Lifting my jimny

hello

iv joined this forum for my mrs, shes interested in ''lifting'' her jimny

im used to lowering my cars with coilovers,

would like to know the best route to go down,
wheres the best place to get the kits from

which is better 2" or 3" and what are the disadvatages from either?

and if there are any issues that may arise?

appoligises for all the questions,

cheers kellett

Hello and welcome,

If she's planning on offroading it much, I'd say a 3 inch lift is better but you'd need to at least consider castor correction by either castor correction bushes or the more expensive way of geting castor corrected radius arms.

If it's just for looks, 2 inches is fine and you might get away without castor correction then.

The standard sized tyres will look silly though so you'll need bigger ones. If she plans on offroading, get at least 215/80/15's otherwise 195/80/15's will be better suited to just road driving.

If she's going off road much get some mud terrains - Kumho KL71's are a good tyre for road use whilst having a mud terrain pattern. If she does not plan to offroad it, all terrains will be fine and look a bit meatier than road tyres.

Hope this helps

Kirkynut

Hi, despite that fact that I sell lift kits I would advise that she considers carefully lifting a Jimny. Those of us who have done it usually have a reason (off-roading) and generally do not then use them as a daily driver (someone will no doubt be clocking up thousands of miles in their lifted Jimny but I am speaking more generally).


As stated above, 2 inch spring lifts can get away without caster correction although a set of correction bushes will help.

3 inch spring lifts will require correction

The reason for this caution advice is that the steering feeling can be affected. You will find lengthy discussions on all Jimny forums about the steering. On some lifted cars it can feel more vague, wobbly and light. The steering still works fine its just the feel that can be affected really. I find that for about 10 minutes of driving the Jimny after driving another car that I think its really bad and then I get used to it and throw it around just like any other car.



A 2 inch body lift should achieve a lift without introducing the steering problems (as the chassis and axles do not move) but these can create an ugly gap between the body and bumpers so you would need to correct the bumper position.

If it is just to improve the look then perhaps just a nice set of AT tyres and a snorkle will "toughen it up"

Martin

Kirkynut,

as far as the tyres you said aboout, will they give poke from the wheel arch? or would getting some hubcentric spacers be the option?

martin,

It will be our first 4x4 that we would be raising, the 2inch lift sounds more realistic, as its going to be used as a daily aswell, but then abit of fun for the weekends,

are the kits you sell on this website? are there any names to stay well clear from? 4

cheers for the info!!

To be honest, there are only a handful of people that sell lift kits for the Jimny ... ORA, KAP to name the most popular, together with Rino Ray.
Martins Kits are very reasonable and as good quality as you are going to get elsewhere.
Ive always purchased from KAP, but usually end up paying more Postage as KAp are in Yorkshire, where as Martin is 20 Miles up the road, and I can always drop in on my way from work.

a 2" suspension lift with 205x70x15 tyres will get you most places and will not compromise the on road driving too much.
The wife used to run a soft top with a +2" lift as her every day car. These days though, we run 215x80x15's and the little jimny really doesnt have the power to use 5th gear on the roads.(as we mainly offroad though, it doesnt concern us too much)

Standard tyres will not "poke" out of the wheel arches... Ive just fitted 30mm spacers to my Fathers Jimny and it actually has a muscular look (standard 205x70x15 tyres). with the rubber still well under the cover of the arches. These are soon to be replaced with a set of Grabber AT2's as my parents want a vehicle that is small, but when the weather gets bad, it will cope with snow, flooded roads etc

(the jimny as standard will happily drive though water up to the headlights without a snorkel(trust me, ive done it)... with a Snorkel, it will floatwhen water is above the bonnet).

If your going to to any off roading, there is a load of infomation both here from people that have been doing it for years.

Ill get some photo's uploaded of spacered wheels as soon as i can.

Jason

ooky_123 wrote:

Standard tyres will not "poke" out of the wheel arches... Ive just fitted 30mm spacers to my Fathers Jimny and it actually has a muscular look (standard 205x70x15 tyres). with the rubber still well under the cover of the arches. These are soon to be replaced with a set of Grabber AT2's as my parents want a vehicle that is small, but when the weather gets bad, it will cope with snow, flooded roads etc

(the jimny as standard will happily drive though water up to the headlights without a snorkel(trust me, ive done it)... with a Snorkel, it will floatwhen water is above the bonnet).

If your going to to any off roading, there is a load of infomation both here from people that have been doing it for years.

Ill get some photo's uploaded of spacered wheels as soon as i can.

Jason

yeah id like to see what they look like. do the 30mm spacers have a detrimental affect on the handling and cause the wheel bearings a lot of extra stress?

Adamski wrote:

yeah id like to see what they look like. do the 30mm spacers have a detrimental affect on the handling and cause the wheel bearings a lot of extra stress?

Handling is improoved. We have gone 2" up, and 2" wider on the track. only concern is now we need to start thinking about wifer arches as out "wideboy" wheels are now a good inch outside the arches(our offroad Mud Tyres though are narrower and still inlone with the arches)


This has always been a topic of discussion, but to be honest spacers using standard wheels are no worse than fitting aftermarket wheels with a larger offset.
Yes they will put extra load and strain on bearings, but ask yourself a question .. would you be thinking the same question if you put a set of suzuki wideboy rims on ?

I have an article HERE

which covers most of the popular kits in the UK. Note that the Pro-Comp one at the bottom is no longer available and also that I don't think I have specific pictures of the Jimnybits lift kit which is popular, Gary from this forum has one of these fitted).

I also do not have UK pictures of the ones offered in my shop as they are new. Here are some promotional pictures I have, as you can see they left the standard tyres on which make it look slightly strange.