[Whatuhunit]

I’ve decided to go long travel and ended up with the LSK 3.5” over per side kit. It does not change wheel base and has the option to be purchased with axle shafts which I did. Their kit is $3500 for the base kit and $4300 with summer brothers 300m axles. I actually like the idea of keeping stock wheel base to keep the car short and nimble in tight stuff which is where these cars thrive. I like the idea of extended wheel base kits but I know a yxz will never be a whoop eater and I do not plan to spend my entire trail ride running through whoops. Everything has a give and take longer wheel base less nimble better in whoops, shorter wheel base more nimble not as good in whoops. At the end of the day it is all preferential.
so far I have the rear of the car installed but nothing is torqued down. I expected to need to tear it apart once on it’s own weight to play with alignment.

The front end is now installed and it went really well. One thing I didn’t notice was the front cv boot needs to be the similar style band, a regular hose clamp is too tall. I had to order the oem style banding tool and bands.
Once the car was on the ground without adjusting preload I lost about 1” of ground clearance. I added back 3/4” of ground clearance adding in 3/4” of preload. As of right now I feel I may be able to get away with the weller dual rates I currently have.

the rear of the car finalizing went really well, I had to adjust heims a few times until I realized I should set the rear heim that determines how long the arm (wide) is at the cv to be 3.5” longer center to center of bolt hole than stock. Once I did that I felt confident and continued to pull the front heim in as far as I comfortably could for keeping heims as short as possible. This I played with a few times, I pulled the oem rubber boots off the stock uniball and put them on the heims for dirt and debris protection, not sure how long I will run these.
I’ve now had the car out and run it 200+ miles, the suspension worked really well. It’s definitely plusher than before and I could run whoops quite aggressively. Overall the car is soft, I didn’t adjust any shock settings other than preload, I was able to scrape the ass end of the car a few times on larger G-outs but nothing that was a back breaker. I know the car will benefit from shock work, respring, revalve. The current state of the car I can run it comfortably for at least this season and reevaluate next year spending the money on the shocks. I’ve had a few buddies go through “the suspension guy” and say they can’t believe how well the car now handles.

Overall I am very impressed with the LSK long travel and very happy with my decision. The price point, the quality, and lay out of the kit. I highly recommend if you guys are considering long travel to look into the lsk kit, IMO it’s hard to beat.

 

[PoisonFraction]

What are your axle angles? You should be around 16 degrees both front and rear. I could get nowhere near that using the stock springs on my HCR kit. I worked out a new spring kit with Ned at MTS and it made a world of difference. I think the LSK is more leveraged so I would be surprised if you don't need to replace your springs. Are you going to revalve your shocks?

 

[YumaYXZ]

Nice write up on your experience with this kit. All this info is helpful.
LSK seems to be good quality, keep us posted on your suspension tuning.

 

[Whatuhunit]

What are your axle angles? You should be around 16 degrees both front and rear. I could get nowhere near that using the stock springs on my HCR kit. I worked out a new spring kit with Ned at MTS and it made a world of difference. I think the LSK is more leveraged so I would be surprised if you don't need to replace your springs. Are you going to revalve your shocks?

i know I’m riding lower than I should, next time I have my car on the ground I’ll measure axle angles. I’m running the weller dual rates, maybe that’s why I can get my ride height close? I do think I could benefit from spring replacement but it’s not a “need to replace to drive the car” like I feared it would be. I’m sure once I do the shocks I’ll be so happy I did. For now I won’t touch anything more than shock adjustments. When I do the shocks I’ll do everything at the same time if the shock tuner determines I need springs which I am sure they will.

the shock may be farther in than the HCR kit giving added leverage on the shock but one thing to consider is shock angles. If the shock is farther out giving the arm less leverage on the shock that’s awesome. Without moving the upper shock mount we gonna end up laying the shock farther over, this is bad for the shock to try and control everything especially bottoming resistance. Overall they are both changing the leverage each of them has but in different stroke positions. HCR if it is farther out on the arm would be better holding ride height but that shock laid over has a different motion ratio than one that is in stock positioning. The HCR would have reduced bottoming resistance but having better mechanical advantage at ride height.

I’m not an expert or claiming to be and correct me if I am wrong but when I stare at pivot points and locations that is something that comes to mind

 

[Whatuhunit]

 

[Whatuhunit]

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[PoisonFraction]

i know I’m riding lower than I should, next time I have my car on the ground I’ll measure axle angles. I’m running the weller dual rates, maybe that’s why I can get my ride height close? I do think I could benefit from spring replacement but it’s not a “need to replace to drive the car” like I feared it would be. I’m sure once I do the shocks I’ll be so happy I did. For now I won’t touch anything more than shock adjustments. When I do the shocks I’ll do everything at the same time if the shock tuner determines I need springs which I am sure they will.

the shock may be farther in than the HCR kit giving added leverage on the shock but one thing to consider is shock angles. If the shock is farther out giving the arm less leverage on the shock that’s awesome. Without moving the upper shock mount we gonna end up laying the shock farther over, this is bad for the shock to try and control everything especially bottoming resistance. Overall they are both changing the leverage each of them has but in different stroke positions. HCR if it is farther out on the arm would be better holding ride height but that shock laid over has a different motion ratio than one that is in stock positioning. The HCR would have reduced bottoming resistance but having better mechanical advantage at ride height.

I’m not an expert or claiming to be and correct me if I am wrong but when I stare at pivot points and locations that is something that comes to mind

7
HCR kit provides a shock tower to push the shocks out and maintain the orignal shock angles. First two pictures below is with the stock springs but you can see the upper tower. I had tons of preload and my axle angles where way to flat. Around 9 degree.

I think all these long travel kit companies do a really poor job in providing infomation on shock setup with their kits. Why not provide a spring kit with the LT kit?? It was a bit of a journey finding the right springs. I tried Wellar LT springs and they just did not work right with the HCR kit. I sent those back. Ned with MTS was the most helpful and really knows his craft. He set me up with some nice dual rate springs. I just need to revalve and plan on having MTS do that work this winter as soon as I can afford the diesel fuel to drive to phoenix.

New dual rate rear springs, almost no preload and angles around 16

 

[Thesandaddict]

from my measurements the LSK kit uses stock geometry making this a "long arm kit" which then by default (since the hub is further out) increase wheel travel (i measured 18.25" front and 19.25" rear) while increasing caster to help high speed stability. increasing load on the already weak factory shock tower is pretty sketchy, and if you do some research you will find plenty of HCR kits (as well as the over-hyped shock relocation bracket) actually ripping the frame apart at the 1" tubes on the OEM tower.

not provinding spreings is a great way to keep costs down as many will be setting there cars up differently. ive built these out a few times using the Eibach starge 2 (great for sand cars) or stage 3 (great for those carrying extra weight, spare tire, etc) and both weller springs kits as well, and while they are all close in spring rate and length, they are all different. HCR has a great name behind them, but they are far from "the best" and there are plenty of other kits that dont live up to the hype (cognito, as amazing as that kit looks, offers marginal wheel travel gains over stock, especially for the price).

saying all of that, the CV will still be the limiting factor for a lot of these kits, and again, doing a little research, the kits that add wheelbase seem to have the most CV issues. cognito and lsk (at least from my experience) have minimal to no CV issues or at least reported issues. sweeping the axle back, and then adding a ton of travel, only compounds the limits of the CV. crack open a stock CV and youd be suprised (comparing them to other OEM CVs) that the bearings ride the outer most edge of the star, and at full droop ride the bearing channels to such an extreme that they can fold the edges of the star, causing excessive heat build up and wear. ill see if i can hunt down some photos and show ya what i mean. we try to use the demon XHD or RCV axles whenever possible. stronger and just easier to slap in a hi performance axle rather than rebuild a shit CV with a shaft that will destroy the CV.

 

[Whatuhunit]

from my measurements the LSK kit uses stock geometry making this a "long arm kit" which then by default (since the hub is further out) increase wheel travel (i measured 18.25" front and 19.25" rear) while increasing caster to help high speed stability. increasing load on the already weak factory shock tower is pretty sketchy, and if you do some research you will find plenty of HCR kits (as well as the over-hyped shock relocation bracket) actually ripping the frame apart at the 1" tubes on the OEM tower.

kickass info sandaddict, I did the Rayscar Designs brace kit in preparation for the LT. It was quite the extensive install and there are still some other areas IMO I want to and will brace. My intent is to save the car in the event of a crash or hard hit, prevent bending, peace of mind.

I actually think I am going to add tree kickers to prevent the back wheel from catching not only a tree but a car bike or quad as well. I don’t plan to be in a scenario I’ll need them but no one plans to be in an accident.

the LSK kit rides really well and felt really stable. I felt comfortable pushing the car hard airing out on crests with partially unknown terrain doing 65-75.

I kept my eyes on all bolts to make sure they stayed torqued, I only had one bolt that moved about an 1/8th of a turn and everything else stayed to spec.

I’ll play with my shock settings in a few weeks to see if I can get improvement with my current shock spring package until it’s done the right way.

 

[Thesandaddict]

i also replaced all pivot bolts with some fresh grade 10 bolts and interference nuts, not a fan of nylock since its really just a one time use nut. something to consider next time its torn down.

 

[Whatuhunit]

Shocks were too soft, the more comfortable I became with driving the car the harder I drove and the harder I was hitting the frame. I caved and dropped them off yesterday, full respring and revalve. I figured I’m going to own the car for quite some time and I might as well handle the suspension now. Turns out I had a blown shock I wasn’t aware of either. I have high hopes for how it’ll be after.