ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Technical Discussion - Performance / Modify => Topic started by: Phase change on March 20, 2018, 07:31:43 AM
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Has anyone tried 1” spacers/adapters on a second gen tracker? Mine is a little tippy in handling and my thought was a little extra track might fix that.
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First - define "tippy in handling"
Second - has the vehicle been modified in any way?
Third - what condition is the suspension in?
I'm running a second gen Grand Vitara and "tippy" is the last adjective I would use to describe the handling - as far as I know the GV has pretty much the same suspension as the Tracker, the wheels are different and the GV may have more offset so I'm not certain if the track is identical.
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Yes my suspension is lifted 2” with spacers, rear shocks are new, struts are not, tires are oversized and wheels are stock. By tippy I mean a little more body roll than I like. The track feels narrow, and it is. I did reinstall the sway bar which helped, and the articulation in the car is really good. So it feels like a trail rig on the street. It’s not awful but my thought was a little wider stance might help it feel planted
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If the issue is body roll, which it may well be seeing that it has been lifted AND that re-installing the sway bar (which, incidentally, is also known as an "anti roll bar" in some countries) helped to some extent, I don't see widening the track as likely to have a significant effect.
Another possible cause, depending on what tires you're running, is increased "flex" or "squirm" caused by the increase in sidewall height when you switched to the oversized tires - again - I don't see widening the track as having a significant impact, but, I am curious as to whether widening the track, which would increase the twisting forces "at the tire" wouldn't cause it to flex more - try bumping the tire pressures up and see what happens.
I suspect the solution to your issue is going to be stiffer springs - my GV is sitting on OME springs, shocks & struts, and also has oversized tires - there was no noticeable change in "tippy-ness" when the suspension was installed, but the effects of the increased sidewall height was immediately noticeable (the tires were installed several months after the OME suspension was fitted), and that is why I used the term "squirm" to describe it - the GV on 70 series tires no longer corners with the precision that it did on 60 series tires.
Despite the fact that the center of gravity has been raised, the body roll is actually reduced because of the stiffer springs, the ride is firmer because the shocks are matched to the springs, and the handling is just shy of a good sport suspension - good enough that I can actually "pressure" some fairly pricey sports cars along the road to our airport - two tons of SUV is not supposed to be able to hang with a turbocharged Subaru Impreza WRX, and when you do it, the Subie driver is not at all happy.-
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as you have coil spacers did you put in a relocation bracket for the rear sway bar? how are the sway bar end links worn out ? I have the same problem as body roll only happens once and a while at high speed 100-120 km per hr. I've changed front struts rear shocks and sway bar end links and it settled it abit but it has not gone totally away the next thing that I'm looking into is worn rear track bar bushings. I have a 2" body lift and 2" coil spacers and running 31x10.5x15 I don't recall the problem when I was running 30x9.5x15 so I'm thinking that my problem and your problem could be one of this problems.
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Great thoughts here guys thank you. Yes the tires are taller, they are Goodyear wrangler AT in 235/75-15 flavor. I like them a lot, they feel like a car tyre and have great traction but they are lightly built compared to truck tires I’ve run on other Suzuki’s before. And yes sorry to confuse it is body roll I’m describing but it’s not a sort of variable g force dependent roll I’ve felt before it’s like extremely tippy initially, but once it takes a “set” in the corner it’s not rolling more that much.
Could be tire. Probably spring, but I’d rather not beef up the springs because I like how it rides on and off the road, but you’re right actually it is pretty softly sprung. Well shoot I’m gonna be pissed if the lift kit I installed needs replaced by springs! I know spacer lifts aren’t the best way but my understanding was they actually stiffen the ride and tighten it up on the street compared to a full spring lift.
Rear sway bar relocation bracket? No I didn’t and I wasn’t even aware it had a rear sway bar lol. Maybe that’s a place to start. I did put spacers in front sway bar, but man it didn’t look right when it went back on and it seemed very unhappy. These are mounted under the arms and didn’t seem to take to the new lift as well as an over mounted sway bar would im guessing. But I also drove it without the sway bar and it was still too mush.
By comparison my little x-90 with similar suspension design was very planted feeling with the baby super swampers on it.
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My gf washed piglet yesterday for me.
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bits4vits sells them and I'm sure there are other people that do its good to have as it re-aligns the rear end so that it doesn't track
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Well it’s called a tracker for a reason! So you mean they didn’t come with one but they fit them as aftermarket? That seems counter intuitive as we usually don’t want them for a wheeling rig but heck, why not. The car has a lot of articulation really for a semi stock suspension.
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First - there is no rear sway bar on these vehicles, and therefore no rear sway bar relocation bracket - there is no provision to take a rear sway bar, and to the best of my knowledge, bits4vits does not offer one, and neither does anyone else - if you know different, feel free to provide a link to the product.
What I believe beagle..t is calling a rear sway bar relocation bracket is most likely the panhard rod (also known as the track bar) relocation bracket, and what that does is reduce the sideways motion of the body relative to the axle (or the axle relative to the body) as the suspension cycles. Assuming that this is the case, the presence of absence of this bracket has ZERO impact on "tracking" and/or body roll - the sideways movement of the rear axle produces a sensation similar to bumpsteer, in that the vehicle changes direction slightly as the rear suspension moves up & down.
I know spacer lifts aren’t the best way but my understanding was they actually stiffen the ride and tighten it up on the street compared to a full spring lift.
There's no way a suspension spacer lift can "stiffen" the ride - it's nothing but a doughnut of metal or plastic that spaces the spring down from it's seat, and in doing so, lifts the vehicle - the spring does not change, the spring rate does not change, so the suspension does not somehow magically become stiffer. Search a little and you'll come across folks who claim that the fact that spacer lifts don't change the ride makes them better than spring lifts - just my $0.02, that doesn't make them better, it makes them worse, and the reason is that the raised center of gravity causes more body roll.
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I’ve done enough spacer lifts and read enough to know that they can make a suspension stiffer. Not sure what cases that though. I’m debating a spacer lift on my hmmwv but what I’ve gathered is that they ruin the already marginal ride so I’m sticking to a body lift in that one for now.
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Also if you think about how suspension travels then any ifs suspension lift will actually tuck the front wheels in more, while also as you point out give more leverage from the higher CG. So that’s why I was thinking some spacers to counteract that. It’s not terrible and I can live with it as it is just wondering if there’s an easy improvement I’m overlooking. It’s probably being caused by my light duty tires.
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yes fordem that's what its called I couldn't remember
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Like I said - the spring is the same, the spring rate doesn't change - you're using the same control arms, so there's no change in the "mechanical advantage" or leverage - it's not magic...
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So you’re saying a spacer lift won’t affect ride quality in any vehicle?
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In my opinion, wheel spacers will not have a significant impact on the ride quality, and if the problem is caused by sidewall flex, the effects of the spacers may take the issue in the wrong direction.
Widening the track does make the vehicle in that it is harder to flip - picture a cone - if the cone gets taller with the same base, it becomes easier to tip - this is the raised center of gravity - if the cone gets wider for the same height - it becomes harder to tip - this is because the weight of the cone is further from the pivot point (the edge of the cone) - think of a lever.
Now picture a cone with rubber on the outer edges of the base - as the base gets wiser it does get harder to tip the cone, but the rubber also flexes more because of the increased leverage.
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My 2 cents: In most areas at least in the US, wheel spacers aren't street legal. The reason is that they become the only thing bolted to the hub, & now your wheel is bolted only to the spacer. It's easy to find examples of wheels 'flying off' a vehicle, mostly in off-road situations.
IMHO you would be much better off getting wider wheels with less backspace. This widens your trackwidth without the risk of breaking a spacer or having the bolts come loose & sending your tire/wheel combo rolling off into oblivion.
Given the cost of most spacers, you can get wider wheels for around the same or not much more cost. Why bother with the extra parts to fail?
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My 2 cents: In most areas at least in the US, wheel spacers aren't street legal. The reason is that they become the only thing bolted to the hub, & now your wheel is bolted only to the spacer. It's easy to find examples of wheels 'flying off' a vehicle, mostly in off-road situations.
IMHO you would be much better off getting wider wheels with less backspace. This widens your trackwidth without the risk of breaking a spacer or having the bolts come loose & sending your tire/wheel combo rolling off into oblivion.
Given the cost of most spacers, you can get wider wheels for around the same or not much more cost. Why bother with the extra parts to fail?
Because the wheels choices for these vehicles is very limited actually. They have a large center bore and a somewhat rare bolt circle.
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their 5x5.5 with center bore hole 108mm or 4 1/4" most ford dodge and old cj jeep rims fit its the calipers on the 2nd gen that creates the problem but with a backspacing more than 3.75 or 3 3/4" then grinding abit of the front caliper would need to be done and its not a lot to take off like 1/16" very minimal. Finding something in the 2.50 or 3.0 backspacing would be optimal. IMHO spacers are not safe and add a lot of stress on other front end parts, also when you don't want them anymore you have to replace all your studs as you have to cut the originals for the spacers to work for want ive seen
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IMHO spacers are not safe and add a lot of stress on other front end parts,
Spacers don't add any more stress that would be added by a wheel with equivalent back spacing.
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Interesting about cuttting the studs. I hadn’t considered that. I could check and buy spacer accordingly. And to be clear these wouldn’t be spacer but rather adapters. From what I’ve heard they are legit and don’t create a safety issue.
As for aftermarket I’ve looked at a lot of old Jeep rims and such but none really appealed to me so I thought I’d stay with stock wheels. I was really just trying to tighten up the front end a little but performance struts or beefed up sway bar might be a better way to attack that anyway. I don’t want my tires outside the fenders anyway.
Does anyone have a 5 spoke alloy wheel to sell me for a spare? eBay wants like 60$ for one. Which considering shipping isn’t too bad.
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I got a pretty good deal on some 1" wheel spacers for my XL7 on eBay from Titan Wheel Accessories. You could give them a try. I can't give you any review on the spacers because I haven't put any miles on my vehicle since the install, but I can tell you I did not need to cut any studs.
I think you will find that the wider track will help you vehicle BE more stable, but it might not necessarily FEEL more stable, because with your soft factory springs, the fact that the wheels are farther out from the springs by an inch per side means that they have more leverage to act against those springs. This is a benefit off road because it helps coax some travel out of the IFS, but it's a disadvantage on-road because it will work against you for the same reason.
I think your misconception of suspension spacers adding to the spring rate may come from different vehicles with different IFS setups. I know in a previous truck of mine, a 2004 Tacoma which uses a coilover "strut" with upper and lower A-arms, ( versus our vehicles which use a separate coil and strut and only a lower A-arm), if you added a spacer inside the coilover assembly, it would stiffen the ride because it was basically preloading the spring, similar to what happens when you crank up torsion bars on an older IFS Toyota. However, there was also a style of spacer called an over-the-top spacer which didn't install inside the coilover (no need to disassemble the coilover), but just bolted between the coilover assembly and the frame mount for the coilover. This would give lift but no difference in spring rate because all it is doing is moving the spring mounting point lower relative to the rest of the chassis. This is exactly what the spring spacers in our Suzukis all do. All you are doing is moving the spring mounting point down. You could put a 9" spacer on there and it wouldn't be one iota stiffer than a stock setup. Check out Whitfield's rig on Zuwharrie if you don't believe me; he basically did just that, lowered everything down 9 inches.
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Does anyone have a 5 spoke alloy wheel to sell me for a spare? eBay wants like 60$ for one. Which considering shipping isn’t too bad.
Check the local u pull it places, they usually have some around. And Goodyear's have pretty stiff sidewalls, so you can rule that part out.