This past weekend I went wheeling!
Hummer is 1000x better in the high speed stuff offroad, when I was coil spring front, leaf rear, the leafs were better in high speed. Then when I went coilover front and the front did substantially better, then I added rear air bumps to the leafs that were too stiff and the rear got way worse. Now I’d say the rear out performs the front again but I also checked the nitrogen in the front coilovers because they are 4.5 years old and the pressure was at 125/150 so I may have to go through them or atleast put nitrogen in them.
Slow speed crawling it doesn’t feel any less stable then it did with leafs.
After one of the trails I hit an off camber dirt road that was muddy and it got sketchy and felt super tippy but who's to say the leafs wouldn’t have done the same, idk?
I wish I could throw leafs in a link calculator to compare. roll axis, roll center, anti squat, etc.
I have a few hits on the lower shock mounts and lower link mounts but I can’t say it stopped me in my tracks. I can see in very particular circumstances where if I’m not getting traction on 3 other tires and I snag a link mount or shock mount it could halt progress but so far, if I had 1-2 other tires grabbing traction I could muscle through it and slide over it. I’m sure sometimes it may push me off my line which could hurt but time will tell on how that works. That was the one concern of mine, leaf’s tuck up so high and I had the best clearance around, I gave that up with the 3 link but 2 trails I wanted to specifically run that have a lot of rocks grabbing your undercarriage didn’t hurt me yesterday.
I need to play with preload a little more but I’m guessing long term I will need more sway bar. On the highway on sweeping turns, the body is slow to return to center. My current sway bar rate is 74, stock is 178. I figure I will need to land in the 150 range because 178 with leafs that want to return to center and stay flat was too much. TK1 wanted me in a U4 bar which is 1 1/8, I’ve heard his setups are on the stiffer side so a 1in OD bar may be the ticket, that would get me around a 160 rate or I get a .95 bar for 130ish.
Sway bars aren’t too expensive in the circle track world which is the one I have. About $130 plus shipping. I did research after the fact and saw an old thread on pirate claiming some guys were stripping out the 1in 48 spline bars which I have. That sucks, hopefully I don’t have the same issue. Either way, it’s a cheap date to mess around with sway bar rates.
Antisquat is in the 60s which is lower than my friends which I wanted to really test, I’m undetermined on how that works yet. I did one steep climb that I struggled to make back in the day if I had a spare tire on, I’d make it up, but it was a struggle. Without a spare I would make it but have to spin my way up. Yesterday I got SUPER light on the front end like lifting a tire to roll. I immediately equated it to the rear is squatting too much. My buddy who has watched me on the obstacle atleast 5-6 times said I got higher than ever before and was on the wrong line, so I’ll continue to watch it.
I fell in this crack. This was a new line I’ve
never done, pass rear tire slipped in the crack and it got weird. B pillar tube saved the day again
Lastly, I need to diagnose my fuel system. I have NEVER had this issue before, fuel would be pouring out of my evap canister and struggle to run, then it would clear up and run fine. This only happens on inclines or off camber situations. I moved my evap canister because of the new rear suspension so I need to look into it. Reloader, if you're out there, is there a check valve in the evap line from the tank to the canister? I had to make new lines when I moved it and maybe that's the issue?
I had a weird driveline vibe at 65-70 too that I have never had before, so I’ll have to look into that too.
But, good first test run, drove it about 70-75 miles round trip on pavement plus the wheeling.
Time will tell long term on how the links work. One thing I pride myself with is honesty.... before others spend their hard-earned money on parts, I want people to know what they are getting into. Too many people build rigs like my H3 and claim, "it will do 80 with one hand on the wheel going down the highway" I feel that term is thrown around loosely. Admittedly, before the rear 3 link my H3 would do that and I even had my wife daily drive it for a week when her car was in the body shop when someone hit her in a parking lot. It was a rig that a clueless non car person could drive, other than my horrendous on road performing 43in tires it behaved well on pavement. At this point my 3 link is not ready for any joe shmo to drive it. It needs more suspension tuning to get rid of some quirks and that is the difficult part about chasing the last few % of performance. Leafs want to sit flat, they like to sit level where coilovers dont care where they sit so there is more body roll. I can tune that out with more sway bar or a higher roll center so I will work through it but I can guarantee with time and dedication I will get it to where it needs to be. I may be giving up some in the rocks but I am stoked on the gain in high speed performance and I am hoping it works better in places like moab and sand hollow, links should hopefully do that. I wont give up on road performance and it rides better on road in terms of plushness and harshness, it just has more body roll. That is what I have to fix.