front end lift help

dodgeramforlife · Sep 11, 2015

Hi all, new here and i have some questions about lifting the front of my truck. I have a 96 1500 4x4 and i put 2 inch coil spacers on a while ago. now a few weeks ago i was at the pull-n-pay and I found a off road edition ram, so i got the coil springs and leaf packs out of it, hoping to gain another 1-2 inches of lift. I have done some research, and most people say if you go over 3 inches, you need:
1. track bar relocation bracket or adj. track bar.
2. sway bar drop bracket or longer end links.
3. drop pitman arm.
4. longer control arms.
(I cant afford control arms or adj. track bar right now, or probly ever haha)
So my question is, what do i really need here? and how much lift can i really expect to gain from used off road coils? Thanks!!

MagSport · Sep 12, 2015

Off road editions are lifted 2in from the factory. So if you put 2in coil spring spacers on those you will be lifted 4in. All of those parts you mentioned will be necessary to keep your truck from death wobbling and dog legging. You could just swap the springs and retain the ride height you have now but on better suspension.

Johnn123 · Sep 12, 2015

MagSport said:
Off road editions are lifted 2in from the factory. So if you put 2in coil spring spacers on those you will be lifted 4in. All of those parts you mentioned will be necessary to keep your truck from death wobbling and dog legging. You could just swap the springs and retain the ride height you have now but on better suspension.

This sums it up perfectly.

dodgeramforlife · Sep 12, 2015

Thanks for the help magsport. Lets say I install the springs for 4 in total of lift and I install everything BUT the longer control arms, how bad would the ride be? any other negative effects? only reason I ask is because the cheapest I can find them is $300+ for fixed ones.

Jimmy68 · Sep 12, 2015

Can you not get the rest of the parts off that truck?

dodgeramforlife · Sep 13, 2015

I can, but I thought that the off road editions control arms were the same length as a stock rams??

MagSport · Sep 13, 2015

dodgeramforlife said:
I can, but I thought that the off road editions control arms were the same length as a stock rams??

You're right they are.
Without changing the control arms you offset your axle towards the back of the truck. This will cause some serious wear and stress issues on your track bar, tie rod ends, pitman bar, steering components, and will ultimately effect how the truck's geometry is set up. This is not a smart way to do it, if you want to do a 4 in lift then do it right and get the control arms too. 300+ dollars is cheap compared to the damage that would be caused without them.

Johnn123 · Sep 13, 2015

MagSport said:
You're right they are.
Without changing the control arms you offset your axle towards the back of the truck. This will cause some serious wear and stress issues on your track bar, tie rod ends, pitman bar, steering components, and will ultimately effect how the truck's geometry is set up. This is not a smart way to do it, if you want to do a 4 in lift then do it right and get the control arms too. 300+ dollars is cheap compared to the damage that would be caused without them.

This. Great post!

dodgeramforlife · Sep 13, 2015

Thanks again, I will be ordering longer control arms too i guess, better to just do it right and not worry about it later lol.

NightMares · Sep 16, 2015

Make sure you do it all, not just the control arms. I'm talking track bar bracket, pitman arm, control arms, and have you thought about shocks as well? Not to mention the substantial amount of front rake you'll get if you don't already have blocks or an add-a-leaf in the rear.

The control arms will adjust the castor of the axle, which moves the axis point. Image a shopping cart. The front tires axis point is forward of the wheel. The wheels then follow. If the axis point is directly above the center of that wheel, then the shopping cart would be extremely sensitive to turning.

The track bar bracket does 2 things.

1) centers the axle back under the truck which prevents crab/dog walking

2) puts steering geometry back into a factory spec

The pitman arm will be needed to match the track bar. If you don't do BOTH the pitman arm and track bar bracket, you'll wind up with some insane bump steer. If the drag link and track bar are not at the same angles, then they'll work against eachother on every bump you hit.

To be completely honest, by the time you source these parts and purchase them individually, it might be cheaper just to go with a 5" Zone lift. That'll give you all the parts you need, and at that point you could then drop the 15 year old springs and your coil spacers and replace everything.

front end lift help

dodgeramforlife

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MagSport

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Johnn123

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Jimmy68

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MagSport

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