This blog has been on my to do list for a while, I had great intentions of doing a full photo shoot and maybe a short video or two from the garage to show examples. The reality of that is much less exciting, as usual time is limited, and I'm stretched pretty thin. So I am going to need to share some resources in this one to give you good solid information and keep it interesting.
Here is some info on front suspensions
There are tons of different ways to set up your own custom suspension, sure you can wing it, it might work, but chances are it won't work the way you had in mind. There's also the chance that in an attempt to make your rig ultra cool, and the baddest thing on the trails ends up with bad behavior, it could be set up in such a way that you can't actually put the power to the ground, or worse, be so unstable that it rolls over rather than crawls the obstacles. And then there's the safety factor, we are talking about welding and bolting the pieces that are holding your entire rig together here, be honest about your welding skills, if you can't put down top quality welds you should find someone that can.
Luckily there are now lots of companies making tabs, brackets, and all of the other parts to build your own suspension. But there are always guys that feel they can "do it better" in an attempt to save a few bucks they make all of their own parts, this is not a great plan for a beginner. The pieces available are well thought out, laser cut, and CNC bent pieces that have been proven on some of the hardest trails out there. And the price of these parts isn't that expensive when you take into account the material costs, your time, and the tools needed to make them. For me I would rather be able to open a box and immediately start fitting and mocking up pieces rather than spend my day trying to make a basic link mount.
I am by no means an expert on suspension design, and tuning. But there are a few places I did my research in order to feel confident enough to start building custom suspension, rather than repeat all of the info here i will just supply you with the best links I have used to figure out the different terms and what they all mean. There are lots of "rules" people use to build there suspensions, but once you understand what each piece does it will all make sense.
It's pretty amazing how 4 little links can have so many functions, but they are all important and must be addressed in order to have a properly functioning rig. The other factor that will limit you is the available space under your vehicle, there isn't much room under a Jeep once you start putting all of these pieces in there so you will probably need to either compromise on proper suspension angles or cutting away parts of your vehicle or moving things like fuel tanks and exhaust.
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