35's and gas milage

west chevy hd · August 29, 2004

i realy like 8100hd's truck... i want to do a similler set up but i had some questions. how bad is the ride with the 3 inch body lift and the keys cranked enough to fit the 35 X 12.5 tires. how many inches do you have to actully need to acheive with the keys. i dont want to crank them more than 2 inches. also i like the tires to stick out a little. what back spacing on the rims can i do to get the most meat hanging out with little rubbing.

and the other question is how much is the gas milage effected with 35's?

i have a 2001 hd 6.0

facn8me · August 30, 2004

On the body kit. It will not effect the ride. granted it becomes a little more "top" heavy but the ride does not suffer. as far as the keys go, you are changing the angle of lower control arm which in turn effects the designed travel of the front end.it extends your shocks out effectivly rendereing you with little or no rebound out of your shocks. This could be fixed with longer shocks. you also put the cv axles at a greater angle causing undue wear. generally only a problem in 4wd. and at speed. they wont just go bad in a day but you may shorten thier life by 20% or more. plus in cold temps the boots may split sooner. A front end alignment is nessacry if you do this mod. If you do a search on this site you will find all the TB info you could ever want. but the ride suffers because cranking up the TB's takes the jounce rubber out of the equation and they cusion the TB's travel and help the shocks.

as for as your other questions I don't know.

tmf6902 · August 30, 2004

With my 35's I see between 11 mpg on the highway usually 80-85.....at 65 I can get close to 12.5-13. Around town I can get 10 if I can keep out of the gas.

Since feb of 04 I have avg 9.994mpg

8100HD · August 30, 2004

To answer your question on how it rides......better than stock...but it is all in the set-up. I am running shocks that are made for the H2 ,which once I received them and measured them, are actually 1-2 inches longer than stock, that coupled with many tire pressure adjustments, and "green" keys have netted me a very comfortable ride. There is another member on here that I helped out....its a white regular cab long bed HD with the same set-up 3" b/l, green keys, and the Edelbrock shocks, along with H2 rims and tires...and he also has a ride that is better than stock...I am not saying it is the end all be all, but it has worked for the both of us very well.

As far as the gas mileage question....we have different motors... but I get 12.5-13mpg highway and a solid 10mpg around town.

facn8me · August 30, 2004

oh by the way west chevy hd I have cranked up the front of my 03 siverado 1500 3 turns.

edit: and the little woman thinks it rides better she should know she drives it all the time.

west chevy hd · August 30, 2004

8100hd. you have the 17 inch rims then. i just plan on getting 16 inch rims with 35 12.5 16. what is the backspacing that i need with this setup. i would like the tires to stick out a little. and besides the airdam did you have to cut on anything else?

tmf6902 · August 30, 2004

Here is a pic with my 16x10 wheels and 35's....I had to do some minor trimming

BLEH...darn pic won't show...I have pics on my WWW of the trimming

8100HD · August 30, 2004

The H2 rims I have are 5.5" backspacing...I would look for rims with 5" backspcing...you start getting into the 4.5" range with even a 8" wide rim and you could be trimming more than you would like. I ran 295's on 16x8's with 4.5 backspacing and could get them to rub a bit...now with 17x8.5's with 5.5" backspacing and 35's and no rubbing at all.

This pic isn't the best for showing how far they stick out...they maybe stick out .5-1 inch since I took off my flares.