Since I originally purchased the Titan I was thinking about lowering it. Unfortunately it seems no one really lowers 4×4 Titans, and EVERYTHING available to lower these trucks specifies 2WD ONLY!
This isn't my truck. I actually don't have any images of my own truck for some reason, but it used to look just like this one.
I did a lot of research, and talked to some knowledgeable people (Greg from PRG is the master of Titans), and understood that there’s no reason 2WD gear shouldn’t work on 4×4. Cool. I took it step by step, down a little at a time seeing how each setup looked and felt. Now I’ll share that research with you:
The first step was to see how the truck would ride with one leaf pulled out of the rear spring-pack. After fighting with the stupid truck for hours and having to weld a nut inside the frame that broke free of it’s poorly designed retaining tabs (on both sides) we finally got the truck apart, a leaf pulled, and the truck back together. I believe this lowered the rear something like 2 inches, and other than being a little sloppier the truck drove just fine. This leveled the truck, actually it was a slight bit lower in the rear.
The second step was to yank the stock front springs and shocks and get ghetto. I cut a full coil from the spring and that lowered the truck almost exactly 2 inches in the front. The thing rode surprisingly well and wasn’t bouncy and extremely under damped as I would have expected! The front was now a fair bit lower than the rear.
The third step was to install the Belltech rear flip kit that I had ordered – that was specified to be for 2WD trucks only. Well everything bolted up perfectly fine – taking the axle and putting it on top of the leaf spring, instead of being mounted below it. The advantage of a flip kit is that you now gain a huge amount of compression travel, since the bump stop contacts the axle housing now rather than the leaf springs. The only issue right now is that there’s only 1.5″ of compression from ride height in the back of the truck before the shocks bottom out. It was extremely painful driving back to SG with two engines in the bed. I’m pretty sure the stock shocks are about to explode.
You can see from this picture how the flip kit works. This pic isn’t mine, it’s from some bro on the internet. You can tell by his ridiculously large wheels, and the slab of aluminium he used to get the truck even lower. Take a look at the bump stop and the frame. You can imagine that before you had to fit all the leaf springs into that space, plus the bump-rubber. That right there is the advantage of the flip kit – the added travel before the bump stop smashes things.
Step four just occured today. Drop spindles. I spoke to Max from BioKustumz and not only is he an extremely smart chassis builder (they specialize in lowriders and the such, but Max really knows his shit), he is also ridiculously funny. Read some of his website and you’ll see why HERE. With 18″ wheels I figured that 1.5″ was about all the drop spindle we could use, beyond that the barrel of the rim will smash the lower control arm at full steering angle. Max figured his drop spindles would work with 4×4, and I sure was hopeful as well!
Well we just got them installed, and the truck came down another 1.75″ After the final measurements we’re right at 10cm lower in the front and rear, RIDIN DIRTY. The quality of the modified spindles is extremely impressive, clean welds and filler pieces that are cleanly shaped and ground smooth before painting – you can hardly tell it’s been all cut up and put back together again.
So not only can a 4×4 Titan be lowered, it can be lowered functionally – and still drive just like stock (except for the stock rear shocks of course)! Once I get the shorter bodied rear Bilsteins the truck should have a full 4″ of travel back there. It has approx 3″ in the front right now, which is more than acceptable for street driving. We may modify the front bump stops to get another inch of compression travel. I also purchased a towing airbag kit for the rear to add spring when pulling the racecars around so the truck still sits level and isn’t hitting the bump stops.
This is how it looks now. Just need some rimzzzzzz