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What to expect with lift/tires

HarrisonTX

HarrisonTX

1/2 ton status
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Mar 29, 2008
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Waco/Fort Worth TX
Im strongly considering going from stock with 31's to a 3-4'' lift with 35's

Will it effect the unbelievably tight turning radius of my k5?
Will i adjust the turning stops to prevent rubbing? or will the lift make everything clear?

I realize now that ill have to re-gear, so i assume it will be rather difficult to predict a MPG. Anyone know what most guys get with larger tires? Please say about 10mpg, lol.
 
Questions

I'm no expert, but I just installed a 4 inch lift to my then stock K5, it's now sitting on 35's. I don't think it really effected the turning radius, I think it handles better overall with the bigger tires. The mpg is worst of course with bigger heavier tires and lift kit.I didn't re gear but I did find that the rears already had a limited slip installed so I left it and added the locker to the front axle. It's really up to you what you want, how you drve on and off road. I haven'thad any issues with 10 bolts but I don't get to off road a lot.
 
When I put on my 4" lift and 35s, it did seem to widen the turning radius a bit, but I think it was more due to the increased scrub radius caused by the wider tires and wheels (which have less backspacing than the originals) than due to the lift. The truck accelerates and brakes a good bit slower now because I kept the same 4.10 axle ratio. My mileage went from about 11 or 12 mpg to about 10. The difference was night and day off road though.
 
The new steering arm should keep your turning radius about the same as stock. I went with a ProComp steering arm designed for a 4" lift. I think I paid $60.00 for the arm from 4WheelParts. I only went from 31's to 33's so I can't say if 35's would change things all that much in regards to turning radius. I wouldn't think so. My next set of tires will be 35's.

I haven't re-geared either. I kept the 4:10's also like andyblack and my mpg dropped about the same as his. I'm assuming you have 3:73's which I hear is a bad idea for 35's.
 
HarrisonTX said:
Im strongly considering going from stock with 31's to a 3-4'' lift with 35's

Will it effect the unbelievably tight turning radius of my k5?
Will i adjust the turning stops to prevent rubbing? or will the lift make everything clear?

I realize now that ill have to re-gear, so i assume it will be rather difficult to predict a MPG. Anyone know what most guys get with larger tires? Please say about 10mpg, lol.
Click to expand...

I have no input on the lift part...I do have 35's though:D

I haven't noticed any reduction in turning radius, if there is, it is slight.

Depending on the backspacing of the wheels and width of the 35's, you may or may not have worry about rubbing. (I have 35x12.50r15's with around 4" of backspacing, I only had to trim fenders because of the lack of lift, no problems with steering linkage, frame, or anything like that.)

I have 3.73 gears, and though it does dog a little off the line, it does fine at highway speed, even with no overdrive (TH350 trans), and i'm still managing somewhere between 10-12 mpg. :haha:
 
I have 3.42's so it looks like a must.
i would go with 33's but hell, if im gonna do it, i might as well do it right the first time, and get 35's.
Thanks for the input.
 
hate to start you down the slop of full mod k5. but if you are looking to regear dont wast the time/money on 10 bolts.

find a 3/4 ton or 1ton doner ridde for the axles.

its most of the time cheeper to swap axles and get rims to fit 8lug than parts/labor to regear unless you can do it your self.

and you will basicly have the axles out when doing the lift kit.

have you looked at this stuff yet. its every thing needed for the lift. and thay can add or subtract stuff needed or not. http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/3inchliftsystem.htm its 3" but thay can do more or less lift to make it right were you want it.

and ask about leveling out the saggy butt problem on the blazers. thay will adjust the kit to help this.
 
sweetk20, yes i have looked at offroad design, and i will most likely go that route for the lift. I really like the fact they include everything needed.

As far as the axles, did the 3/4-1ton chevys come with a "taller" gear?
Aside from rotating the tire, and counting the rotation of the driveshaft (which i never trust) is there any easy way to figure out the gear ratio?
Do the 8lug axles come with some sort of limited slip?
Is there an informative post were i can read all about axle swap? front and rear? all i know is about my little ten bolt. I dont know the benifits of 14 bolts vs dana 44's and dana 60's, or where they come from
 
Tire size & Clearance: I ran 35's at stock height too and they did kiss the steering arm when turning sharp right, but very minor. With at least 3 inches, 35's will be NO problem as long as you don't mind taking the bottom corner off of the back of each front fender. Don't even need to do that for the street, but if you ever flex it out on a trail, it can catch that corner even with 4 inches of lift.

I'm running 37's now on 3 inches of lift and my only problem is them hitting the firewall at full stuff, but I'm gonna move the axle forward with ORD's zero-rates to solve that.

Tire Size & Gears: 3.42s would be a bit rough with 35's I ran my 35's on 3.73s and didn't have any problem though. It was no dragster off the line, but for day to day driving it functioned just fine.

I went to 4.10's when I went to the 37's, which is within about 4% of being the same deal as 35's and 3.73's and I'm still happy with it.

Axle Swap: I totally agree that regearing 10 bolt rears is a waste of time and money. Put in a 14b rear (and a 10b or D44 8 lug front). If you look around, you can find a complete ready to rock 8 lug axle set for $150-$400 depending upon condition and gears. As a bonus, these axles are almost always 3.73 or 4.10 so you won't have to mess with regearing. Just bolt them in and go.

As for further reading on this, it's probably one of the most discussed topic on here of all time... try a variety of searches like "14 bolt swap" or "1 ton axle swap".

Finally, all the same locker options you have for your current axle are available for the 14b rear. If you plan to wheel the rig, you're actually better off hunting for a 14b that does NOT have limited slip since a full locker (e.g. Detroit) requires an open carrier to install into on those axles.

If you get lucky enough to find a 1 ton set out of a military truck, they'll have 4.56 gears and a detroit in the back already, but then the price goes up as most people realize what they have. :)
 
Being an '86 he probably has a 700R4. If he wants to retain use of that OD gear he'd be better off gearing lower than those of us without OD can get away with.
 
Yeti, thank you for the very informative post
Tire Clearance: Thats just the problem... I really dont want to trim, only because i think it looks rather tacky. It maybe that ive never seen a nicly done job, or the fact the line looks unnatural. I know probably 90% of the folks on this site perfer function, rather than looks, which i agree most of the time, i just really dont like that trimmed bottom corner.
Maybe i could get some of those black plastic fender flares, those always look good, and should cover that trimming nicely. But also, those cover up part the the front marker light, which also looks half assed.

Since i have a 700r4, im hoping for 4.10's or 4.56's.

Ill keep my eyes peeled for some 14b's. I sure will miss my 6 lug wheels. Those ralleys wheels look great in flat black.
Basically any 3/4ton - 1 ton chevy rear is what you're talking about?
 
Personally, I think the trimmed fenders look better than the original wheel openings (when the trimming is done well). Think about it - those openings that come on the stock fenders are made to accomodate the stock sized tires. When you lift your truck and put larger tires on it, those stock wheel cutouts will be the wrong size and shape. I think the 67-72 GM trucks looked great with their round fender openings and they seem to accomodate the larger tires that we want to run a lot better than the 73-87 trucks do.

If you're going to trim up the fenders, use a cutoff wheel on a 4.5" grinder or a pneumatic cutoff wheel with a compressor that can put out a lot of air and use masking tape to guide you. Go slowly and I promise the results will be favorable and practical.

As for the Bushwhacker flares, why spend a boatload of money on those ugly things? They won't do you any good, and they can really mess you up when they get their edges caught up on something and get peeled off your beautiful fender, making it look like a raisin or something. Besides, you'll look like a tool going around with them.:D
 
You don't have to change the line of the fender opening to fit 35's with 3-4" of lift unless you have to maximum off-road performance. Look at the fender behind the wheel and see where the sheet metal wraps around to make a lip. At the very bottom of the fender, you need to trim that lip off. Looking at the truck from the side it is barely noticeable. This couple of square inches of metal will solve more than half of the problem. You can tag that part of the fender with 33's and 4" lift. Now with soft springs and no swaybar off-road, you will still be able to tag the fender (flexed and steering). If you keep the swaybar on (but why would you?), no trimming at all is necessary.


The best option is to find a bodywork genius who can graft on stock-looking fender lips with a longer fender opening, but this is a lot of time and/or money. Now that I think about it, I wonder how this compares to swapping on the fiberglass fenders that are molded with bigger wheel openings. There are also cut-out fender flares.
 
I agree. When I first put the 35s on my truck, it was the stock height and of course the tires wouldn't fit without some trimming of the fenders. I did exactly what you said and cut the rear edge of the opening behind the tires flush with the inner fender. That actually worked for driving carefully on the street. Then I put on some 4" springs and went off road. I found that the front tires would easily contact the sharp part of the fender I had cut (I took the swaybar off when I put on the lift springs because the links weren't long enough), and one of my tires actually had parts of a couple of tread blocks cut off. After that, I found it neccessary to install some extended bumpstops to prevent this from happening. I guess I could have just cut some more fender off, but how much, I don't know.
 
AJM - Good point on the 700R4 liking lower gears.

Cutting fenders: My K5 is a beater trail rig, so I hacked my fenders all up happily, but I understand those who like a clean stock look too but still want bigger rubber. That bottom back corner of each front fender is a real b*tch though.. it'll be hard to run 35's with any sort of good flex without taking a pretty good sized chunk of that metal off.

I'm not a big fan of the Bushwacker flair look :surepal: , but to each his own!
 
I'm putting 265/75R16's (32x10.5R16) on The Blazer soon with no lift and while I'm sure they'll clear just fine I'm tempted to trim the front fangs and the rear fenders near the bumpers like I did on Big Ugly. I have no plans to really run a bigger tire but I just like the look with that unnecessary metal gone. Realistically the last several inches of metal at the very front and very back doesn't do anything other than trap **** and rust...oh, and get squished if you're flexing a lot going over rough terrain.
 
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