I'm finally closing on my house on Wednesday.
I don't think the ceiling in the 'storage' building is 8-feet. I'm hoping by summer I can find someone to raise the ceiling / roof and open up a wall and put in a garage door. It's a conder block building. I'm guessing they'll have to extend the wall height so I can get the ceiling height.
Don't know what your building looks like. Does it have trusses? I was in the same situation, and wanted to put a lift in a building that only had a 9 ft ceiling. Against everyone's recommendations, I took the plywood off the ceiling, and then bought 2x8's, cut them at the correct angles, and with a ladder lifted them up and screwed them to the side of the trusses. Also cut another 2x8 and used it to make the 2x8 structure look like a "A" on each truss. Once all that was done I cut the bottom of the original trusses out, which gave me a cathedral ceiling with plenty of height. I am able to raise a vehicle on the lift as high as it will go, which is better than I had in the other place I owned.
This building already had a garage door, but it interfered with the operation of the lift, and when I raised the ceiling I really had no where to hang the rails for it. So I took it down, bolted the panels to a wooden frame, and then bought a barn door rail and made it slide on the outside of the building. I never had this setup before, but I really like it. Since I do not have a personnel door, this works great. If I just want to enter the garage myself I just slide the door back a little bit and go in. And it's very easy to move.