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2012 R/T dropped with a maxed out parts list.

16K views 77 replies 32 participants last post by  Jizanthapus 
#1 ·
Truck had 632 miles on it when I pulled into the shop this morning to work on it. I added the gunmetal SRT10 wheels and Pirelli Scorpion Zero tires yesterday.
Here's the parts list:
McGaughys 2/4 spring kit.
Spohn link bars and adjustable panhard bar.
Hellwig front and rear sway bars.
QA1 adjustable shocks.



I adjusted the McGaughys kit...took 1/2 a coil off the front and a full coil off the back shooting for a 3/5 or close. I'll measure tomorrow and see where it settled to but the back is right at an inch higher than the front which is just what I hoped for. McGaughys doesn't include front bump stops so I grabbed some urethane button style stops and removed the cup up front and they bolted right into place. The button stops they include leave at least 4" of travel in the back, more than I expected but a nice surprise anyway. I painted the frame everywhere I cut a spring cup off with semi-gloss black...matched perfectly.
The Hellwig bars were a breeze, less than 5 minutes to install them with an impact doing the work.
The rear upper shock bolt isn't nearly as bad as people say...pop the fender liners off and they're staring right at you. A 1/4" drive air ratchet is your friend here for sure.
The only parts that gave me issues were the Spohn stuff. The steel sleeves in the bushings were too small ID for the bolts to fit through. I had to press them all out and machine the holes bigger in a lathe. I'll be sending them an email to let them know about it so nobody hits that snag in the future.
The QA1's....wow....money well spent. I've already made a few adjustments and I think another notch or 2 softer and it'll be perfect.
You get what you pay for with shocks...I've used Bell Tech shocks before....there is no comparison to these.
I only got one pic...it was flooding here all day and I grabbed a quick one outside the alignment shop. Speaking of that...I'm gonna take it somewhere else and let them work on the caster....it's still a couple of degrees out. Camber was -0.1 on both sides and toe obviously set back perfect. It's closer than I thought it would be considering I cut an already shorter spring.

More pics tomorrow of all the parts installed...this is it for today.

 
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#6 ·
Those pics are with 1/2 coil off the front ans 1 full coil off the back.
I got the QA1's from Summit....$616 for all 4.
Tires are 305/40/22
I measured it again...I got almost exactly 3 and 5 from my starting points.

Cleaned it up and snapped a few more pics this morning.





Spohn link bars and QA1's


Spohn adjustable panhard and Hellwig bar. I gotta rework those brackets to get that bar level somehow.
 
#12 ·
I agree... I was just saying that it didn't look lower than the bell tech kit. After lowering mine I have been very interested in anyone being able to go lower without cutting and welding. I just don't think it's possible and keep a good ride quality. If anyone could get away with it, it would be you due to the very nice shocks you went with. Good luck and your truck looks fantastic just the way it sits now....
 
#16 ·
The ride looks very sweet!:smiley_thumbs_up: You got me thinking about those wheels over matte black ones!...
 
#17 ·
thought it would be lower

I have to agree, I just have the 2/4 belltech with the SP shocks, and I have 31.2 inches of tire and rims on mine, and you have 31.6 inches on your setup, and our gaps look almost identical.

I wish I had the QA1's, but I won't spend the money since getting the SP shocks from belltech, probably much stiffer than your setup, but I am happy with it, especially these Proxes ride really smooth, and the extra sidewalls from running a 20" make it pretty smooth.

Well, how has the handling and traction been since installing the rear control arms. I have been really considering doing this mod to my truck, since getting the sphone panhand rod.
 

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#18 · (Edited)
I do want to run offset tire sizes too, I want a 305/50/20 in the rear which will be 31.8"s for better traction to make up for future plans, headers, supercharger what not! Unfortunately, the stock rims already stick out, just a freakin hair, and I know another 1.2" wider tire, would stick out the fender about .6"s, It is almost sticking out now. This is why I have been considering the fender flares from the dealership, they want $400 for the set, then I would have to get them painted too! and I don't know how this would look?????? But I would love to keep the stock wheels. I don't care for the dark rims, unless they are on a black truck, cause the whole blacked out thing looks freakin sweet. I have been looking for rims for a while, and everthing looks too thin for me, with such a big truck. The stock rims totally compliment the body, just my 2 cents!
 
#19 · (Edited)
My stock rims were already 22's and I didn't want a 305 tire on a 9" wheel. As far as how much it dropped, all I can do is post the difference in measurements I took from the parts I installed.
I had an amount of gap I wanted and that's the number I shot for....hit it within 1/8".

I plan to play with this thing on some road courses as well as drag race it so I'm trying to build a cohesive suspension system that works, not just a drop kit that lowers the truck.
These are the parts I could find at the time...as far as how well they work I can't say I have an opinion yet. It of course handles better than stock but I haven't driven it enough yet to dial it in and get the understeer I'm after. It'll likely take some track time to accomplish that.

As far as the blacked out thing...here's my other truck that I sold on Friday.


It doesn't get much more blacked out than that....I wanted something lighter this time but I'm still anti chrome. And really....black wheels on a silver or white truck....everyone does that including my brother with his 2012 F350 with black BMF's on it. lol
At 7600 lbs that thing could hang with Corvettes and such on the twisty roads then destroy them on the dragstrip with the 900+ HP motor under the hood. It would embarrass most peoples audio systems as well with about 10K in a strictly SQ stereo system.

I don't like building one trick ponys...or trucks that only do one thing well. I like to build total package trucks. That's my plan with this one too.
 
#22 ·
It's an 04 2wd F250 with a 4/6 drop. 22's with 305/40/22 tires.
Fully built twin turbo common rail Cummins conversion and a billet 48Re trans behind it.
It was customized from front to back....and a lot of fun. Ran solid 11's on street tires.
Surprised more than one sports car in it's day....some with 6 figure price tags. lol

And I sold the stock wheels on Saturday.
 
#24 ·
Oh well... Didn't think they would last long... You do a great detailed job of building trucks. Just my style. I hate hacking...

Good numbers on the truck. There's nothing like power adders. I just went from a blown 302, heads, cam, intake to a fully built 347 stroker in my mustang. I like the constant feel of power but miss the feel of boost at times....
 
#25 ·
What bump stops are you thinking of using in the rear? When I installed my BT kit I could see that if you cut the rear cups off the frame there are no holes available to mount a small button style stop. You would have to drill new holes which wouldn't be fun.

Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks.
 
#26 ·
The McGaughys kit comes with button stops already screwed into mounting plates...those bolt to the axle itself using pre-existing holes. You still have a stop, it's just in a different spot.
When you cut the cups off the front there's already a hole there to bolt a new stop into.
I wonder if you could buy the stops from McGaughys direct? Surely they wouldn't cost much.
 
#27 ·
Thanks for that, I saw an install video of what was called a Belltech kit, being installed, it turned out to be a McGaughys. Due to this video, I actually cut the cups off of my rear housing to install the new bumpstops, but guess what? My new ones were shortened bumpstops from Belltech, that just plugged into the original cup. ,... havent hit anything yet, but don't feel that comfortable, just in case.

I hope I can buy these from Mcgaughys idividually, I just superglued the new bumpstops from belltech to the original bucket locations, how strong do you think that is????

Man that 250 was awesome, I would have still kept it if it was me, or did you just need a new project. I am exactly the same way about my vehicles, total package. I was looking to do similar duties with this truck. Dump about a little over $10,000 into it, except for the stereo. I kinda got out of doing mega systems about 10 years ago, believe it or not, stock stereos usually do it for me nowadays.(holy crap my age is catching up to me.) I would be really happy if I can just bust into the 12's with this truck in the quarter, this as a daily driver for me would be great, then onto modding my Jeep. I think once they break the code, and can do real tunning on the truck, I will add the longtubes, and 85MM throttle, and one of the superchargers available, maybe a turbo if STS comes out with one for our trucks. If this don't do it, I might just bite the bullit and do a head and cam setup also.

So once again, sorry for blabbing on, but how has the traction and control been with the new 4 links, or do you need some more time to tell. I set my Hellwig in the rear to the middle setting. With the new Hellwig in the front my truck feels real balanced, but have not pushed it hard enought to tell if there is still oversteer or not. The max setting on the rear bar made it a little oversteer happy in my opinion. I am curios to see if the new control arms help tighten things up a bit more and that it will make a difference with how the rear bar is setup.
 
#28 ·
I'm super stoked now. I've been emailing a bit with Spohn about custom rear link bars to recenter the axle. They're gonna make new adjustable bars with a 1" diameter double adjuster like the panhard has. I'll have the first set in about 4 weeks when they get the adjusters machined.
Hello centered tires and adjustable pinion angle!
 
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