Found a 3/5 drop by western chassis on www.sporttruckdirect.com
I was told that the kit would work on lightnings and it included everything you need. Just want to make sure it will work for our lightnings. Will it? it looks like a well put together kit.
the only thing that i can think of that it does not come with is a
c-section(think thats what its called?) and new shocks, but i dont know if i need these parts, do I? i heard that with this much of a drop the stock shocks would be too long. i also heard that if i dont get a c-section i will have a lot of bottoming out problems in the rear??? do you think this is too much of a drop, i drive my lightning almost every day and dont want it to be too extreme, maybe i should go with the 3/4 from belltech, or maybe the 2/2 from frpp.. sooo many choices

any input welcomed
thanks
joe santana

 

whatsup J15BIG,

I don't have a Lightning but I do have the whole Western Chassis 3/5 Kit installed on my extra cab 5.4 sport, including the 2" lower control arms in front. I don't have a C-section and I don't have any problems bottoming out. I am also running 20x10's out back on 295/45 rubber. No problem at all. I do believe that you will need the shorter shock absorbers. The stock ones are too long. You will bottom out with the stock shocks. The Doesch tech (Spelling?) is what I am running and they have been great. I also bought the whole kit and my shocks from sport truck direct. Here's a pic:

 

nice looking truck, thanks for all the info.

 

I think I am gonna go with the western chassis drop also. It looks like a nice kit!!!

 

I used this same kit on my 2000 F-150. I was a great kit and worked well. The problem you will run into is that it uses coils to lower the front end, these are only lowered coils when compared to a regular f-150. I don't think it will lower the front of a Lightning 3inches. A lightning already has lower coils from the factory, you will probably need to use lower control arms to lower the front. As for the c-section , not a must but definetely saves your back. Shocks are a must they make a world of diference with this kind of drop. 3/5 is not to much I think it' perfect.

I think you might be better off piecing the kit together. Get 3inch drop front control arms and 4inch rear shackle and hangers. If you put rear air bags in you might not need a c-section. All these parts are available through western chasis or many other manufacturers.

 

Western Chassis is located in Fresno Ca. I have ridden in two Chev 2001 p/u (identical), one with the Western setup and one with BellTech/Eibach spring set-up. in comparision, the western bounced like a ping pong ball in the rear & exhibited jouce at 80+mph like the trucks in the 80's use to. Cornering was jarring and any inperfections in the road during hard corning cause travel deviation. Not enough to be unsafe but enough to require correction and making the driver work a little bit. The BellTech/Eibach system road as smooth as a Lightning and cornered substantially "tighter". There was also no jouce observed at 80+ mph.

FYI, I didn't own these vehicles, but had friends who both got the mods within 1 month of each other a got to drive each 2 days apart. BellTech is also Mfg in Fresno, Ca with offices in Anaheim.

My vote: BellTech, much better refined.

 

Some people on the board aren't going to want to hear this, but I suggest you think twice before ordering the Western Chassis parts from Sport Truck Direct. It cost me 100 bucks in shipping charges and a couple of days of wasted time only to find out the lower control arms they sell DID NOT fit the Lightning CORRECTLY! The contol arms' mounts for the end links of the sway bar did not come anywhere near being properly aligned. The polyurethane bushings that come with the control arms were barely touching on one side because the end links, when bolted to the sway bar, were being held at some horrible angle. (Of course, if you don't mind only connecting the sway bar to one control arm or the other, hey, jump in!)

I have talked with others on this board who have these parts on their trucks. Yes, their rides look mighty fine, but some of them have answered that they too had troubles with the install, or "the person installing them for them mentioned that they had to do some modifying to make something line up" , or .......... I just chose to ship the parts back, WHICH I HAD TO PAY, instead of installing something that definitely did not fit CORRECTLY!

Match this to the fact that part of the order didn't show up--because they never put it on the order form, another box was opened and had parts missing, .........

Unless they have definitely changed the end link mounts in the past few months, I say save yourself a headache and spend your money somewhere else.


PS: I have assumed here that you were looking at the kit based on the 2"drop control arms paired with the 1"drop springs. If you were looking at using the 3" drop springs and stock control arms, then ignore my experiences. I should have asked first.

 

The lower arms are different I am not sure how but if you look they have an SVT sticker on them and We had to special order one for a customer for a 2000.

 

I asked DJY about the control arms and he didnt tell me about any problems. He has the belltech 3/4 drop, western chassis 2 inch A-arms, and a C-section. ill see if i can get a hold of him and ask him if he had problems.