brenthel has a "mid-travel" kit...IMO opinion the word mid travel is miss leading. I epect this to be more work/money then your probably willing to commit to. It sounds like you just want a simple performance coilover or shock set-up. Which i dont really know whats out there cus i too have torsion bars...however if you do persue this i would ditch the 5 inch spindle and go with a 3 inch. performance suspension does not work well with height. If you want performance you will have to sacrafice a little on the height

 

a lot of the kits that ive scene for rangers and other midsize trucks come with a custom 5" spindle with their kits so I dont know how entirely true that statement is.. Thanks for the reply tho. I'll look more into the brenthel kit but I thought they only made a long travel setup.

 

Brenthel long travel kit
Chevy 2WD Colorado Long Travel Kits

I love this but not the cost and dont care for the 2.5" it kicks the wheels out. Id like to replicate this without the lower control arms which would keep the wheels at the same stance as factory. this would probably not net as much travel but the stock approx. 7" of travel just plain sucks!

 

coilover, custom uca, uniballs...there u go

*those kits are designed with a 5'', they most likely come with an upper and lower and pop the track width out. if u slap a 5 inch spindle on our trucks without custom lowers or uppers your limiting your potential. the brenthal kit doesnt come with a spindle, they actually suggest using stock but you can use a 3''. the more lift you get the less travel the system will have unless designed otherwise. 355's are not designed like rangers, its not as easy to make these work

 

Long travel is for higher speeds in rough terrain. Unless you have a full cage jumping your truck is foolish. I'm not sure what you really want but it sounds like you just need a shock upgrade. If you really want performance you need a "real" adjustable shock that you can tune to work with your truck. I don't know of any bolt-on shocks offered but you could make a mount to adapt something from King, Icon, Sway-a-way, etc. that can be revalved and have several options when it comes to spring rate and preload.

 

pretty much what everyone else has said already. It sounds like you just want a mild upgrade so I would just replace your shocks. Ive been wondering if shocks for frontiers would work but havent gotten a definate answer from anyone and dont have the money to experiment myself

 

I upgraded my shocks a while back thats not at all what im trying to do. Honestly the stock suspension even with upgraded stuts/shocks still blows in my opinion. I dont want a long travel due to cost and its not useful to me. But I do want MORE travel then what I got somthing a little more heavy duty. So I'm thinking about going with a custom UCA a pinch longer with uniball, which could help to add 2-3 more inches of travel. From there you can always continue to build it up weather its a new custom LCA, then possibly coilovers later.

 

just do an upper, it will give you a little more travel then maybe convert a coilover to fit ie. custom bracket. I wouldnt try and peice together uppers and lowers

 

yup thats the plan, new uppers with some 6x2.0 coilovers which will fit in the stock tower mount. Anything over 6 the mount would have to be cut out and a custom one welded in.

 

i would reinforce the mount tho

 

I hate to raise a thread from the dead but I'm really looking into a nice mid-travel setup. I've already decided on the 5" cst spindle so I can fit 32x11.5x15's without any issues and that'll give me room to grow if I ever decide I just want to go higher for mud instead of sand.

Has anyone made an aftermarket uca for the 2wd coil spring canyon/Colorado or are they all going to have to be custom built still? I really like the uca's that xkmacx built for his truck but I wasn't sure if it would be the same on the coil over strut setup vs the torsion bars. Also I'm new lifting trucks and really the Colorado/canyon in general so I don't really know what my options are as far as coilovers or struts. I'm used to building drift setups with coilovers on all four corners with an 8k/6k spring setup but that's WAY too stiff for an offroad setup lol.

I'm looking to build a nice suspension setup that I have plenty of clearance and I can haul ass through some sand with and still ride nice as well because the truck will be daily driven. I'm pretty set on going with some summit racing D-window 15x8" wheels with some 32x11.5x15 bf goodrich all terrain ko's and maybe some spacers up front for a wider stance and added stability.

Could someone help guide me in the right direction? I've already been searching which led me to this thread but this was about the most useful one I could find and I'm still a bit stumped.. Lol, thanks in advance for any help!

 

I know Dallas Hot Rod Parts (DHPMike on that nations) was talking about making UCA for the torsion bars set ups.

http://www.355nation.net/forum/classifieds/28014-sale-control-arms-crossmembers-watts-links.html

 

Just checked and DHP did make some and MotorCityRado bought them here is the thread

http://www.355nation.net/forum/lifting/48343-mid-travel-build-starts-here.html

 

Thanks dude, that's definitely a helpful start!

 

Anyone else got any ideas on what struts/coilovers to go with for better travel?

 

5" CST spindle, UCA with uniball and coilovers. Get rid of the stock coils/struts

 

I've been keeping up with your midtravel setup MotorCityRado, I like what you're doing so far. Have you found any coilovers to bolt into the stock location with a good ride and travel? Or are you going with a hoop setup?

I'm really wanting to use the stock location, I'm wanting to keep everything reverseable without hacking up my truck just in case I decide I want a 4 door or something later down the road and be able to sell my truck stock and swap all the mods over to the next truck.

 

if you want to use the stock shock mounting location go with a 6" shock 2.0x6" with a single rate 14" coil at about 500-550lbs.

 

Does the 6" shock mean I'll only have that much travel? School me on what the difference is between the 2.0x6" and 2.0x8" etc. Lol

Do you need UCA to be able to fit a 6" coil?

^^^ This

Or is the uca/uniball mainly to help travel?

 

Do you need UCA to be able to fit a 6" coil?

 

dood lets section the LCA and run tabs on the under side and run the shock through it to run 8's

 

^ Not sure I follow.... If I picture what I think your saying the coilover would be running through the bottom of the LCA by basically cutting a hole through it, rather than mounted on the tab on top. 1. LCA is weakned 2. the coilover is now suseptible for clearence issues with ground, rocks, etc. and 3. building shock hoops just seems easier and more logicial.

 

The uniballs allows for more travel because stock ball joints begin to bind much earlier.

"shock" travel and "wheel" travel are seperate measurements so try not to confuse the two.

2.0 is the diamer of the shock. 6" is the travel for the shock. for example: extended length = 19, compressed length = 13. 19-13 = 6... 2.0x6 size shock is what will fit in the stock mounting location. anything larger a custom shock hoop (mount) needs to be fabricated.

Theres a lot to learn and figure out all of which im beginning to understand more and more since ive been doing an emense amount or reading and research for a while now.

read this to learn more about coilovers themselves. there is part 1, 2, and 3. link is only for part 1

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/coilovers/Part_1/

 

Wow... And I thought I knew quite a bit about coilovers before... Lol, I'm very familiar with drift setups as that's what I was into for the past 4.5 years and 5 cars haha, 2 of the 5 had fully built suspension setups with coilovers, all fully adjustable arms, adjustable front and rear sway bars, the works. But offroad suspension is a whole new ballgame.. Haha, it has it's similarities and I know a great deal about how suspension geometry works and comes into play but I feel like I just got taken back to school all over again!

Thanks for the useful info MotorCityRado, I think I know which direction I'm going with all this now!


Edit: on a side note, have you ever heard of anyone modifying the steering knuckles to make for quicker steering? I had modified knuckles on one of my 240sx's and on my Miata for greater steering angle but it also made steering lock to lock shorter. I'm not really looking for more angle out of my truck but quicker steering would be nice and I'd just make bump stops to keep the stock angle. Anyone ever tried this on the Colorado/Canyon?

 

^ Not that I know of but I do know that the zq8's come with a quicker/tighter steering rack. You could buy a used one pretty cheap and see how it works out for you. I have one on my truck and I can notice a difference from when I drove a z85.

 

motorcity - Do you know if a 2.0 coil will fit with the stock uca? basically what im asking is, did you only upgrade the upper because of the uniball or did it have to do with clearance also. I want to get a 2.0 coil that fits with the stock uppers but also will work with tubed uppers later on