CS 1/2 springs with stock control arms?

Hey guys,

I am sure some of you have seen my post in regards to my belltech 2/4 drop and the issues I have been having.

I have ordered the crown suspension 1/2 drop springs. At this point I do not want to hassle with the Spohn arms unless I have to. I got them originally due to the fact of the major change in rear suspension geometry associated with a 4" drop. With the mild 2" drop I will be doing now, I do not know if the Spohn arms are truly needed.

My questions are these:

1. If you have the CS 1/2 springs, are you running stock control arms? Do you have any issues?

2. Can I run a 2" drop with the stock control arms without it adversely affecting the pinion angle?

Question 1: Yes-No
Question 2: I don't know...

But it does handle and ride extremely well.

You would be fine running a 2" drop completely stock, but if you already have all the goodies then I would adjust it all. IMO

PassivAggressor said:

You would be fine running a 2" drop completely stock, but if you already have all the goodies then I would adjust it all. IMO

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I get what you are saying and I agree with you. The Spohn arms are super beefy. In terms of quality they seem to be substantially better than the stock.

My issue is the frequency of adjustments. Some members here have had to re-tighten the Del-Sphere joints 3-4 times within only 1-2k miles of driving.

The process of re-tightening the joints would take about 1-2 hours ish (assuming you have all the right tools). I unfortunately do not have all the tools (I know what you are thinking, just go buy the tools to do the work). I would be fine with running them if there was just one- maybe two rounds of adjustments (aka tightening of the joints). However, it seems that they require more and in terms of long term, we (the forum) do not know really how these perform (regarding the frequency of adjustments and/or any issues) seeing that no one here has had spohn arms on for 20-30k + miles. (at least not that I am aware of??).

I guess at this point I just want to set the suspension and be done with it. I do not want to keep having to come back and messing with stuff (since this is my D.D. I have to have it running pretty much all the time. If I had a second vehicle to drive it would not be as much an issue.)

I have a 2" rear ground force drop on my truck
Yesterday I measured my pinion angle and I am roughly at 4 degrees
And that's just on a 2" drop
The axle is also a little bit forward compared to stock
So anytime you change the geometry on the suspension you have to correct the pinion and driveline angle


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There are thousands of guys running 2/4 drops with stock control arms and no issues. Yes, it is better if you correct the pinion angle with the adjustable control arms, but they are not needed for everyday driving. Too many people are trying to overthink the lowering kits with these trucks.

PNUTLT1 said:

I have a 2" rear ground force drop on my truck
Yesterday I measured my pinion angle and I am roughly at 4 degrees
And that's just on a 2" drop
The axle is also a little bit forward compared to stock
So anytime you change the geometry on the suspension you have to correct the pinion and driveline angle


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So you're rear end is 4 degrees off the angle of your driveshaft connection at the transmission output shaft? From what I have read on a 4-link setup in the rear it is good to be down 1 degree from the tranny/driveshaft angle. This is due to the rear diff shifting upwards while under acceleration (then putting the rear pinion angle in alignment with the front tranny/drivshaft angle).

4 degrees off is quite a bit. Seems like that is definitely enough to feel vibration from the driveshaft. Do you have any issues?

I do not know how you would adjust the pinion angle on a 4-link suspension setup without adjustable arms. I guess you could shim the tranny? Though that seems like a big hassle.

Drove on my 3/5ish drop for more than a year with stock control arms and not one major issue. I did have a minor driveline vibration that was corrected buy the adjustment of the pinion angle but traded that vibration for more time adjusting.

The next round of adjustment I plan to do some testing and set the delsphere adjustment to a torq and see where is goes in the next couple of months and retorq them and see if it actually changes or if its just noise from the movement of the link.

Ak47bravo said:

So you're rear end is 4 degrees off the angle of your driveshaft connection at the transmission output shaft? From what I have read on a 4-link setup in the rear it is good to be down 1 degree from the tranny/driveshaft angle. This is due to the rear diff shifting upwards while under acceleration (then putting the rear pinion angle in alignment with the front tranny/drivshaft angle).



4 degrees off is quite a bit. Seems like that is definitely enough to feel vibration from the driveshaft. Do you have any issues?



I do not know how you would adjust the pinion angle on a 4-link suspension setup without adjustable arms. I guess you could shim the tranny? Though that seems like a big hassle.

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Well crazy this is I don't have vibration
I've driven it to 95-100 and nothing
At first it had a slight wobble but I put an adjustable panhard bar and put the thrust angle back to 0 and it is fine now
I have the adjustable control arms for over 3 months now but I haven't put them on

I will hopefully get them done soon and set it back to 1 degree
So I can be ready to hit the track this race season


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Hemi450hp said:

There are thousands of guys running 2/4 drops with stock control arms and no issues. Yes, it is better if you correct the pinion angle with the adjustable control arms, but they are not needed for everyday driving. Too many people are trying to overthink the lowering kits with these trucks.

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When you say they are not needed for everyday driving, what exactly do you mean? What information/experience is that based off of? Are you saying that the change in pinion angle would still be within an acceptable tolerance as to not prematurely wear out parts?

If the geometry changes in a way where your pinion angle is 4-6 degrees different from your tranny/driveshaft angle and creates excess strain/vibration, would that not cause parts to wear at a faster rate?

If parts are wearing faster, would it be unreasonable to say long term you could be experiencing premature failures or poor performance from excessively worn parts? ( I guess it would depend on how much excess wear there is (if any) to determine how much quicker parts would wear out/fail.)

I understand that many people have the 2/4 without adjustable arms, but so far my experience with the Belltech 2/4 has been horrible. I have reached out on the forums for answers and also to Belltech themselves (who just said in a nut shell this is how the truck drives when lowered 4 inches). I have not seen anyone who has been running a belltech 2/4 drop for extended mileage (20-30k+ miles not just 2-5k miles) post saying they have not had issues and the truck drives fine, etc.

I have been so busy that I have not had time to make a video, but I need to so I can show everyone to the extent of how bad the truck rides. (I have driven very low/stiff vehicles, so it is not an unrealistic expectations or lack of reference point for how a lowered vehicle drives).

Meaning guys dont have vibration issues with only a 4" drop and they are not wearing out suspension parts over time.

When I purchased my 2011, it had almost 75k miles on it. The original owner installed the drop at 15k miles. It had stock control arms, and a stock panhard bar still as well. The only issue I had was the wobble at 75mph+, but that was immediately fixed with the Hellwig rear swaybar. I raced that truck on stock control arms cutting 1.64-1.66 60' times on many passes and was running 12.4's at 106mph. Drove the truck to and from the track which is a 3-4 hour round trip depending on traffic, and never had a single issue.

I did not switch to the Spohn arms until I cut the coils down to a 3/5.5 drop and relocated my rear control arm brackets due to the angle of the control arms at that much drop.

We sell about 300 Belltech lowering kits a year and only about 20-30 sets of control arms per year. All those other guys are running perfectly fine with the only real complaint being the rear sway when going over 75mph without an upgraded swaybar.

I have run the Belltech 2/4 (then cut to 3/5.5), McGaughys 2/4 coil spring kit, and the Ground Force 2/3 kit on 3 different 4th gen trucks now, and have only used the Spohn arms and panhard bar on the one that I cut down to a 5.5" rear drop. The other 2 get driven every day without a problem. All 3 have the Hellwig swaybar, so no high speed wobble from any of them.

I would throw the stock arms back on with the Belltech springs and see how it rides. My ride quality got stiffer with the Spohn arms than it was with the stock arms.

Hemi450hp said:

Meaning guys dont have vibration issues with only a 4" drop and they are not wearing out suspension parts over time.

When I purchased my 2011, it had almost 75k miles on it. The original owner installed the drop at 15k miles. It had stock control arms, and a stock panhard bar still as well. The only issue I had was the wobble at 75mph+, but that was immediately fixed with the Hellwig rear swaybar. I raced that truck on stock control arms cutting 1.64-1.66 60' times on many passes and was running 12.4's at 106mph. Drove the truck to and from the track which is a 3-4 hour round trip depending on traffic, and never had a single issue.

I did not switch to the Spohn arms until I cut the coils down to a 3/5.5 drop and relocated my rear control arm brackets due to the angle of the control arms at that much drop.
.

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Hemi450hp said:

I would throw the stock arms back on with the Belltech springs and see how it rides. My ride quality got stiffer with the Spohn arms than it was with the stock arms.

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That was pretty much my exact situation also. But as I was trying to say with the 3/5 is I was pretty much ok with stockers and when one starts modifying a engineered system things get a little different and makes it hard to compare at that point.

But trial and error is kinda what it takes to fine tune things.

Hemi450hp said:

Meaning guys dont have vibration issues with only a 4" drop and they are not wearing out suspension parts over time.

When I purchased my 2011, it had almost 75k miles on it. The original owner installed the drop at 15k miles. It had stock control arms, and a stock panhard bar still as well. The only issue I had was the wobble at 75mph+, but that was immediately fixed with the Hellwig rear swaybar. I raced that truck on stock control arms cutting 1.64-1.66 60' times on many passes and was running 12.4's at 106mph. Drove the truck to and from the track which is a 3-4 hour round trip depending on traffic, and never had a single issue.

I did not switch to the Spohn arms until I cut the coils down to a 3/5.5 drop and relocated my rear control arm brackets due to the angle of the control arms at that much drop.

We sell about 300 Belltech lowering kits a year and only about 20-30 sets of control arms per year. All those other guys are running perfectly fine with the only real complaint being the rear sway when going over 75mph without an upgraded swaybar.

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Hemi450hp said:

I have run the Belltech 2/4 (then cut to 3/5.5), McGaughys 2/4 coil spring kit, and the Ground Force 2/3 kit on 3 different 4th gen trucks now, and have only used the Spohn arms and panhard bar on the one that I cut down to a 5.5" rear drop. The other 2 get driven every day without a problem. All 3 have the Hellwig swaybar, so no high speed wobble from any of them.

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All good info to know. Thanks for sharing Matt.

At this point, I am leaning more towards just running CS 1/2 springs, street performance shock *rear only*, stock control arms, Hellwig rear swaybar. I just want to get the coils installed and not have to worry anymore about it. (i.e. fiddling with adjustments)

Which would mean I'd be selling my Spohn upper/lower arms, Belltech 2/4 coils, (possibly the panhard bar relocation bracket assuming I do not need it).

Before swapping coils, I would toss those stock control arms back on to see how it rides. The solid joint is going to make you feel more of the imperfections in the road which can give a stiffer ride.

Hemi450hp said:

Before swapping coils, I would toss those stock control arms back on to see how it rides. The solid joint is going to make you feel more of the imperfections in the road which can give a stiffer ride.

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My issue is not that the truck rides stiff. The issue is that I literally have less than 1" of suspension travel before I hit the bumpstops. So I am literally hitting bump stops constantly. Sometimes really hard, other times not so hard. I basically have no suspension... its like a shifter kart.

This is in a totally different category than having a stiff ride. You can have a stiff ride (not hitting the bump stops) and it still be tolerable. Hitting the bumpstops is brutal.

Pictures attached. There is no way you can avoid hitting the bump stops. I mean holy ****, look at the space. It is less than .5".

Picture 1: Drive side rear bumpstop
Picture 2: Drive side rear bumpstop
Picture 3: Passenger side rear bumpstop
Picture 4: Passenger side front bumpstop

I have more clearance at my front bumpstop than my rear. (which really you should have more clearance with the rear bumpstop).

Move your front bumpstops to the rear, and then Belltech sells a shorter bumpstop for the front...#4922

You were also supposed to cut the front bumpstop cups off.

Hemi450hp said:

You were also supposed to cut the front bumpstop cups off.

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Yes, I found out after the fact that you are supposed to grind the front bumpstop cup off. Though since I have had 0 issues with the fronts hitting the stops (it only happened one time and was not too bad) I have yet to grind them down (also due to time).


However, the bumpstops currently on the rear are in the fact the one that comes with the kit and yet, they are still virtually riding on the axle plate. I do not understand the remedy to buy a shorter bump stop than the one provided in the kit. I mean, if bumpstop provided in the kit is not really short enough then it should already come with that shorter bump stop. I already purchased the CS springs so at this point the belltech springs are definitely coming off. Also, the CS springs claim to be 20% stiffer than stock and rom what I have read the Belltech springs are either as stiff or less stiff than stock spring rates.

The only thing I can think of to cause my problem is somehow my rear springs are abnormally soft. Softer than what most people get (issue in production??) and hence my truck is sitting lower. Everyone else is using the same bumpstop in the rear as I am without experiencing the clearance issues I have.