General questions about springs and shocks height.

To complicate things further, some shocks such as those made by Gabriel have shorter compressed length than standard as well as longer extended length to suit a lift.

wrote:

Thank you for the really useful answers!

So I think I understand now why many kits raise the springs 40mm but the shocks just 20mm, possibly to prevent tyre fouling when people fit large rubbers on the Jimny. But, also, according to your answers, it seems to me that it should be perfectly reasonable to fit 20mm longer shocks with 20mm longer springs, so the original proportions are kept. This would allow one extra 1cm of flexing up and down, which is minimum, but still. The setup should be also fine to fit 215 75 R15 tyres, since these are like one extra centimeter in diameter, and this falls well in line with the body lift. At the end of the day, you would end with 1cm of extra clearance (due to the tyres) and 2cm body lift due to the combination of shocks and springs. Am I right?

A lift kit generally doesn't allow bigger tyres. Think about it. If the suspension compresses off road, all of your lift is gone. The wheels need to fit regardless of lift, unless you are going to be 100% Chelsea Tractor/Mall Crawler.

A lift can make it rub less often, as you'll need more suspension compression before the tyre may impact an area. Stiff/HD lifts also don't usually flex very well, which again may limit rubbing, but simply because the wheels don't move up and down much.

Extended bump stops may also reduce or prevent rubbing, because they will limit how far up the wheel can go under coimpression.


As for +40mm springs and +20mm shocks. The lift will reduce the amount of available down travel from ride height. As the shock will be extended by 40mm. A +20mm shock will return some, but not all of the droop because the shock is longer. In theory your total suspension travel should have increased (would depend on the closed length of the new shock vs a standard one). But the ratio of droop vs compression travel will have changed. Probably not enough to worry about. Other things to consider, a longer shock may cause the spring to dislocate and fall out of its seat. So you need a spring long enough to work with the shocks and vice versa.

A common practice on Land Rovers....


A +40mm spring and +20mm shock should be fine on a Jimny. I'd expect similar levels of flex to standard though and possible more prone to becoming cross axled. Improved dampers however may be worth the swap alone. And the lift will improve many clearances including approach, departure and breakover angles.

215/75/R15 mud terrains will fit on a standard jimny without rubbing. A 2inch lift doesn’t gain a lot but does perk up the car and leaves more room in the arches for flexing. Here are my 3 with two of them lifted. 

Thanks again for the answers!

Considering all you said, it seems that a 40mm longer spring with a 20mm raised shock should be fine then! It also happens that even if the spring is initially 40mm higher, it will be a bit compressed with the weight of the accessories and the people inside the car... What a mess, I have been mumbling all this for a few months by now and I am still not sure about what to choose. I already went through all the possible combinations in my head multiple times! Good news is that I learnt many things, which is great.

I definitely know those Jimnies jlines! I saw them yesterday night in a Youtube video and I think that it was you in there explaining that one has a Pedders kit because you could not find a good supplier for the first brand you tried. How is it that being from UK you did not go for the classic Bilstein B6 + H&R combination and you got the kits from here, the other side of the world?