Gen 4 Old an EMU Suspension Lift?

wjamieson wrote: I believe the thinking is if you increase the height then you increase the centre of gravity so adding spacers increasing the width negates the negative effect of the increase in height and provides greater stability.



 

There's no meaningful dynamic impact on the handling of a Jimny that can be attributed to fitting wheel spacers, simply the geometry on a live axle is such that the only way to increase the roll stability would be to increase the distance between the road springs and the centre of the axle. Yes wheel spacers do increase the base of support which does come into affect on a side slope but the increase in the width of the whole axle expressed as a percentage over standard is so small that any advantage is difficult to quantify and even harder to notice. That isn't to say that spacers don't have any benefits as they can improve aesthetic aspects and in certain situations they can provide additional clearance. But in general terms anyone saying they make a difference to the stability of a live axle is either trying to sell some or trying to justify having bought some. This is not the case with independent suspension where the geometry is different.

If you were to scale that image up to actual size of a Jimny axle then the spacers would be very large. 40 or 60mm over the track width of a Jimny at around 1355 is in real terms less than 5% so like I said before it would be difficult to to feel a difference. I certainly wouldn't feel confident pushing further up a steep side slope just because I had an extra 5% track width.