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Using lift spacer with ICON coilover

20K views 23 replies 8 participants last post by  FJ Rock 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Guys, just installed ICON with CDCV front/rear with overland rear springs, with ICON tube UCA. Happy with the result and handling is way better than before.

I have two questions:

1. Front space between tyre and fender is 7inches while in rear is 8.5inches and I am wondering if I can add lift spacer to the front coilover to add 1 inch or 1.5 inches just to match or to be close to the rear lift.

2. I am running 35 inch and even with extreme body mount chop I have rubbing when turning left or right to the max, is there any way to push front tyres forward?

Thanks,
 
#2 ·
Isn't your ICON front coilover adjustable? If so you can crank up the preload a little more to add lift. If you crank it too much though your ride might get stiff.

To move your front tires a little forward, try get your caster aligned to +4.5 degree. If you have LR UCAs, set the UCA to maximum NEGATIVE caster and adjust the LCA to make overall caster POSITIVE 4 or more degree. It will help a little.
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
I didn't think to crank up more as I got 3" out of the front coilover, I thought may be adding spacer would be better. Let me try to crank it up more and see.

I am using ICON tubular UCA and I am not sure if it can be adjusted or not, but if it would help I will move caster to positive and see if this will solve the rubbing.

Will do and will post the result.

Thanks,
 
#4 ·
Adding spacers ontop of the coilover might be risky to bottom out the shock at fully compression. And people might shout at you if you do so. But I knew a guy who put 0.5" on top of his ICON. His frame mount bump stop can still touch LCA. It's your call. You'll droop more after the spacer so watch out for your cv and UCA binding. As long as you can freely turning the wheel at droop you should be ok. If you have to put spacers, I'll suggest getting those wheelers offroad thin polyspacers and stack up to your desired height.
 
#6 ·
Maybe 1,5" spacer is risky so I might go with 0.5" to be in the safe side.



I used a 1/4" poly spacer from wheeler's offroad on top of my driver side coilover, (icon extended travel), to keep my spring rates the same. Also changed the 3 top mount bolts to 1/4" longer to make up for the spacer (new bolts are 3/8-16x1.25"). No issues, bump stop still contacts control arm and cv doesn't bind. I'm just barely rubbing the inner fender pinch weld at full lock and compression w/ 35's. Going to adjust the caster another degree w/ LR UCA (only set at neutral position, additional 2 degrees, right now), after a few more miles, (coilovers are still new). If that doesn't clear the fender well or body mount, I'm going to add a 1/2" body lift from bandi, (I'm trying to keep it as low as possible, why I didn't go w/ 6" lift)
The Problem is there is no 6" lift with remote reservoir otherwise I would buy it

This is the Poly spacer I am planning to buy
http://wheelersoffroad.com/product/...ts/38-thick-poly-strut-top-plate-spacer-pair/

1.5" Studs
http://wheelersoffroad.com/product/...parts/extended-length-top-plate-stud-set-1-5/

also I will crank up the shocks 3/4" or 1" to match with rear shocks

Thanks guys alot
 
#5 ·
I used a 1/4" poly spacer from wheeler's offroad on top of my driver side coilover, (icon extended travel), to keep my spring rates the same. Also changed the 3 top mount bolts to 1/4" longer to make up for the spacer (new bolts are 3/8-16x1.25"). No issues, bump stop still contacts control arm and cv doesn't bind. I'm just barely rubbing the inner fender pinch weld at full lock and compression w/ 35's. Going to adjust the caster another degree w/ LR UCA (only set at neutral position, additional 2 degrees, right now), after a few more miles, (coilovers are still new). If that doesn't clear the fender well or body mount, I'm going to add a 1/2" body lift from bandi, (I'm trying to keep it as low as possible, why I didn't go w/ 6" lift)
 
#9 · (Edited)
First off you don't use the fender hight to determine if the vehicle is level, the fenders are not aligned on the body panels to allow you to do this, if you did achieve identical tire to fender height you would be nose high.
8.5" Clearance over a 35" tire off of a three inch lift sounds high!! What springs or spacers or combo do you have in the rear to be jacked this high, is the rear spring designed for a three inch lift, it sounds you may be extending the ride height past the average three inches any designed kit offers..
A six inch lift does not use a special shock for the front to provide six inches lift, the full front end gets modified as does many other components of the rear suspension.... You have the Icon's if you want a Six lift buy one, install it then use your Remote res Icons. But first maybe find out more about the suspension function, and lifts in general or get help with it before you have a dangerous handling and riding pile of junk to drive.... Pretty sure Icon has a rear shock, or can provide one for a six inch rear suspension as well.
:grin
 
#10 ·
The whole point of overland springs is to give you more ride height in the rear so when your rig is loaded it will ride level.

Why don't you just get regular rear springs?
 
#11 ·
Hi Guys, just installed ICON with CDCV front/rear with overland rear springs, with ICON tube UCA. Happy with the result and handling is way better than before.

I have two questions:

1. Front space between tyre and fender is 7inches while in rear is 8.5inches and I am wondering if I can add lift spacer to the front coilover to add 1 inch or 1.5 inches just to match or to be close to the rear lift.

2. I am running 35 inch and even with extreme body mount chop I have rubbing when turning left or right to the max, is there any way to push front tyres forward?

Thanks,
First off you don't use the fender hight to determine if the vehicle is level, the fenders are not aligned on the body panels to allow you to do this, if you did achieve identical tire to fender height you would be nose high.
8.5" Clearance over a 35" tire off of a three inch lift sounds high!! What springs or spacers or combo do you have in the rear to be jacked this high, is the rear spring designed for a three inch lift, it sounds you may be extending the ride height past the average three inches any designed kit offers..
A six inch lift does not use a special shock for the front to provide six inches lift, the full front end gets modified as does many other components of the rear suspension.... You have the Icon's if you want a Six lift buy one, install it then use your Remote res Icons. But first maybe find out more about the suspension function, and lifts in general or get help with it before you have a dangerous handling and riding pile of junk to drive.... Pretty sure Icon has a rear shock, or can provide one for a six inch rear suspension as well.
The overall look shows that rear is higher than front, for me I am planning to keep rear 1/2" higher

Space between tire and finder is between 7" & 8" because I am using overland springs plus bushwacker funders

Actually I was looking for a lift between 4"&5" as 6" will creat problem in most if not all paking areas usually 2.10m is the max hight for parking roof and I am aiming to lift up till 2.05m

The whole point of overland springs is to give you more ride height in the rear so when your rig is loaded it will ride level.

Why don't you just get regular rear springs?
With no load or 35" spare tire the rear space is 9.25" and after adding spare tire it reduced to 8.5" and the car looks nose lower
As mentioned the purpose of adding more hight is to avoied rubbing when turn to max.

Thanks
 
#12 ·
Gotcha.
Buddy of mine has an FJ with 35's and icon suspension. He's doing custom body mounts to avoid the rub.
 
#16 · (Edited)
This is just my experience and I'm sure each truck responds a little different but I was running the ET Icon's up front and the overland springs in the rear. I added the wheeler's 3/8" poly spacers on top of the coilovers to give me bit more of a stance up front to match the rear. What I discovered after I did this was that at full droop my CV's were binding up. They would either lock up and not spin or they would give resistance. I tried replacing the CV's with some extras I had in the shop and that did not solve the problem. My front Icon's were adjusted pretty high but I still had about 3" of droop up front. Due to the weight of the bumper and winch the Icon coilover springs couldn't handle it. My solution was to swap to the 700lb Icon coilover springs up front and remove the spacer. The problem is now solved. I'm running 34" x 11.50 tires btw and they do not make contact anywhere even at full stuff and the front and rear are almost even parked on a level surface.
 
#17 ·
This guy has it right. Spacer on top of a coilover is just asking to break something, and like he said, I can get my CVs to bind at full droop by simply adjusting the coilover. Adding a spacer on top of that is just going to blow up your CVs. 2.25" of lift on my Icon coilovers was about the max I was comfortable with based on CV angles.
 
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#19 ·
I believe they do offer stiffer springs (than what normally comes with the coilover), but I'm not sure that's what you want. The stiffer spring is going to be the same length so you won't get additional lift out of it. The stiffer spring is just to maintain lift height with higher than average weight on the front of the vehicle.

If you have your front coilovers set to ~2.5" of lift and your back end is 1.5" higher meaning 4" of lift in back, then you will probably have the best luck getting the regular Icon 2" lift springs instead of the overland ones. As someone mentioned, fender heights are not a good way to compare front and back as the fenders are not level with each other. You want to compare [front fender height post lift minus front fender height pre lift] to [rear fender height post-lift minus rear fender height pre lift].

The only reason I can think of that you would have trouble getting leveled is if you didn't have enough weight to compress the stiffer overland springs and you're getting more than 2" of lift in the rear. I have the normal icon 2" lift springs and I actually got about 1.75" of lift out of them.

If you posted a picture of your vehicle on the ground (not on jack or stands) showing the upper control arm and the amount of threads exposed above the coilover adjustment collar, it might help us figure out where you're at. A tape measure showing the length of exposed thread above the collar would be even better.

Regarding your rub, I'm not aware of too many people that have run 35's without rub and some serious modifications. I think Wikid probably had the best write up on this:
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/suspension-steering-tech/159378-body-mount-chop.html

There's also the thread on using positive caster to move the wheel forward away from the body mount. This worked pretty well for me but I'm only running 33s.
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/suspension-steering-tech/82323-get-rid-rub-without-chop.html
 
#21 ·
Sorry for the late reply as Currently I am using my mobile and I was suffering to find a way to upload pics using the mobile

As you can see the overall look of the fj rear is higher, but currently spaire tire not mounted also I am planning to add bumper as well then will see how the look will be

For the rubbing I did the extream body mount chop but the rubbing is on the car body it self and not on the body mount

I went thru the link of moving the positive caster and see if this will solve rubbing or not


But please tell how can I make sure front coilover us lifted 2.5"?

Thanks
 
#22 ·
The only way to tell how much lift you got was to take a measurement from the hub or outside edge of the wheel to the top of the fender before and after you installed the lift and then subtract the lifted height from the stock height. The amount of thread you have exposed doesn't look like much more than I have so I don't think you're in danger of having too much lift up front. Below is how much thread I have exposed which gave me about 2.25" of lift with no real weight adders on the truck to speak of.



I'm pretty sure your rear axle is just higher because you've got the stiffer overland springs and you don't have the weight to load them down enough to get 2" of lift...you're probably getting more like 3.5. When you add the bumper and the spare that should bring it down quite a bit.

Regarding your rub, the positive caster will help, but the 35's are going to make it difficult or impossible for you to eliminate rub. Looks like you also have fairly wide tires or spacers which are magnifying your rub issue when the wheel is turned.
 
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#24 · (Edited)
Finally After several attempts I solved the rubbing, the tech guy tried to do it using the computer but he failed many time the one more experienced tech came and he did it him self



Also ordered the expedition one real bumper with tire carrier and will see after the installation hiw it looks

Thanks TheBolch for you help and time
 
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