Lucky 8 SYA Kit Problem

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greiswig

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When I go to off road height the front limiting straps are at full extension, is it the same on yours?

Lee
I haven't looked, but that wouldn't surprise me; those straps are very short. I assume that the engineers calculated the maximum articulation that should be put on the CV joints and such, and this is the result.
 

greiswig

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...although one other thought occurred to me that makes me suspect the engineering a bit: the rear strap lower mount. I don't think it's a good idea to mount those to the alignment bolt on the upper A-arm. I'm worried that it's going to make aligning things a real PITA.
 

CaliLee

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Access, normal and off road height with pics this time.

IMG_1936.jpg
IMG_1937.jpg
IMG_1938.jpg
 

djkaosone

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Sorry, I'm late to this party. I'll chime in with my 2 cents.

I've been running this kit since October 20, 2020. I've reached out to them about the install as well and I don't agree with them about the limiting straps and placement. A lot of people are having issues with the rear limiting straps at full extension where the straps are rubbing against the wheels and tires, based on the recommended install locations. To me, the recommended install locations actually limit the full extension.

Here's my fix with pictures and I have zero issues since running them.

Front struts: Top of the limiting strap is mounted in between the spacer on the top of the strut.
20201020_165003.jpg

Rear top: Top of the limiting strap is mounted in between the spacer on the top of the strut.
20201020_182906.jpg

Rear bottom: The strap runs along the strut and mounts to the sway bar.
20201020_191151.jpg

As far as calibration goes... if your truck was perfect prior to this install, the 2 inch spacer should be negated with the 2 inch lift rod. If you're trying to recalibrate AFTER the install, the only solution I found was to install a 2.5" lift rod and add 0.5" to each corner during the calibration. Why add 0.5"? Because, when all 4 corners are fully deflated they're actually sitting at oem height. It's impossible to find 18 1/8" and 19 3/8" with oem or 2" lift rods. I've tried... way too many times.

Anyhow, thats what I did and I can achieve "normal" drive abilities and full extension when needed. The limiting straps have less than 1/16th of an inch to stretch in my mounting locations.
 

greiswig

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Interesting, @djkaosone . Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like the idea of having less strap limitation...but only if it means that the driveline is still protected adequately. How did you arrive at the conclusion that these new strap positions would allow for something like the original extension level, but not further?

Also, what do you mean when you say "...less than 1/16th of an inch to stretch in my mounting locations..."?
 

djkaosone

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Interesting, @djkaosone . Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like the idea of having less strap limitation...but only if it means that the driveline is still protected adequately. How did you arrive at the conclusion that these new strap positions would allow for something like the original extension level, but not further?

Also, what do you mean when you say "...less than 1/16th of an inch to stretch in my mounting locations..."?

The front was pretty straightforward. The rear was a little more challenging to figure out, but works. Over extension happens when the suspension goes beyond it's limits. With the limiting straps it protects or limits the amount of extension. As you can see in the pics with the wheels off and the suspension at full extension there is about 1/16th (just a guess) slack in those straps.

I get full articulation and functionality like oem the way I have it. It still protects it from being overextended. The recommended install, I had to compress the suspension to fit the limiting straps, which reduces the suspension range.
 

greiswig

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Hmmm...I wonder if they re-did the straps since you installed the kit. Mine did not require me to change the suspension height for the installation.

My understanding for these straps is that (as with most suspension limiters) it's less about protecting the suspension than it is about protecting the CV joints and other parts of the driveline. So for example on my Unimog, when I put a suspension lift on it, I put limiting chains on the differential, not at the wheels. A torque tube driveshaft and portal axles can twist pretty much indefinitely without issue, but the joint at the entrance of the torque tube needed to be protected from bottoming out.

So my question was really more about how do you know that the CV joints are not overextended at full extension?
 
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djkaosone

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You're right... it's about protecting the cv joints or axles. However, if I can't put my truck into extended mode to get out of a sticky situation that's not going to work for me either.

Btw... I have the x-lifter installed and can temporarily put it in +75mm, equivalent to oem extended mode, for getting out of sticky situations.

Here's my thought and it's just me, if oem allows about 10" in the front and 14" of travel in the back. I'm not changing the range of motion. I've added the limiting strap to stop it from exceeding that motion by (guesstimate) of 1/16th slack in the limiting straps.
 

greiswig

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Thanks for the detail! I see where you're coming from. For me, if I put 2.5" lift spacers on there, although I might expect the range of travel to stay the same as stock, I'm expecting to lose 2.5" of droop travel (if CV joints were the limiting factor with the OEM configuration) and gain 2.5" of compression travel (if not for the larger tires and/or bump stops).

I agree that the front straps LOOK very short, and like they might be overly-restrictive. But I don't know, and I would hope Lucky8 would have done their homework in that regard. Same with calculating the length of the straps for the rear.

By mounting the top of the straps 2.5" lower than where Lucky8 wanted them, it feels to me like you're asking for 2.5" more droop travel than stock, unless Lucky8 miscalculated the lengths. And you tend to not feel CV joints binding because when they bind is when you're in the thick of a trail and are hearing a lot of noise. You might not know that the joints are binding until they fail.

How many trail miles do you have with this setup? That might be a good data point to have.

My main beef with the rear straps so far is that I think it's a bad idea to mount one end to an alignment adjuster, blocking it from easy access. I have an appointment for alignment this Saturday, and I'm worried they're going to have a problem with that.
 

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