I have owned several Samurais of various years. During the ownership of these vehicles, I have had the opportunity to experiment with lifts, both on my trucks and others which I have experience with. Some of the suspensions I have had are: stock, stock springs with extended shackles, stock springs with add-a-leafs, spring over with stock springs, spring over with stock springs and extended shackles, spring over with custom spring packs using Samurai, Scout, and Jeep leafs, and combination spring over, custom springs, and extended shackles. Of all of these combinations, the best riding, best handling, and best off road setup was a spring over lift, both with and without extended shackles. A friend of mine has a Samurai with an aftermarket lift kit consisting of new arched springs and shocks. Between the stiffness of the springs and the valving of the shocks, it rides and drives like a dump truck!! The springs don't move! It is terrible off road, and rides harshly on the highway.

    With thousands of on highway miles under the tires of my spring over lifts, I would consider myself qualified to give my opinion about the handling. The spoa lifts handled better than stock. This isn't just my opinion- I have heard the same comment from everyone who has driven my Samurais. To break down the information about spoa lifts, read on.

Cost: $40 for new shocks, $15 for steel for new upper shock mounts, $8 for new lower shock mount studs, under $20 for brake lines, $20 for welding. Total: $103

Difficulty: Moderate. This can be performed by anyone with patience and average mechanical skill. The only specialty tools needed are an angle finder and a welder. An angle finder can be purchased at a discount tool center for just a few dollars, and the welding can be farmed out to a friend or local shop for a reasonable price. It cost me $20 to have the spring pads welded for my first lift, before I owned a welder.

Parts needed: New shocks, new lower shock mounts, steel to extend upper shock mounts, and extended brake lines.

Total lift: Using simple addition you can figure out how much lift you will get. I will assume here that you are reusing your original spring pads and just moving them. Start with everything which is under the axle- spring pack thickness and spring pad height. The spring pad has to be added twice, once for the distance you are reducing under the axle, the second time for what you are adding over the axle. The pack is added once, since it is the base and doesn't get moved. These numbers are approximate: Spring pack: 3/4". Spring pad: 1". Double this = 2". Now you must add both of those to the axle tube diameter, which is 2 1/2". Total lift = 5 1/4". You can increase this if you make your own or have spring pads made. I usually make my own spring pads and add about 1/2-1" of extra material, bringing the total lift to around 6 1/4".

    These numbers vary with each vehicle, depending on the measurements of the spring packs, spring pads, and tube diameter.

    See my Spring Over Axle Lift page for a step-by-step to performing your own spring over axle lift. The only other modification I would recommend is some kind of torque arm to eliminate rear spring wrap. I won't go into detail about this since there are several sites on the web with good designs.

By: James Alton