Lowering & maintain ride

Fuelaltered · Oct 4, 2017

I have two (94&96), splash , and want to lower both a few inches, but do not want to lose a decent ride.
Before spending money on parts, with a possible disappointment, would like some feedback from those who have done this satisfactorily. Thank you.

stmitch · Oct 9, 2017

It's possible to lower a Ranger and maintain factory ride quality, but it's also easy to go too far and make it ride like a chuck wagon. There are 2 things that will commonly reduce your ride quality when lowering a vehicle.

1. Reduced travel. If the suspension can only cycle 80% of what it could originally, then you're going to get some harsh impacts over bumps. There's no way around this, but you can clearance things to reduce its affect. Cutting down the factory bumpstops, or getting lower profile bumpstops will help to regain some of the lost travel. The lower you go, the more you'll have to trim to maintain stock levels of travel. I'd suggest lowering no more than 4-5 inches or things get pretty tricky, and you'd better be comfortable with frame notching, etc

2. Low profile tires. This isn't required, but it's common for people that lower a vehicle to change wheel and tire combos, so I always bring it up. Tire sidewalls flex and cushion a lot. If you suddenly have half as much sidewall thanks to larger diameter wheels, then you're going to feel twice the harshness of the impacts from imperfections in the road surface.

JoshT · Oct 9, 2017

Both your trucks are TIB front suspension. This is probably a good thing if you are only wanting a few inches. Install a 3" drop with dream beams and assuming that you touch nothing else it should retain similar ride quality. You'll be able to keep stock springs and shocks because all of the drop is built into the end of the beam past where these parts connect. Even cutting bump stops won't be necessary with the dream beams.

Drop springs, while much cheaper, will make for a rougher ride than the dream beams. With drop springs you will need to run drop shocks and maybe cut bump stops.

As stmitch if you have to move to a lower profile tire it will ride quality some.

The rear is a little more tricky because you will have to start playing with shocks. That said a shackle/hangar flip will get you about 2" in rear and likely won't affect too much. At 2 inches you could even keep stock shocks, but that's about as low as you want to go with them.

An axle flip will probably get the rear close to level with the front, but you will need drop shocks and cutting bump stops to get there without sacrificing much ride quality.

How ever you decide to drop, tires will make a huge difference. If you are doing this and plan to stick with 14-15" wheels, you can probably maintain decent ride quality. Moving into 16"+ wheels will start killing the ride quality.

Fuelaltered · Nov 23, 2017

Thanks, This all makes sense, and will follow advice, especially since I use these to tow a race car trailer.

Fuelaltered · Nov 23, 2017

Thank you for the advice. These are used to tow my race car trailer, but looking for a lightly better appearance. Just purchased four new stock leaf springs for rear, and will proceed.

Lowering & maintain ride

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