Thread on Lifting

[Snax]

I've been taking a serious look at what it would take to lift my Tercel a solid 6 inches or so, and to put it simply, there doesn't appear to be a single modification that is practical to get it there. With that in mind, I am considering a combination of approaches, the easiest of which to start out with is to increase the wheel and tire size.

I've seen where one of our members has used Jeep Cherokee springs to get another couple of inches up, but I think that even with the tire change it would still be well short of the solid 6" of lift* that I am looking for, so this requires other options to be considered as well. I found a thread on a French language T4WD site (Canadian perhaps?) where one of their members has gone so far as to weld in lifting blocks on top of the rear axle, but he also went to the trouble of lengthening the panhard rod and trailing arms, but I'm not sure how far I want to go with that. Spacers on top of the front struts would be a more simple modification, but I'm not sure what the practical limits of that are either.

So with that in mind, I am looking for a serious discussion of what it would take to do a more extreme lift of the amount I am proposing. Has anybody here done it?

This looks like a good start, but does not go quite far enough IMO:

http://www.whodyautomotive.com/tercel/tercel4wd1.jpg
http://www.whodyautomotive.com/tercel/tercel4wd2.jpg

Those tires might be a bit much though. The owner supposedly says those are 14" rims.

*Pleas note: I am not one who likes to stop with the simple 'what can I buy?' approach to vehicle mods. I've got a welder and I am not afraid to use it!

[offroadohio]

what size tire are you looking to accomplish? you must rememeber the absance of lo range makes big tires problematic.

if you like to weld remove everything build a tube chassis and put a pickup driveline with solid axle under the front.

I dont think it would be worth it to lift the tercel anymore than the 2" that the cv's will handle imho, unless you do something all out like a complete driveline swap.

[bleakhorizon]

im thinking of just throwing my tercel on a 84 toyota solid axle frame, that way i got 4wd but i also got the WAY more powerful 22r....

[teranfirbt]

Another problem with lifting a strut suspension like ours is the extra stress on the sway bar and lower control arms.

[offroadohio]

im thinking of just throwing my tercel on a 84 toyota solid axle frame, that way i got 4wd but i also got the WAY more powerful 22r....

It isnt nearly as simple as "just throwing" it on there. If you want it to look like poo yeah itll work. But there is no such thing as using a truck frame under a unibody vehicle and making it look clean without exstensive modifications to frame and body.

I built a chevette using a jeep driveline, and chevy luv frame, after it was all said and done all I had left of the chevy luv frame was the section of frame between the wheels, everything else was custom built.

[Petros]

This will only work if you lower all of the suspension and engine/trans mounts. IF not you will mess up the steering geometry, and trash the CV joints and U-joins on the drive shaft. The most I would go on the CV joints is about 2" of lift. if you go with larger dia tires you will also want the lower 4.11:1 diff ratios (front and rear).

YOu should than consider swapping in a 7AFE, it is larger more powerful engine that should bolt in okay (but you will need to rig the EFI system to work in the tercel), way more torque and you should have more under hood clearance if you drop everything down 3-4 inches.

Good luck.