"Is that what their brackets do? I'll have to go back to Zukipilot's install and read again. I've read also, Calmini will sell you individual parts of their kit. Have you tried this? By lowering the front axle housing, isn't the pinion snout have crossmember interference?"

The brackets rotate the differential forward also, so the stub axles get lower, but the pinion is kept off the cross member.

OK I been here, I lowered the front strut mount 3"
and left the axle in the stock location, this will max
out the CV angle as well as it's movement in and
out of the CV Cup, note: the CV will pop out of the
cup before it binds on the cup.

At 3" the Ball Bearings will ride on the wire retainer
at the outside of the CV Cup, I ran my trucklet this
way for years before the CVs started clicking, when
I took them apart to see what the noise was this is
what I found.

I then did the Hagen A-arm Re-Location, now the CVs
fall out, more work, I had a spacer made for the Drivers
Side and extended the CV Cup with some DOM steel tubing
on the other side, CVs still were clicking, so I replaced the
offending side with a GEO front shaft from a motorhome
pusher , clicking sound gone.

I'll post a pic if you guys are interested  

Zukipilot: I looked at flipping the top strut mount. It is only one inch high and as the mounting part is offset you only drop the strut 3/4". I know thats a lot less than 2 " of droop. I measured strut travel at 6" total, in stock trim your only using  just over 4" I calculated the two inch strut spacers gave 44% more travel.

After trying the flipped mount and the drop bracket for my 3" kit I decided to quit the 'trying to get a little more out of it'. I ended up trashing many half shafts (over extending past the wire ring). It had great travel in the front but it was to much for the CV travel. Now I have it set like Calmini designed it and no more over extension The bad part is that the half shafts still can not handle low gears, 33's, and a heavy foot
Zig

Just to clarify, I dropped the strut 2", its had a lot of use with this mod over the last 18 months. I reckon I've another 1.5" I could go but without longer travel struts I wouldn't get any extra travel. I don't recall which part of the CV binds it was just a quick check will I was doing someother work. As Zukipilot has already tried this then I could be wrong about how much I've got left. I'm planning on swapping the front axle for a steel one soon so I'll check all that while its apart again.  I didn't Calmini would sell parts individually would save some work if they did.

After trying the flipped mount and the drop bracket for my 3" kit I decided to quit the 'trying to get a little more out of it'. I ended up trashing many half shafts (over extending past the wire ring). It had great travel in the front but it was to much for the CV travel. Now I have it set like Calmini designed it and no more over extension The bad part is that the half shafts still can not handle low gears, 33's, and a heavy foot
Zig

I think Zig is on to something here. There is a good point at which to stop trying to get more travel out of the IFS front end. That is at the point when the geometry gets so bad that the car won't drive well and parts break too easy.

One of the usual 'campfire conversations' we have is the idea of how much flex is enough / too much? It is my believe that a vehicle with front and rear lockers really needs minimal flex, even more so as the tire size increases. Sure a tire will be 'picked' and it might not look as pretty going through some stuff, but you're going to get through it. I guess I'm going the long way around the barn in trying to advacate balance in design. Balance of driveability, reliability, and functionality.

Anyway, that's my $.02

-Eric

Another thing to consider,

A CV, much like the Birfield joint, becomes weaker and weaker the more angle it recieves, exposing the weakness and possible bell expansion and breakage.

It would be very wise to keep the CV's range of operability within factory spec to maintain strength.  This is why Calmini uses stock length struts and axle drop brackets.  The range remains the same as stock.

Calmini use stock length struts but they also use strut lowering spacers (as shown in the pics above) to get more travel. Also because the diff is only lowered 1" the CVs run at the same angle as mine with no drop brackets and a 2" lift.

Dropping the strut wont increase travel at all. All your doing is changing your range of travel. If your strut now goes an extra 2 inches down it wont also go 2 inches up.  

Mike

I also agree with Eric.  How much is too much? Stability and Durability has to be #1 priority. If your sacrificing either for flex I promise you that you will regret it. Stability and durability will get you farther than flex every time.

 Im sure some people will disagree with me on this statement but I also belive that if a rig is running more than a 60%rear / 40%front  difference in flex your severly increasing your chances for a roll over. Too much stability is lost. Example... If you were driving down a steep grade and the front is flexed and the rear is not. If the rear shochs were topped out the you would also have the Unsprung weight (rear axle ECT)  pulling down, if not your counting on the sprung weight (body) to  stop this from happening. Also the rear tends to flex first because of spring weight. So if the rear gets all flexed the body will be so off camber that their isnt enough force to flex the front. I short shocked the rear of mine and got the same flex but now its more stable at the same RTI score.

As for longer struts.. I would love to have some but I would not add down travel but rather up travel. I have plenty of room in my cv angle for more up travel. I would like to replace the strut drop with a longer strut.

Someone mentioned that an upper controlarm would be an easy swap. I can assure you that it would not be easy to build this more durable than the strut we have now. I looked into this extensivly.

Mike

I also agree with Eric.  How much is too much? Stability and Durability has to be #1 priority. If your sacrificing either for flex I promise you that you will regret it. Stability and durability will get you farther than flex every time.

I agree totally here also. My vehicle, XL-7, is the lowest and smallest (width wise) vehicle I've 'wheeled' with. I'm starting off with easy to moderate trails so that I can get use to it's 'offroadability' before I modify it for greater moderate to light heavy trails. What I was going for here is the operating range for the stock strut. By replacing the drive flanges with manual hubs, I found the coil at full extension to have 1.5" of down travel. I thought this to be really pittiful for a 4wd trail vehicle. Thus the title of this discussion 'Travel length of Strut, Stock vs. Calmini'.
Just like any time you change the suspension, you want the maximum travel of the axle to work with the new tire size. I just happen to have the tire off and want to measure the coil travel. Haven't measured the compression just yet, but that'll happen this weekend.

While at the ORV park previously, I ramped on a set of telephone poles. Before getting the front some 8" vertical, the rear tire came off the ground. So I know the rear has about same shock travel. Swapping out longer travel shocks may be easy.

....snip....

As for longer struts.. I would love to have some but I would not add down travel but rather up travel. I have plenty of room in my cv angle for more up travel. I would like to replace the strut drop with a longer strut.

I agree. The operating angles of the cv's is what should be considered here. There should be a graph developed which shows the life expectancy of a cv operating at an angle for a period of time. If the cv operated totally in alignment, then the life expectancy would be very high. If the cv had to operate at 75*, then life expectancy would be 1/100 of that top level. (Just throwing numbers out, no reference intended.)
I like the fact that Calmini designed the relocation of the axle housing and relocation of the spindle wrt the ball joint. (Remember my comments about how the spindle centerline is not in alignment with the axle housing centerline in another discussion?)

Someone mentioned that an upper control arm would be an easy swap. I can assure you that it would not be easy to build this more durable than the strut we have now. I looked into this extensivly.

Mike

I was the one who mentioned it here as in the archives dating back to April 03, I found your info on this. However, this would have been real cool. Maybe with Skyjacker making all those subframe long arm kits, they could look into doing same thing with a subframe and dual a-arms. Thing is, there probably is not much benefit since, once again, the cv's have to be considered in the design. They will have a droop and compression range which would coincide with the travel range of the strut. KISS!!!!

Currently I want to add some small coil spacers to give a little lift in the belly of the loonngg XL-7 till I get some tax money. By adding to the front, I'll have to add a spacer to the strut to compensate. Knowing the range would help design the strut spacer. Changing out the rear shock should be a much simpler process.

Dropping the strut wont increase travel at all. All your doing is changing your range of travel. If your strut now goes an extra 2 inches down it wont also go 2 inches up.  

Mike

No not true. The strut didn't go up all the way before, the bump stop prevented the full range of movement. Now it goes up as far as the bump stop as before but can come down an extra 2"

No not true. The strut didn't go up all the way before, the bump stop prevented the full range of movement. Now it goes up as far as the bump stop as before but can come down an extra 2"

I stand corrected. I have never checked a stock rig. Every lifted rig Ive seen has not hit the bumpstops.

Mike