Jon's post pretty much sums it up. I have both the body and suspension
lifts. As I've got a Gen 2, there are some differneces. First, what I've
got:
94 4x4 v8 5spd. Trailmaster 4" Suspension Lift with dual SSV shocks on each
wheel. I never used the rear lift blocks, I had custom rear springs made
with the extra 4" built in. Wheel hop was bad enough stock, I couldn't
imagine making it worse. Never had any issues with that probem with the new
springs either. Also have a 3" body lift. And what are either called "lift
lips" or "chasis pants" depending on the point of view. Looks sort of like
heavy duty landscape fabric that came pre-cut and fills in the wheel wells.
Stock front bumper re-mounted. to match. The rear has one of the fabric
things I think. I've got an unpainted roll pan that I never installed. I
planned to put that in and then have a tube bumper behind it. It's only
been 5 or 6 years, so I might get to it yet.
Anyway, about the only thing Jon missed was that most lift kits put in a
spacer between the A-arms and drop the axle down. This means you'd either
need to run 23" or larger wheels (yeah right) or increase the offset of the
wheels (what really happens). This creates a couple issues. If you want to
do anything other than go down a drag strip (i.e. turn) you run out of
fender room in a hurry with the bigger arc of the tires if you want to do
something unusual like say for instance, turn:) This means you can't really
run anything much larger than stock. All the extra width may also get you
in trouble depending on how picky anyone in your state is about wheels /
tires that stick out past the fenders. I have 4" rubber flairs on the front
and the tires still go more than a bit past them. I've never had any legal
issues, but I can say that you won't want to dive anywhere near mud / water
with your window down. With stock tires, water basically shot up next to
the truck and out and very little would hit the windshield or open window.
With the lift and tires it looks more like you're driving under water when
hitting puddles.
Oh yeah, in order to squeeze the 33's on mine I also trimed and sort of
welded / bondo'd the rear edge of my front wheelwells to prevent
interferance. There's also a little trimming (done mainly with the tires :)
on the air dam in front.
David 94 CC Sport 4x4, 318, 5spd, Lifted with 33" BFG MT's
----- Original Message -----
From: <jon@dakota-truck.net>
To: <dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: DML: lift kit suggestions
> : I am thinking about doing a mild lift (3-5 inches) on my truck and was
> : wondering if anyone had any suggestions of which lift kit to buy?
> I don't have any firsthand experience with lifting a Dakota, but
> hanging around the DML and at the annual BBQ, you can't help but pick
> up a few things. :-) Unfortunately, there aren't really any "good"
> lift kits out there for the Dakota. What I mean by that is that the
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