Mabye a stupid question, but which is more important? More uptravel or down travel from ride height?? I hear about how some trucks can stuff all of the sidewall of their tire into their fender, (can't do it on a dodge cause the fenders are small), and some can drop 10"+ for ride height. I built my rig for down travel to try to keep all the rubber on the ground as much as possable. I was also told to keep uptravel limited to a flat spring, (de-arcing a spring is bad for it?). So which is better for "EXTREME ROCKCRAWLING". :grinpimp:

Please feel free to elabirate on your answers.

i would have to agree with you, it always good to keep your tires on the ground. but wouldnt the downward travel be limited by the upward travel? the tire going up would limit the pivit point by which the downward tire is piviting on. the further up one tire is the further down the other can go...

If the axle's pivot point was the center of the axle, but as it makes sense to me, the axle pivots on the opposite side leaf spring??? So I wouldn't think uptravel would limit down travel? But what the hell do I know???

with leaf springs, the downward travel is somewhat dictated by the upward travel... not as much so with link suspensions. In general, you want the truck as low as possible to keep it stable, and allow the suspension to droop away from the truck to follow the rocks. some up travel is beneficial, but in most cases it's not worth raising the center of gravity just to get more uptravel. with buggies, you build droop into the suspention so it can flex and when the skid pan is high centered on a rock.. the tires can drop away to find grip to pull you over the rock. Leaf springs are a different animal. In the rocks, leaf springs don't give much droop, so you make the best of what you have, and you actually benefit from the tires leaving the ground to generate contact pressure on the opposite tire and raise the belly of the truck off the rock.

Long story short - keep your truck as low as possible... cut the fenders and if you have to bumpstop the thing, so be it. It will work better this way overall.

most people who build their suspension based around downtravel, (like say 10+ inches of droop to 3-5 inches of compression), are trying to keep the center of gravity lower. In my experiences in western rockcrawling the droop is more important with a fullsize. So my best advice would be to build it with around 60-80% downtravel and 20-40% uptravel.
Matt

In rockcrawling, its normally 4-5" up, and 8-10" down. In highspeed stuff, its normally 8-9" up, and 5-6" down.