Spacer lift?

[240billy]

Aight guys I own a 19 warlock and I’m looking to install a lift? I was leaning towards a 4” lift but I don’t wanna loose the factory rake. So now I’m looking into just doing a 2-3” spacer lift. I’m kinda leaning toward putting 3” leveling kit up front and 3” spacer in the rear. But I read a lot of post about guys getting a lot of squeaking up front from the spacers. I kinda remember something about how the strut goes inside the spacer or something and that’s what causes the squeak but it just doesn’t make sense to me how that happens. On my 08 Dakota I had this same setup with 2” daystar leveling kit up front and 2” steel blocks in the rear and never had a squeaking problem. I know I should get new upper control arms as well if I’m going with 3” how bad is this Frankenstein lift gonna be for my truck. And sorry if this post is hard to understand it’s late and I’m having trouble putting thoughts into words please ask any questions and feel free to point me in the direction of post that can better explain the squeaking. Thanks for all the help.

 

[Quick_Shifter]

What is your factory rack now?
There are ways to do it without rigging up various spacers and hope they work. Your Ram is not as forgiving as your Dakota was.

 

[kurek]

I was leaning towards a 4” lift but I don’t wanna loose the factory rake. So now I’m looking into just doing a 2-3” spacer lift.

Any kind of 4" lift would be a "full" lift, as in the kind that has new knuckles, lowers the control arms and front axle assembly, etc.

There are two problems which can arise with the spacer lifts.

First is that there is a hole in the center of them to allow the top of the strut to poke a little into it which is normal since the shaft/nut will vary in length a little on aftermarket struts. On some of the spacers that hole is too large and doesn't actually support the upper strut mount bushing rubber which allows it to get torn over time. That leads to squeaking but more crucially it leaves the top of the strut loosely smushed into the area inside the spacer so you get a couple inches of undamped suspension movement.

This should illustrate that:



Second problem with spacer lifts is that they move the entire strut assembly down by the thickness of the spacer. The strut assembly is what limits suspension movement and protects the rest of the suspension from damage from being pushed outside its range of motion. That includes the upper ball joints, the tie rods and most importantly the inner axle CV's. When the strut is moved down an inch or two then all of those parts can get pushed past their normal working range and damage usually results.

You can address the upper ball joint with aftermarket arms but the inner CV can really only be addressed by lowering the front axle assembly and at that point you should really just get a full 4"+ lift kit.

This is how it looks when the axle is pushed past its range of motion:



So that's why people will usually recommend doing your front lift with lift struts instead of with spacers on a 4wd Ram 1500 .

 

[Graygoose]

I did a spacer lift one time, and vowed never to do one again. Course it was an expensive spacer kit, but hated it.

 

[DILLIGAF]

Spacers are complete trash.

Get yourself 6112s to level.

 

[240billy]

What is your factory rack now?

There are ways to do it without rigging up various spacers and hope they work. Your Ram is not as forgiving as your Dakota was.

I’m not sure I’ll have to measure it it’s a pretty good amount though.

 

[240billy]

Spacers are complete trash.

Get yourself 6112s to level.

With the 6112s I’ll have to set them to highest setting to get 2”s correct? The warlock has that 1” lift factory and I’m not really going for a level I wanna raise the whole truck and keep some of the rake.

 

[Quick_Shifter]

What is your factory rack now?

I’m not sure I’ll have to measure it it’s a pretty good amount though.

Lets assume its a 3" factory rack. @Nick@GotExhaust can set you up with a 3" coil spring, Zone rear end box kit (relocation brackets) and rear shocks. He can also supply the eibach kit for the front that will net you around 2 1/2". I would recommend zone UCA's to go with that set up. That is the cost efficient way to do what you are describing, without making your truck un safe

 

[Nick@GotExhaust]

let me know if we can help. As stated by the super knowledgeable @Quick_Shifter we can set you up with some items that will obtain the amount of lift you are going for. Also as he mentioned that set up would be better suited with Zone UCA's as well. At that point why not go with a 4" Zone lift with the 3" coils. That will make you only loose 1" of rake but get you the amount of lift you want.