Coil bucket contact with front spacers

[fortel]

Hi folks

I have a 2012 Frontier Crew Cab SV 4x4. I never lifted a vehicle before but am thinking of doing so with the Fronty. I have a local 4x4 shop that does good work and has a good reputation, but when I asked them about the issue of coil bucket contact using spacers up front they said they never heard of it. Maybe in their defense, around here Nissans are in quite the minority and almost all of their work is on full size domestics or Toyotas. Seems to be plenty of posts about it though, especially over at some of the other Frontier forums when I search the suspension forums.

Is it just a Frontier or Nissan issue due to the design of the OEM UCAs? And is it really a big issue if there is some contact every now and then? Ultimately the answer would seem to be new UCAs, etc. but there are no funds for that at the moment (kid in braces and college tuition looming). I could swing a spacer-based lift, but if there is a serious enough issue with things like coil bucket contact, I would rather keep it stock and hopefully down the road be able to budget to go another route.

Due to a low garage door header and no desire to lose parking in a heated garage in trade for a larger lift, the lift would only be 2 inches in addition to going to a 265/75/16 AT tire from the stock 265/70/16s. Any more than that with the cargo basket/bike rack on top of the Leer shell and I won't fit in my basement garage.

Its my do-everything daily driver and there are no plans for rock-crawling or extreme mudding. I lead monthly Scout camping trips, hunt and fish and haul mountain bikes around with it so modding it a little with a nod towards overland-type travel would be the goal. You guys have some amazing Frontiers and Xterras here and I would love to hear from your first hand experience on whether I should pursue a spacer-based lift or not. Thanks

 

[Weekender41]

I come from a different style of front suspension than you but you will see many places don't like to rely on spacers for lifts unless its to even out the rake.
This comes straight from Nisstec which you may know:
"Rocknhd is on track in that so long as you dont change the overall length of the stock coilover very much you wont get coil bucket contact. Its such a small ammount that you can lengthen the stock coilover without getting CB contact- with a top plate spacer that it doesnt add up to very much lift. There is MAYBE about 1/4" worth of space to play with and only with a stock OEM shock. Now add some extra length to your coilover with the deflection of shock bushings that happens as anything unsprung pulls down on your coilover at full droop and you will need to take away an 1/8", at least. So now you are left with a 1/8" (MAYBE) top plate spacer which isnt going to give a whole lot of lift. Im not sure how strong it will be either..
In the end, the very minimal thickness you can add to the top of a stock coilover without creating CB contact may not be worth the trouble. While more expensive, aftermarket UCAs really are the way to go with any top plate spacer or extended travel coilover/shock"

And they sell the spacers! that should be a good testimony. Im sure the frontier guys will pop in and give their .02

 

[fortel]

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty conservative on mods/changes since I don't have a lot of wrenching knowledge to be able to do this stuff in the drivewaymyself. I sure don't want to try and save money going the spacer route and end up effectively throwing money away that could have been applied somewhere in the future for something better. I'll still definitely bump up the tire size when I replace the OEM BFGs with a better AT tire.

I'd still like to hear other views, especially from you Frontier guys. I want to learn as much as I can because I plan on keeping this truck a while. Thanks again

 

[skibum315]

Here's my thinking on front suspension upgrades for this platform (I've got an '08 Xterra) ... spacers can be a fine way to get front lift; but from anecdotal observation through 5-6 years of participation on thenewx.org, it seems like folks generally are unsatisfied if they haven't managed their expectations to the performance that spacers are going to give. A spacer-lifted front-end won't perform the same (I'd venture to say as well, but some may argue ... so lets stick with the same) as a front end with aftermarket arms and shocks/coils.

If all you're after is height, a spacer will work great ... and you may not even have CBC if you use a spacer that's small enough. I know the quote from Nisstec implies otherwise, but there are folks out there who have gotten 2" of lift (~1.25" actual spacer height, due to the shock length/wheel travel ratio) and run it for thousands of miles (yes even some actual wheeling miles, too) and been perfectly pleased with it. There are bump stops you can add to the stock arms to minimize the harshness of the impact with the coil bucket ... but it'll still impact. At the end of the day, though, there's no two ways around it: the way a spacer gets you lift is by moving your static ride height position up in the range of travel ... go to far with that, and it'll feel like the front end 'tops out' any time you're expecting the wheel to droop (front suspension to extend) as you're driving down the road (or trail).

Now, if you add arms and/or aftermarket coilovers (or a shock/coil combination that has more net travel than the stock shock/coil combo), then you can move that static position up (lift), and still maintain a good amount of droop. So if that's what you're after, I'd suggest holding off on the spacers and saving a bit longer to get the setup you really want.

If all you want to do is clear a bigger tire, you don't need to do anything ... as far as I know, the Frontier is the same as the X and can clear 285x75r16s (or 255x85r16s) on stock wheels with only the 'Melt Mod' - which is simply using a heat gun (or hair dryer on 'high') to soften the fender liner and hold it out of the way while it cools. If you want aftermarket wheels, too (and they've got more offset or width than stock), then you may have some actual trimming to do for tires pushing into the 33" sizes ... probably not for 265x75r16s, though.

 

[Mo4130]

All a spacer lift does essentially is add more preload to your suspension and takes away down travel. They will be fine for little to no off roading but aside from that you will be good for road use.

You may or may not get coil bucket contact. That is usually and issue over 2 inch. And for what it's worth you literally have to do the same amount of work to do new coils as you so with spacers.

 

[fortel]

Good info, thanks again. Sounds like the most practical route is to leave the suspension stock until a time when funds free up to do things right.

 

[Strizzo]

All a spacer lift does essentially is add more preload to your suspension and takes away down travel. They will be fine for little to no off roading but aside from that you will be good for road use.

You may or may not get coil bucket contact. That is usually and issue over 2 inch. And for what it's worth you literally have to do the same amount of work to do new coils as you so with spacers.

I think you're thinking of spring spacers, where you'd take the strut apart, put the spacer in, and reassemble. my buddy had some of those from revtec on his tacoma when he bought it, and it made it ride like a lumber truck. the majority of the spacer lifts for 2nd gen nissans are strut spacers, that bolt to the top of the strut mount and make the overall assembly longer. i started out with just the PRG spacer and deaver AAL on my X, and had coil bucket contact. this was before anyone sold spacers for less than 2". i didn't like the contact and added total chaos UCAs. they stopped the contact but then the limiting factor was the front swaybar endlinks. i've now pulled the front swaybar and have full travel minus a few fractions of an inch to keep from topping out the struts. i'm more than happy with this setup and it works great for 98% of the wheeling that people will do. if you want to go nuts you can do extended length coilovers but they're only really going to give you another inch or so of total travel unless you do a titan swap which not everyone wants to do. the limiting factor is still the cv joints and front suspension geometry for running more than 2-2.5" of lift.

 

[Mo4130]

Yea you're right. I was thinking of spring spacers. Didn't think that one threw Yea I have heard nightmares on how they ride.

Also how is the ride with out the front sway bar?? I am rocking ome hd coils with an arb and wire m8000.

 

[Strizzo]

Yea you're right. I was thinking of spring spacers. Didn't think that one threw Yea I have heard nightmares on how they ride.

Also how is the ride with out the front sway bar?? I am rocking ome hd coils with an arb and wire m8000.

The ride is actually much better than running only one front or rear sway, the truck doesn't "follow" the road with the front or rear tires anymore like it would with one sway or the other. The suspension works well with either both sways or neither, but I'm not in love with the way it rides and handles with just one or the other. I ran without the rear bar for a while and the front just didn't want to flex very much, pushing most of the articulation onto the rear suspension. Later when I'm on an actual computer I can post pics with the same lift and both, front only, and rear only bars on the truck. I don't have any pics with no bars yet but on the trail it feels like it flexes out much more than it did before even with just the rear bar installed. On road the handling isn't much different, there's just a bit more body roll. Your stiffer springs may help a bit with that though, but you're not going to be winning any slalom tests.

 

[Mo4130]

I might try just disconnecting hem and and securing them to see how it drives. I'll report back.