Back-n-Black wrote:
daspes wrote:
I feel like Tom with his OME sermon sometimes...
A Frankenlift will usually net you more than 2.5"s of lift. It is normally about 3-4" or in my case 4.5" of lift. After over 20K of miles on my Frankie, I'm sitting at exactly 23 1/8 " up front, bottom of the flare to the center of the hub. How much you gain comes down to your current springs. How much have they sagged? Mine were pretty gone by 40K miles. If you have brand new springs, you will probably see the 2.5 or just a little more... Then you add armor, slider, trail gear, your wife, and all but OME/Frankie springs will drop even more, which will net you more apparent lift.
So what your saying is by installing a Franky you could end up with CV damage and bind because the resulting lift is over 3" from stock ride height? The height agreed upon here is about the limit of bind and problems?
Or are you simply saying depending on how much sag your car has you can gain this much? Cause if so stop it!!! No one does lift kits by how much an old worn out suspension will gain, it is always from the brand new stock height of the rig to the new lifted height. I think this is where everyone is confused and in turn confusing all the new people. doo doo if you remove your springs then add a franky you can gain 23" woohoo!!! Not good, not good at all.
There are unfortunately more than one way that lift is measured. Only one is really correct though.
1.) The profane report what they gain, by what they see. They have an old suspension that they install a 2.5" lift on. The suspension has sagged an inch since new... So they got a 3.5" of lift.
2.) The lift producers, and unfortuantely this is most of them... makes a spring that is 2.5" longer than stock. For simplicity we will make the same spring rate as stock (Rusty's). When the lift is installed, you see a gain of 2.5" plus the 1" that the suspension sagged, however, due to the spring rate being the same as stock as soon as the suspension is loaded again (taken off the jacks) it will compress as much as the stock springs. which would appear to be 2.5" but is actually 1.5" over stock.
3.) the lift maker produces a spring that is longer than stock, but they install it and measure before and after height on a brand new suspension (OME/Frankie). The spring is also a higher rate. So that when you load the suspension it doesn't sink as much as example 2 and nets you a real 2.5 inch of lift. Frankie gives you about a extra 3/4-1" over an OME due to the spacers and top plate.
Example #3 is the correct way that you should measure a lift, but unfortuantely not normal...
Now to throw another wrench in this. IIRC the 3" cieling for CV angles was established using Pre-Lowered KJ's. After the first model year they lowered the KJ's 3/4". So for an 03-07 you could actually raise 3 3/4's" without ruining your CV joints.
For the record i've never heard of anyone with a frankie busting a CV joint due to it's angle.