How to make a daystar 2.5/1.5 perfectly level

[TOYLUVA]

So I instaled my daystar 2.5/1.5 last week and what a breeze even with XREAS. Easiest lift I ever installed by far {thanks to the info found on this site}. But what I wanted to share was if you want yours to be perfectly level you know that the difference in fender height and tube step or nerf bar height . To make a long story short, the rear spacer from daystar actually measures 1.5625" of lift. well I installed the front spacers first and that brought all {4} my fenderwells to 35" exactly from the ground. but my nerf bars were 1/2" higher in the front...ugly. So I went to the local machine shop and this is what we did. First we made a crush ring to fit in the coils spring slot of the spacer. This allowed the jaws on the lathe to get tight. Then we cut .7006" off the top of both spacers. Then we shaved the outside at 14 degrees down to the original o.d. of the spacer. The shaved the inside of the spacer at 10 degrees to the original i.d. of the spacer. this left me with .86 " of lift and the outside fit in the upper coil spring perch nicely and the bumpstop was a litle tight on the inside but fit. Now I am left with 35.75" height at the rear fenders and 35" on the front fenders. Nerfbars are about 1/8" to 1/4" higher in the rear and man am I pleased with that. Beautiful and my 265/70 17 nitto tg's fit perfect other than only 3/4" between tire and upper control arm was a little tight. all in all the lathe took about 1hr to cut the spacers and the lift was installed in under 3 hrs total. 2hrs front 1 hr rear.:guitar2: Hope this helps someone with the same intrest in making your runner truely level and maybe even ya'll who have it at 1.5 and would like to remove the spacers and actually make the runner level. I have pics and more measurements if needed so let me know. I will do my best to help.

 

[THEROK]

So I instaled my daystar 2.5/1.5 last week and what a breeze even with XREAS. Easiest lift I ever installed by far {thanks to the info found on this site}. But what I wanted to share was if you want yours to be perfectly level you know that the difference in fender height and tube step or nerf bar height . To make a long story short, the rear spacer from daystar actually measures 1.5625" of lift. well I installed the front spacers first and that brought all {4} my fenderwells to 35" exactly from the ground. but my nerf bars were 1/2" higher in the front...ugly. So I went to the local machine shop and this is what we did. First we made a crush ring to fit in the coils spring slot of the spacer. This allowed the jaws on the lathe to get tight. Then we cut .7006" off the top of both spacers. Then we shaved the outside at 14 degrees down to the original o.d. of the spacer. The shaved the inside of the spacer at 10 degrees to the original i.d. of the spacer. this left me with .86 " of lift and the outside fit in the upper coil spring perch nicely and the bumpstop was a litle tight on the inside but fit. Now I am left with 35.75" height at the rear fenders and 35" on the front fenders. Nerfbars are about 1/8" to 1/4" higher in the rear and man am I pleased with that. Beautiful and my 265/70 17 nitto tg's fit perfect other than only 3/4" between tire and upper control arm was a little tight. all in all the lathe took about 1hr to cut the spacers and the lift was installed in under 3 hrs total. 2hrs front 1 hr rear.:guitar2: Hope this helps someone with the same intrest in making your runner truely level and maybe even ya'll who have it at 1.5 and would like to remove the spacers and actually make the runner level. I have pics and more measurements if needed so let me know. I will do my best to help.

why do u want it "perfectly level"? you risk having a saggy back-end which is horrible (think 3rd gen).

 

[TOYLUVA]

Just cant stand to see trucks high in the front or rear. I have a 97 shortbed chevy 1500 and a 2002 GMC duramax both lifted and the bedrails on both trucks are LEVEL. The 4th gen is the hardest truck i've tried to make level and I look at lines that need to flow and the runners lines are all different, you know the roof don't match the window trim, the nerf bars dont line up the the bottom of the windows, the trim on the lower section lines dont match, the fenders are different. really a hard truck to make level, kinda shaped like a triangle, but I think I did it. why would anyone want the rear to be 2" higher than the front like the kit comes? unless they tow someting everyday which i do not cause i have two TRUCKS. The backend is not saggy in my opinion, looks perfect. better than stock for sure.

 

[THEROK]

Just cant stand to see trucks high in the front or rear. I have a 97 shortbed chevy 1500 and a 2002 GMC duramax both lifted and the bedrails on both trucks are LEVEL. The 4th gen is the hardest truck i've tried to make level and I look at lines that need to flow and the runners lines are all different, you know the roof don't match the window trim, the nerf bars dont line up the the bottom of the windows, the trim on the lower section lines dont match, the fenders are different. really a hard truck to make level, kinda shaped like a triangle, but I think I did it. why would anyone want the rear to be 2" higher than the front like the kit comes? unless they tow someting everyday which i do not cause i have two TRUCKS. The backend is not saggy in my opinion, looks perfect. better than stock for sure.

i'm seeing what you mean.

but what i'm saying is i don't like dragster rake either, but you want a bit of rake because if you load stuff up, naturally, the rear will sag.

and then what you get is a front lift like the thing is going for a missile launch which is worse than dragster. cars aren't designed to look like trains (i.e. perfectly level). a little bit of rake is OK and actually good because of the triangular shape of the roof line of the car to the body line. many cars have this design feature.

i think the 3/2 lift is the best aesthetic lift out there.

whatever it is that you want, i hope you get it.

 

[TOYLUVA]

Your truck looks good man, i love black just sold a 05 gmc denali in black and before that had a 04 camry special edition in black w/ 18" bbs wheels lowered with header etc... another thing that contributed to my decision was i dont have a power passenger seat. factory setup seemed to be dumping me out of the seat when brakes where applied. That problem is now gone. passenger seat is much more comfortable. once i figure out how to post pics i will and you will see that yes my rear does sag compared to yours and many others but alot of factors made me do it this way. i wanted it to look more like it should have stock, not look lifted at all, but be lifted and level. yours clearly looks modified and really this runner is my wifes grocery getter.

 

[TOYLUVA]

pics:

my wheeler

 

[Burl]

TOYLUVA your truck looks really good. Slightly lifted, but stock looking as you describe. I am currently contemplating two different lifts, the Daystar 2.5/1.5 and the Truxx 3/1.25. I am leaning towards the DS as it is $100 cheaper and I thought the Truxx might look a bit high in the nose with a 1.75" difference compared to the DS at 1", but yours looks pretty good at a 1.6" difference according to your numbers. I would be interested in knowing how thick your front spacer was, as well as your before measurements to compare to your after numbers. To get 2.5" lift on the front I expect it should have been around 1.25" thick.

THEROK, Is your truck really only a 3/2 lift? It looks a lot more than only 0.5"higher than TOYLUVA's in the front. The balance also looks good to me as far as rake goes with a 1" difference.

 

[THEROK]

TOYLUVA your truck looks really good. Slightly lifted, but stock looking as you describe. I am currently contemplating two different lifts, the Daystar 2.5/1.5 and the Truxx 3/1.25. I am leaning towards the DS as it is $100 cheaper and I thought the Truxx might look a bit high in the nose with a 1.75" difference compared to the DS at 1", but yours looks pretty good at a 1.6" difference according to your numbers. I would be interested in knowing how thick your front spacer was, as well as your before measurements to compare to your after numbers. To get 2.5" lift on the front I expect it should have been around 1.25" thick.

THEROK, Is your truck really only a 3/2 lift? It looks a lot more than only 0.5"higher than TOYLUVA's in the front. The balance also looks good to me as far as rake goes with a 1" difference.

yes it's most def 3/2. OME 2" springs and toytec ultimate front setup.

the .5" makes a bigger difference than i ever though half an inch would make. plus it may also have to do with the whole blacked out thing since it all blends in together.

 

[TOYLUVA]

TOYLUVA your truck looks really good. Slightly lifted, but stock looking as you describe. I am currently contemplating two different lifts, the Daystar 2.5/1.5 and the Truxx 3/1.25. I am leaning towards the DS as it is $100 cheaper and I thought the Truxx might look a bit high in the nose with a 1.75" difference compared to the DS at 1", but yours looks pretty good at a 1.6" difference according to your numbers. I would be interested in knowing how thick your front spacer was, as well as your before measurements to compare to your after numbers. To get 2.5" lift on the front I expect it should have been around 1.25" thick.

THEROK, Is your truck really only a 3/2 lift? It looks a lot more than only 0.5"higher than TOYLUVA's in the front. The balance also looks good to me as far as rake goes with a 1" difference.

I believe my front spacer was 1.25" as you stated. my numbers are kind of confusing because i measured first with stock tires and then with new tires. As far as i know i have 2.5" of lift according to daystar specs in the front and i modified the rear which started as 1.5625" down to .86" of of spacer which equals .86" of lift in the rear. now my fenders are at 35" front and 35.75" rear before new tires and only grew about 1" after new tires. here is a scrap sheet of paper i was working with if you can make any sense of it.

aside from all the numbers i can make it easy on you and reccomend if you go with the ds 2.5/1.5 like i did {kit # kt09115bk} you should try to get a 1" spacer for the rear rather than a 1.5" spacer. the bottom right of the sheet is where it started, directly above that is the upper i.d. and o.d. after top shaved off .7006" {because you wanna make sure that the i.d. allows the bump stop to fit, and the o.d. is the same so it will fit in the upper perch, outside anlge is 14 degrees and inside is 10 degrees}.so if your gonna do it yourself like me, yet slightly taller in the rear, you would need to cut .55 off the top of the rear spacer to end up with 1.01" rear lift and 2.5" front this would make your nerfbars about 1/2" high in the rear which was my main concern, mine are about 1/8" to 1/4? higher in the rear. all numbers are approximate as we are working with a polyurethane spacer and not steel. no matter what lift you go with my opinion is that you need 1.5" more lift in the front than in the rear like 2.5" front and 1"rear or 3"front and 1.5" rear to be barely taller in the rear. not 2" taller like stock.

 

[THEROK]

I believe my front spacer was 1.25" as you stated. my numbers are kind of confusing because i measured first with stock tires and then with new tires. As far as i know i have 2.5" of lift according to daystar specs in the front and i modified the rear which started as 1.5625" down to .86" of of spacer which equals .86" of lift in the rear. now my fenders are at 35" front and 35.75" rear before new tires and only grew about 1" after new tires. here is a scrap sheet of paper i was working with if you can make any sense of it.

aside from all the numbers i can make it easy on you and reccomend if you go with the ds 2.5/1.5 like i did {kit # kt09115bk} you should try to get a 1" spacer for the rear rather than a 1.5" spacer. the bottom right of the sheet is where it started, directly above that is the upper i.d. and o.d. after top shaved off .7006" {because you wanna make sure that the i.d. allows the bump stop to fit, and the o.d. is the same so it will fit in the upper perch, outside anlge is 14 degrees and inside is 10 degrees}.so if your gonna do it yourself like me, yet slightly taller in the rear, you would need to cut .55 off the top of the rear spacer to end up with 1.01" rear lift and 2.5" front this would make your nerfbars about 1/2" high in the rear which was my main concern, mine are about 1/8" to 1/4? higher in the rear. all numbers are approximate as we are working with a polyurethane spacer and not steel. no matter what lift you go with my opinion is that you need 1.5" more lift in the front than in the rear like 2.5" front and 1"rear or 3"front and 1.5" rear to be barely taller in the rear. not 2" taller like stock.

nah dude. 3/2 is definitely less rake than stock. it's the ideal look. what you want will net you a saggy rear with any type of load in the back. that makes the truck look. broken.

 

[chaz]

ones an 05, the other an 06, imo, its the shape of the fender that makes it appear different.

 

[TOYLUVA]

at lunch I ckecked my measurements again but still havn't had an alignment. front fenders are at 36" and rears are at 37.25" and the nerfbars are 15.25" level. so my nerfbars are perfectly level { concrete im parked on may not be} and you can clearly see in therok's photo that his are higher in the front even though the ground he's parked on is goin downhill to the front. NOT a good look in my opinion and remember rok its only my opinion and i do aggree that yours looks more aggressive and off road capable but again i was going for the lifted and leveled without the lifted look so i think we both have what we wanted. {edit} also agin i have two trucks and a runner so no load is going in the runner other than snowbaords and such.

 

[chaz]

r those measurements both sides, or passengers side only? just wondering if u machined them to make up for the side to side difference. either way, it looks good, so does theroks.

 

[TOYLUVA]

the rear are the same and the front is little taller on one side but not even 1/8" difference. I only changed the rear spacers and took exactly .7006" off both.