NextStepDesigns

Day 2 of our Trip to Moab, Utah for the Land Rover National Rally. The rally hasn’t started yet (Check-in is this evening), but there are hundreds of Land Rover people milling about town, so I arranged to meet up with John & George from Chicago to take us to the Top Of The World trail in their LR3. Afterwards, we checked in on Adam Spiker who is staying at the posh & very pleasant Sorrel Canyon Ranch, base camp for the Land Rover Experience event in Moab every year…
Photos of Moab, Day 2 (31 images on SmugMug)

Top of the World is an easy trail for experienced drivers.  With a low rider like me, you had to pick your lines, but for the beefed up DII’s along with us, they pretty much yawned all the way through it.  it’s 10 miles round trip of really rocky bumpy trail.  It is physically very tiring, just because it’s so bumpy.  But the views at the top are spectacular.  I think we had the most fun on the last few miles of the dirt access road.  We (okay, I) decided that we should run it as fast as we dared, and we dared pretty fast.  Some fun corners to slide around at 60mph on the edge of a steep sandstone cliff

We concluded Top of the World with our first coating of Moab red dust, and then drove the 25 mile road back towards town.  However, we stopped along the way to pay a visit to Adam and check out his highfalooting  hotel/ranch.  It was pretty nice, I must admit. The back deck right on the Colorado river was suitably serene.

Today four friends and their Land Rovers from Southern California ventured out to Moab Utah for the annual Land Rover National Rally. Here are a few (very few) photos of our first part of our journey.

Photos of Day 1 (18 images on SmugMug)

Our trip was not without event.  We budgeted 12 hours, it took nearly 15 I think (lost track after a while…).  One of us, who shall remain unnamed, thought it would be neat to run Zero weight synthetic oil in his engine just prior to the trip (to get better gas mileage).  Well, Disco II’s don’t seem to like zero weight, and the oil started to boil out of his headers before we even got out of Cajon Pass.  The oil leaked out, dripped onto his O2 sensor in his exhaust manifold, and gave him an incredible array of fault lights in his truck.  With a bit of ingenuity, we fashioned a cover to shield the O2 sensor, and headed east once again.  After going through a few incidences like this, we finally made it to Las Vegas, where we found an JiffyLube and got his oil replaced.  Onward once again.  As we leave Vegas, the other DII driver announces that his exhaust is getting louder and he is losing power.  It seems his exhaust manifold has cracked….  We ignore it and keep on.

We make it to Utah, but Joe’s DII is acting up again (oop’s, there’s goes the secrecy :-), so once again we find a JiffyLube, and have the differentials drained and changed.  Luis’s truck is still running, so we head on out.  Adam is on his 10th or 15th Monster energy drink by now…

About 2 hours later, I find myself catching up to and passing Luis without meaning to.  As I get closer, I can hear his truck from quite a distance, and he is losing speed.  I radio over, and he reports a bad headache and a rapidly worsening exhaust leak.  We find a tiny little shop in a tiny little town in Utah called Beaver.  We roll up to the shop at 4:30PM, and the garage doors are closed, but two guys come out, and apparently our sad little faces convinced them to help us.  They roll up the door and our eyes sparkle in the gleaming light of one of best equipped shops I have ever seen.  They had everything!.  20 minutes later, his exhaust was welded together, the bill was less than $40, and we were on our way, again…

The rest of the trip was uneventful, but the scenery through Utah is spectacular.   I loved Fishlake National Forest, and the huge rift of mountains this side of Green Valley are amazing.  it’s like driving through the Road Runner and Wyle E Coyote cartoonland.

We rolled into Moab about 9:30 PM, their time, and called it a day.

After a tremendous amount of research, I have concluded that there in fact several options for lifting a coil sprung Discovery III/LR3. Generally, the consensus is that an additional 2″ (50mm) in a permanent lift will have no adverse effects on the CV joints. Of course, an appropriate amount of time & mileage needs to be given before this statement can be confirmed, but thus far, several trucks have been lifted with no adverse effects so far (see Geoland and Technic Auto4×4).

The options to create a lift for the D3/LR3 range from simple to exotic, with corresponding pricing.

The simple lift option is to replace the factory springs with stiffer, taller springs. This low cost option provides anywhere from 35mm-50mm of lift. There are several companies that provide coils specific to this truck. Pedders Suspension and KingSprings are best known. At time of this writing, KingSprings has a 35mm spring available, and are soon to release a 50mm HD “heavy duty” spring. Pedders offers a slightly stiffer, slightly taller spring than the 35mm KingSpring.

A medium cost option involves making custom shock mounts and fitting a conventional racing Coilover which would allow considerably more travel in the downward direction, and adjustable valving to accommodate weight of safari gear or off road parameters. The result would be about 2.5″ of lift (65mm), and significantly improved articulation, but the cost is approximately 3 times that of the spring only lift, depending on the quality of coilover used.

The high end suspension lift can be accomplished two ways, but the premise is the same. This would be a “transitional lift”, meaning, would not remain at full off road height all the time like the fixed lift options lifted above. Method one is to replace the coil struts with LR Genuine air suspension struts. An aftermarket tank, compressor, height sensors, and controller would then be fitted. One company called RoverSpecialties offers this controller and accessories, but the truck owner would have to provide their own air shocks. This option, with shocks, costs about $4500 USD

The other exotic option would be to use racing coilovers, topped with an airbag system. This provides ultimate reliability, and maximum height, and considerable articulation. Examples of this system can be found at Universal Air Suspension. The cost is about $4000, PLUS the coilovers (approx $2500).

For obvious reasons, I chose the simple (cheap) spring lift option. I chose the Pedders springs because the KingSprings were not available within my desired time frame (I’m going to Moab!).

The installation of my new springs was straightforward and performed by Gordon at Inland Rovers. These springs are 37% stiffer than factory, though only about 1 coil taller. On my truck the net result was about 40mm (1.6″) of lift. The ride is terrific, and the look of the truck, while fairly subtle, is SIGNIFICANTLY improved. My large Nitto tires now look more balanced on the truck, and the wheel well is no longer completely full of tire.

The resulting height now brings my truck permanently up to the exact same height of a normal air suspension equipped D3/LR3 in Off Road mode. Specific dimensions are posted below:

Update 12/02/06 - I fitted taller stiffer springs from KingSpring, see revised chart below:

(click for PDF)

The Pedders springs are a pleasing Red color, and look pretty good. I am very happy with the ride quality and damping. I have taken them off road on a very rocky & rutted trail, and they did great. The truck never bottomed out, even at considerable speed (well over the 30 mph air suspension limit

Here are a few photos. The CV angle has barely changed at all: