Topic: A question of satisfaction

[El Jefe]

So...  I'm at an loss as to where I should spend my money on upgrades to my 84 pickup.  It's all stock so far and I'm stuck between an OME spring set OR weber/DUI/header setup. 
I'm starting with a CA emissions motor and I live in Montana where that does not matter, so it would be so long to all of the air pump, cat, etc.  I'm not a big crawler, more of a long rough dirt road kinda fella.
So if you had the choice, what's more bang for my buck?

[Nimyad]

Suspension IMO. You don't really get good power gains on a 22r. The stock carb is awesome, I never had a problem. Just do a smog delete on all the Cali crap and call it good. It's either going to ride like crap and go slow or ride a little better and go slow. Up to you.

[Travis H]

a smooth ride goes a long ways in making these truck more DD friendly.

[BigMike]

I suppose if you add power then you'll wanna go faster and will end up beating the truck to death over washboard fire roads. The converse may also be true in that if you have a nice suspension you'll want to go fast, but at least by that time the truck will be better suited to handle the increased speeds.

Therefore I suggest to consider the truck in order of it's limitations: The stock engine out performs the stock suspension on bumpy dirt roads, so the suspension's capability should be increased before the engine's.


BigMike


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[tgmaul88]

but the webers a good started, look at lc engineering page at there weber 32 36 to 22r manifold adaptor plate, its way better than the redline, I have a friend who has a weber sitting on the shelf  needs to be gone thru, not to pricey either

[El Jefe [OP]]

Awesome!  Thanks for the input!  I've been reading around about the smog delete and the webers, and I'm kinda shying away from all that now.  The truck runs really well, a little rough at 700rpm idle, but I'm still getting 20+ mpg on the highway with 31's.  I've recently rebuilt the tranny and front knuckles so I think this gives me the excuse I've been looking for to pull the trigger on the suspension.  Motor work will stay on the back burner till I find a more worthwhile plan, or something associated with the smog croaks on me. 

[BigMike]

I just thought of another way to look at this. After you invest in your suspension, you can do miscellaneous things to add performance for low cost: Lighten the truck be removing unnecessary smog components, brackets, unused mounts, all that junk in your glove box, and also install Denso Iridium plugs, advance your timing + run better gas, upgrade to a better flowing air filter, et cetera, all of which are simple time and monetary investments. Reducing some weight would be most beneficial in this regards and it's free too.

Compare this to investing in your engine, then what sort of miscellaneous things could you do to improve the stock suspension? Really not much. I suppose you could remove a leaf or two from each spring pack, which is a free modification that would provide a reduced spring rate, but the stock springs are so flat to begin with I think this would worsen the ride quality. You could remove the stock sway bar, another free modification, which would improve ride comfort but at the expense of stability. If you have a torch and a welder, you could reposition your rear shackle hanger forward on the frame about an inch and then run some longer rear shackles (a small investment), but you'd still be stuck with stock springs... Our urethane body mount kit would reduce vibrations in the cab but it won't help out flat stock springs...

I hope you can see what I'm trying to describe.

Cya,
BigMike


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[8D3TOY]

You can't beat reliable & good MPG, get the motor running good and leave the Aisin carb.  Hands down the best DD mod I did was throw on some soft (Downey) springs.  It became a flat out pleasure to drive again.  I am like you, little to no rock crawling just fire roads and cruising along trails, the power is fine stock, the springs are not!  Do the springs.