UofAZCats

Couple of weeks ago I had my baby lowered. It was too low. Today she came back up a couple of inches. Also added 1.5" spacers to give her a wider stance.

My tape measure disagrees with your eyes.

A closer up shot of the wheel of the current wheel position.

If you look at the picture I posted after the original install of just the lower control arm my front wheel was farther back than it is now. The rubbing is definitely affected by the wheel being back but the picture makes it look worse than it is in person. It is improved from original which was pretty damn bad (see below) despite what the above picture seems to indicate. The alignment was done by another company and they had difficulty then getting it aligned. One of the things they mentioned they apparently had to do to get it aligned that first time was to trim the tie rod to get it to work. When I asked Inez why it sat so far back versus most other trucks that had their kit they said the wheel placement was an alignment issue. Tire Kingdom did the alignment and they are a pretty decent company in my other experiences with them, though this was done bat a different shop than I usually deal with.

The Inez arms are still on the truck. I kept them on.

As I noted I have some rubbing at the back of the wheel well when I turn. My installer recommended going to a slightly shorter tire and if that doesn't work he would re-shape the inner wheel well sheet metal. I do need new tires so I will probably go that direction first. I am not that knowledgeable about tires but have been looking through different tire places online to try to educate myself. I originally wanted to get wider tires but the spacers gave me the look I wanted. I am good with matching the width of my 285/45/22 tires. I have just started researching shorter 285's. My installer think just going down to 285/40 will solve the rubbing issue. I haven't been able to quickly find any 285/40 tires that meet the truck load rating. I have only hit a couple of sites but they carry most of the regular name tires I am familiar with. Anyone have 285/40/22 tires or even 285/35/22? I don't really want to go narrower or change out my rims.

Well I am in a much happier place than a few weeks ago. Just picked up the truck and it looks just how I hoped it would. Last time I took it in and they installed the Inez 3/5 kit. Unfortunately the kit was missing the reverse hanger. This left the ass end at a 7" drop. The front end was 3.5" lower. Both were more than I wanted. While the truck did look great from the side it was lower than I wanted. It was drivable but without a C-notch the back bottomed out with any real bump and the front tires rubbed with most turns. I really preferred to be closer to a 2/4.5 drop so i had a good look with all the regular functioning of stock. The new stance is pretty damn close to that. Instead of taking off the Inez lower control arms and putting on a drop spindle my installer recommended putting in half of a lift kit to raise it 1.5" for an overall drop of 2" versus stock in front. It was much cheaper in terms of hardware and installation at this point. Ivan at Inez was great at addressing the issue with the missing part by quickly having it send to my installer. That was installed, and after a little trial and error with the different shackles, got the rear just 0.5" above the front. The rear drop was about 4.5" versus stock. The install also included 1.5" spacers to all wheels. The spacers help to reduce rubbing but, almost as important, give it a wider, cooler look. Lastly I had 1" bump stocks put on the rear, though with the back end sitting higher bottoming out should not be a problem. Before today standing on the rear bumper and bouncing I was able to bottom out (please hold any fat jokes - thank you) after a few bounces. Now I can't get it to bottom out and it certainly feels stiffer. The front tires are aligned but the wheels still sit further back in the wheel well than I ultimately want. If I understand correctly this is an alignment related issue. Has anyone else been able to fix this issue short of removing the lowering kit? Thanks for everyone's input when I initially panicked after the first round.

Changed out the chrome badging on the truck and replaced it with black (not the Redline as another member did on his red Rally). Mine is the 2015 Rally 2 which is a mod of the LT. instead of putting back the LT badging I got a custom badge for my Rally. Deleting the chrome (slowly) as I can. I had previously replaced the red grille and chrome headlights with a black grille and headlights.. Next I'll get the bumpers color matched.

7 shy of 15K posts... couldn't resist.

Here is my front wheel using the Inez lower control arm only for a 3.5" drop.

Stock 285/45/22 on a 4/7 drop. Lock up front for tight turns. Going to be raising it up to 2/4 soon and adding 1.5" spacers. Looking for that street truck look and want to be able to drive it without steering limitations. For the guys running 305/40/22s on Chevy OEM rims - where did you find tires that size that fit on the 9" wide OEM rims?

I will get some pictures.. Heck once I get it where I want it you won't be able to stop me posting like crazy.

Thinking of going with drop spindles trying to get back up to the 2" drop I would prefer. Is there a quality difference on the spindles? Leaning towards Belltech at this point because tehy seem to have a good reputation and they are about $50 cheaper than McGaugheys. For those of you with 2" drop spindles are you actually seeing a 2" drop or is more like 1.5" or 2.5"?

Did some measuring since I got up early thinking about this thing. Right now the front measures 32.5" from ground to wheel well. Originally my front measured 36" to fender. The rear measures 32" on the driver side rear and 31.75" on the passenger side (which explains why the bottoming out sounded like it was from that side). Right now the truck bottoms out quite easily. Heck if I just stand on the bumper and bounce I can easily bottom it out. With the reverse hanger I had planned on coming up a couple of inches (a 5"drop) which I assume would greatly reduce bottoming out. However that re-introduces the rake, based on the above measurements, that I really do not want. Obviously I can just raise it 1" (a 6" drop) and the rake would effectively disappear but I am concerned that I would bottom out on a regular basis. My goal with the lowering had always been to give it more if a street truck look and improve the ride quality. At this point I am leaning towards changing out the front and find something else that will give me a 2 to 2.5" drop in the front with as few other issues as possible. With that I would raise the back to a 4 to 4.5" drop which I would expect to eliminate bottoming out altogether. I am actively interested in input and suggestions.

Nice smooth look without the badges.