S10 Blazer Weight Vs XJ/TJ

Ricky B

Ricky B

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Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
LKN - Tha Dirty Mo (Mooresville, NC)
Ok so I'm tryin to figure out what kinda coil spring I'm gonna need to run in the front of my S10 blazer to be able to level it out with the rear. The rear is gonna be rougly 8" of suspension lift with a 3" body with leaf springs to clear 37x14R15 Iroks.

I'm tryin to figure out which coil I should run weight wise. The front half of the blazer frame is boxed, it has the 4.3 and I'm gonna have no sheet metal on the front just exo tube. So I'm thinkin its gonna be roughly the same wieght as the front end of an XJ or maybe a TJ since the engines are about the same size??? So I'm wonderin if an 8" xj coil would do it, or if I'd have to run like 2.5" coil spacer on top of that to get it up high enough? Let me know what ya'll think.

Thanks
 
Man you do like them high! 11 inches of lift. Dump the BL and get out the sawsall. If you are tubing the front then keeping the body lines aren't a big concern. I think you could get away with some XJ springs. The weight shouldn't be too bad, and you are going to be building custom coil mounts anyway so you can set the ride height to match. The main problem will be sagging.
 
now comes the part where he tells you what he is going to do. this usually follows the question he just asked. why did he ask the question? who knows, i certainly don't.
 
ok to follow pheery's interpretation of my thought process, lol . . . .

Nah here's the reason for 8" of lift. I have no qualms whatsoever about cutting up the fenders at all. As a matter of fact I will do so as much as possible if it were a truck i'd ditch the bed totaly but here's the problem, its a blazer so you can't cut the fender on the rear much at all because the inner fender is there, you'd be cutting into the inside of the body. I mean to get 8" in the rear all you have to do is a spring over and longer shackles anyway. The 3" body lift will also help make room for the tires since I can't trim that much, plus its s10 blazer so its not gonna be that tall with only 8" of susp lift since they ride so low to start with.

I just want the front to ride even hieght with the rear so I'm tryin to figure out what size coils im gonna need and wonderin if the xj coils are gonna compress alot when i set the blazer down and not be tall enough due to wieght differences.
 
RE 4.5" coils for a ZJ would work really well, thats what I am going with. I know a guy running them and it does pretty well to say the least.
 
This is the same thing I was trying to figure out when I built my truck. I ended up going with the 5.5" lift w/o winch coils from BC Broncos (EB coils). They are 18" compressed length on my truck, but the rear axle is pushed back 7" from a stock FS bronco which probably has a longer WB than a EB so my percent front end weight is much higher than they were intended for. I think these springs would work great on an S10 with a 4.3. The EB crowd loves them. I ended up having to lower the coil buckets 2" on the frame effectively raising the truck because it sat too low to put my track bar where I wanted it. I also cut most of the front fenders off and tubed the front similar to what you are planning probably. Keep it low and cut the fenders. You can weld in new inner fenders in the rear if you end up cutting into the body.

BC Broncos link: http://bcbroncos.com/store/index.php?cPath=75_76_79

DK
 
Yea I was thinkin bout goin with eb coils, I just don't know what exact height which coils were gonna provide so the 18" (I'm assuming you meant that was the measure ment just sitting there at stock hieght) measurement you gave me should def help out, give me somethin to guage by, preciate it.

As far as the rear, yea I realize I could cut and re weld in new inner fenders but the next problem is the door is right there so I'd have to move the rear axle back some and cut more out of the rear rockers which I guess I could do, I just think after all that It would be easier to just put a 3" body lift on, ya know? I don't know we'll see exams are over fri so I'll be headin back home and I'll start workin on the blazer this weekend probably see if I can't figure out exactly what to do with that rear end.
 
Whatever ended up happening with that sky scraper jeep of yours? Wasnt that thing getting pretty close to completion?
 
It was till i realized i needed Rockwells to handle the tire size I wanted to run and to make my driveshaft angles actually pheesable, so i took those axles out of it and put some 10 bolts under it to roll it around on some stock size roller tires. The axles that were under it are now waiting to be put in the Blazer

Another thought to those thinkin bout trimmin the rear fender to avoid the higher lift size. Here's another problem I just realized after lookin at some pics I have of the blazer. Even if i move the rear axle back and reweld the inner fender, i still cant trim the fender upwards because the door wraps around the upper part of the fender. If I moved the rear axle back I could open up the wheel well but can't cut the sheetmetal up any higher so I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to run a body lift, etc. Unless anybody has any ideas???? :confused:
 
I am not saying to trim it, but a 3 inch body lift doesn't like side loading very much. Not that BLs don't have their place, but 3 inches is a lot. Summit sells wheel wells that will hold a 38 for cheap. You do still have the door problem though. I don't own a blazer nor will I ever so I don't know all the little things you will encounter. My opinion, run whatever coil you can get on the cheap. Make your mounts to even out the ride. The RE springs seem to not sag as much as others.
 
I'm gonna be running 35s but enough to fit 37s if I wanted to. should be about an inch higher than the wrangler coils i would imagine. hard to say exactly but thats ballpark.
 
How are you gonna do the rear lift? My plan for that is to flip the spring around to lengthen the wheel base (since the centerpin is offset about 6" and do a spring over and re locate the shackle mount to the under side of the frame and make a long shackle. You think that'll be enough to run the 37's with me trimming as much fender as possible (but still limited trimming upwards due to the door) or do you think I'm gonna have to throw the body lift on there as well?
 
rob usnick (yield2me) is using an s10blazer body.. maybe you could get some ideas from it although his setup is a bit different than yours. heres some pics of his rig..
 

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how about this, measure your spring unloaded - mock up some mounts on the s10 frame and axle - install spring and put weight on it, measure the results.

Or buy some scales and weigh it and figure your spring rate from there.
 
oohh ohhh another fabulous idea.... screw the 100" of lift, cut the outter/inner fender, fabricate new inner fenderwells, if you cant fabricate them, buy the prebent 'tub' kit from summit.
 
why not take all three project vehicles you have, find someone with a tube chassis or something they dont want anymore, and use all the parts you have accumulated and make one vehicle that can do what you are looking for.
 
Another thing you could consider for getting tire clearance is to run ORD zero-rates. It'll move your rear axle back 1.5" and if nothing else, it's another inch closer to scraping overpasses with your roof. :D
 
why not take all three project vehicles you have, find someone with a tube chassis or something they dont want anymore, and use all the parts you have accumulated and make one vehicle that can do what you are looking for.
Click to expand...

If only I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me I could buy a prebuilt rig, lol.

Nah the Jeep is for mud boggin/all aroun Ridiculously hugeness, and the blazer is gonna be fer rockkrawlin and trails, the samurai has no plans at the moment so it is just sittin, lol.


Another thing you could consider for getting tire clearance is to run ORD zero-rates. It'll move your rear axle back 1.5" and if nothing else, it's another inch closer to scraping overpasses with your roof.
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lol, heck yea, the day I drive a rig thats big enough to scrape an overpass my life will be complete, lol.

Nah, but yea as far as movin the axle the rear blazer leafs have an offset center pin about 6" so I'm gonna flip em around so they will stick the rear axle back some and on the front sice its coils I can just stick the axle as far forward as I want.
 
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