5 hours ago, muzaz said:
So let me explain a bit better. The vehicle is a Defender 90 and it's not my daily driver. I consider it more of a grown up's toy than any thing else, mainly to be used for "overland" offroad trips which may be quite challenging - mud, rocks, snow etc.
I agree that lifting the vehicle will not achieve better clearance. But lifting it I can fit larger tyres, and that will increase clearance and also better articulation.
Also, as mentioned in my original post, I will be fitting front and rear winches plus bumpers roll cage guards etc...all these will surely weigh the landy down if I keep the standard springs. So in reality longer or harder springs would be needed no?
I'm not on a tight buget, not an open cheque of course, but I can spend a bit on it.
Lifting won't really allow bigger tyres. Ok, you "might" get away with it on road or as our American friends would call a Mall crawler. The reason is the wheel is designed to go up and down as the suspension extends and compresses. All a lift is doing (assuming spring or spacer lift) is extending the suspension a bit. For most off roading this is bad, often very bad.
It means your suspension is already drooping, so when off road you will loose flex as your wheels will no longer have as much available suspension droop. This usually results in more lifted wheels and more cross axle situations. Assuming you still have full suspension compression the tyre and wheel will of course move up into the wheelarch. As negating and removing any clearance a 'lift' will have bought you. i.e. if the wheel would rub without a lift, the will also rub with a lift under suspension flex.
To get around this issue some lift ktis will come with longer bumper stops to reduce the amount of up travel. Which can reduce the chance of rubbing. But for off roading this is even worse, as not only have you removed some of your available down travel. Doing this would also limit your up travel and reduce the total distance the wheel can move up and down. Some poor lift kits will even coil bind or have springs too stiff to full compress, which may kind of help prevent rubbing, but will offer all of the downsides of extended bump stops, but often with a harsher ride and even less flex suspension.
Now don't get me wrong. Lifting is not all bad. But a 90 already has great clearance and approach/departure angles. It would be like buying a TJ Wrangler and adding a 2-3" lift to it. The Land Rover in many ways already comes with a 'lift' pre-fitted from the factory as part of the suspension design. Of course lots of people will and do lift Land Rover's and manage just fine, but often may not have compared back to back or even to other vehicles. But it is quite amazing when you see a lifted vehicle wave a wheel in the air and get cross axled, then watch a completely stock Defender drive straight through the same obstacle with no bother at all.
There are things we can do to counter some of the issues. We can move shock mounts or fit longer shocks. But it is all a balancing act and the further you go, the more it'll cost and the more changes required.
Do you know what sort of tyres you'd want to run?
I often roll about on some 33.10.50's and my brother currently has some 255/85R16's on his Ninety at the moment. Both sizes can work on mostly standard vehicles and the axles for the most part should handle this size. Personally I'm a fan of narrower tyres over wide ones. Fat wide tyres do look cool and monster truck like, but my experience and research says they generally perform less well off road vs a narrow tyre.
TBH the factory 235/85R16 or 7.50 x 16 is a great size to use. When I do off road trials and competitions I like to run a set of 7.00 x 16's, nice and skinny and several inches shorter than my 33's. I do this because it goes better off road, although is more understeery on road with these tyres.
As mentioned above, 35's can be made to fit. But may require some massaging or trimming of the body or wheel spats. I'd also suggest you are at much higher risk of breaking an axle/diff at this size. What sort of terrain are you driving on mostly? In the UK we don't really have much in the way of rock crawling, the vast majority of our off roading is mud and grass and deep ruts.
Land Rover's are designed to carry weight in stock trim, so to some extent standard springs and shocks cope well with various payloads. It doesn't sound like yours would be overly heavy. Although you may have some extra weight out in front of the front axle. So something a bit more heavy duty on the front suspension may be required.
Then it comes down to price. Shocks can be quite modestly priced to costing as much as a used VW Golf GTI or a weekend away for 4 people.
For off roading a simple setup to make it a bit more capable and flexy would be:
+2" shocks all round on stock upper mounts
Longer brake lines (because you don't want to stretch and break one off road, probably fine on 2", but why risk it)
Stock springs with dislocation cones OR +2" length standard rate springs. Accepting that you might go HD on the front axle.
I've got on well with Procomp shocks in the past. The ride smooth and flex well. But are softer on the road and will allow more body roll.
I've also got on well with the Britpart Celluar Dynamic twin tube shocks. Not quite as compliant on or off road, just as flexy off road and better for towing or carrying some additional weight.
Neither of these shocks are expensive to buy.
You can spend more money on shocks, but even spending 2x or maybe even 3x more per shock may only result in subtle differences. That said, there are lots of good shocks out there.
As for springs, I quite like the Flatdog springs, they offer different lengths and spring rates and tell you what they are. Lots of other places don't.
https://www.flatdoguk.com/search.asp?types=FD+SPRINGS+>+Defender+90&super=
I'd be tempted to go +2 standard rate on the rear and +2 HD on the front.
The longer springs you probably won't have any issues with the springs dislocating. Definitely not at the front. You need to do other things to get more travel on the front radius arms and shocks aren't really the limiting factor from the factory. On the rear you might still either need to retain the top of the spring or add dislocation cones. It would depend on the brand of shocks you get as not all +2's are exactly the same length. Chances are your stock props would be most fine too, although something like the Hardy Spicer wide angle props might also be advisable.
There are lots of other things you can do, but from here on in you'll need to consider more parts and look at the wider suspension system.
This is the sort of travel you should expect with something like the above setup. Think this is on 7.50's here and it is a very capable Land Rover. That rides and handles like a standard vehicle (or better) on the road too.
The next step up would be to consider some traction aides like lockers or ATBs.
