Looking for long-term feedback from anyone running a Westcott lift with 34s or 35s. If you’ve got 100K+ miles on the setup, how has reliability been?

[GR8Santini]

Seems like there's a lot of misinformation about how strut-top spacers and preload spacers affect IFS suspension.

Strut-top spacers move the whole coil-over/strut assembly down.
Ride height is raised, but stays at the same point in the shock's travel.
Droop relative to ride height stays the same. The shock is still limiting downtravel.
Compression may increase because you wont' hit the bump stop now. The shock is now the limit for uptravel.
Result: up-travel and down-travel stay pretty much the same relative to ride height.

Preload collar spacers raise ride height by moving only the spring down, but the coilover/strut assembly doesn't move.
Ride height is now closer to full extension of the shock, so droop is reduced by the amount of lift gained.
Up-travel would still hit the factory bumpstop, but now you've got a spacer compressing the spring more (taking up room the spring used to have), so you might get coil bind before hitting the bump stop.
Result: Reduced down travel from ride height. More up travel from moving ride height down, but probably can't stuff the tire up as far as factory because the coil doesn't have as much room to compress.

Edit: @Bad1975 , I agree with most of what you said except the above differences between strut-top and preload lifts.

Appreciate your comments, & we’re getting closer.
The Westcott is on the lower perch so the OE spring is lifted up, not down. It does the lift without eating into down-travel or articulation, & @ least in my case, an alignment could be done in OE tolerance. Doing my research Westcott stated correctly I would not run into a caster-maxed-out issue that the forums warn about all spacer lifts.

 

[RideWithYanu]

Appreciate your comments, & we’re getting closer.
The Westcott is on the lower perch so the OE spring is lifted up, not down. It does the lift without eating into down-travel or articulation, & @ least in my case, an alignment could be done in OE tolerance. Doing my research Westcott stated correctly I would not run into a caster-maxed-out issue that the forums warn about all spacer lifts.

No doubt you’re not having any alignment issues, because with a 2.5” lift you’re just inside the range of adjustment that the OEM arms allow. Getting to the 3” range and beyond is where you fully run out of room to correct the negative caster from the lift, and where upgraded UCAs come in.

But - it simply isn’t correct that you didn’t lose down travel. With your preload collars you have 2.5” less droop than you had with the OEM setup. A preload collar like your Westcott keeps the factory travel limits intact and pays for it in reduced droop. A top hat keeps droop from ride height and pays for it by operating outside those limits at both ends. This is why Westcott markets their product as preserving factory geometry (but are silent on the impact to droop).

Neither lift type adds a single millimeter of travel. What the two methods differ on is where your ride height sits inside the stroke you already have, and what geometry the ends of that stroke put you in.

Preload collar like yours: trades droop for compression, one for one. Lift 2.5 inches at the wheel and you give up 2.5 inches of droop from ride height and gain 2.5 inches of uptravel. The total is unchanged. Critically, full droop still lands the control arm exactly where stock full droop landed it, so CV plunge, ball joint angle, and UCA clearance at the bottom of the stroke are all unchanged, as Westcott advertises. You just arrive at that same limit sooner (which they don’t). The bumpstop still protects the shock. What you actually lose is the ability of the tire to drop into terrain, and the fact that you now sit near top-out means more rebound events hit that stop. In other words: you will have wheel lift in holes 2.5” shallower than you did before.

So the tradeoff is not travel versus travel. It is droop versus geometry.

Preload costs you usable droop and keeps the factory limits intact. A top spacer keeps your droop number and spends the factory safety margin instead.

It’s an individual judgment on what upgrades your experience, but your droop took a hit.

 

[NoMe cruiser]

I’m leaning toward a Westcott lift with 34s, possibly 35s. My Land Cruiser is a daily driver, but I’ll be doing plenty of overlanding out West in the summers.

My biggest concern is long-term reliability. Anyone running a Westcott lift with 34s/35s who has 100k+ miles on the setup?

Any drivetrain, suspension, transmission, or engine issues you feel were related to the lift or larger/heavier tires? How has it held up, and would you do it again?

I’d especially like to hear from high-mileage owners rather than those with just a few thousand miles.

If your biggest concern is truly long term reliability then you should keep it stock. I can’t see how a lift and bigger tires would improve reliability. Can anyone?

 

[Mtn40]

Appreciate your comments, & we’re getting closer.
The Westcott is on the lower perch so the OE spring is lifted up, not down. It does the lift without eating into down-travel or articulation, & @ least in my case, an alignment could be done in OE tolerance. Doing my research Westcott stated correctly I would not run into a caster-maxed-out issue that the forums warn about all spacer lifts.

I forgot the Westcott spacer is on the bottom. Interesting note, but the function is the same.

Regarding caster: caster is affected by the geometry of the upper and lower control arms and is independent of how lift is achieved. Whether you lift with Kings, a spacer, or shoving hockey pucks between your spring coils, for the same amount of lift, the caster will be the same if you're running factory UCAs and LCAs.
At 2.5" lift with stock UCAs, you might get caster within tolerance, but it will be right on the edge. If you want to get to nominal, you'll need aftermarket UCAs.

 

[GR8Santini]

Appreciate the info boys, I’m probably the only one learning here on an old subject.

When we did the install I was with the tech & we measured one side w/ Westcott versus the other side stock. Measuring @ lower ball joint moving the control arm articulation w/ a screw jack under the ball joint cradle I thought the travel looked the same as stock, so looking like I did something wrong.

With the actual lift only being @ 1.75” difference, & using a 1” taller 33” tire, maybe I didn’t loose as much…maybe.

 

[Mtn40]

Just for interest sake, I dug up my notes from my alignment with stock UCAs.
Spec for my model (LC LC w moonroof and SDM) is 4.22 +/-.75
So lower limit 3.47
With 2" lift I was only able to get caster to 3.15

 

[RideWithYanu]

Appreciate the info boys, I’m probably the only one learning here on an old subject.

When we did the install I was with the tech & we measured one side w/ Westcott versus the other side stock. Measuring @ lower ball joint moving the control arm articulation w/ a screw jack under the ball joint cradle I thought the travel looked the same as stock, so looking like I did something wrong.

With the actual lift only being @ 1.75” difference, & using a 1” taller 33” tire, maybe I didn’t loose as much…maybe.

Always enjoyable to discuss these items with you, even when not on the same side of multiple perspectives. I appreciate that! And don’t take any of my points as crapping on your selection. I hear you that it works for you, and I don’t think less of you for choosing it, not that any of us is here for validation. And I am far from the technically advanced person here, so I am always very very happy to be shown wrong!