability in corners, when slaloming and under brakes, and big Bias ply Simex tyres compound the problem. This mod makes it very stable and negates the need to correct after a fast turn in. Even with the JT2's on, the Disco is really stable now. I cant recommend this mod enough. This said, its still a 2.3T truck and wont handle with the precision of a nible road car.

With these mods and a bullbar 33's will fit with no body mods, and there are no vibrations. I've run 255/85-16 which I think is a 33.3". Cooper ST, STT's do fit. I now run 33x10.5-16 Simex which measure true between 33.3" and 33.7" depending on which article you read and I assume where on the tyre you measure them (The tread surface is curved). The only real mod needed to fit these is the adjustment of the steering stops to prevent the tyres rubbing on the radius arms during full lock. I just put a washer under each stop and loctited the stops back in. I also run 285/75-16 Good Year MTR's on 8" wide Range Rover rims.