by v7guy » Sat Dec 20, 2014 5:44 am
I was trying to be very simplistic in my initial description. Given the initial question, I didn't really see that a more thorough explanation was needed. So to be more detailed...
There's a line from the upper ball joint to the lower ball joint. The outer CV has to sit on this line. Otherwise you get plunge. There's also another line that runs from the upper a arm bushings to the lower a arm bushings. The inner tripot needs to sit on this line, otherwise you get plunge. Moving either one of the CV axle joints out of the plane they're on is generally going to be detrimental.
There's very little actual plunge in stock applications as James mentioned. Long travel stuff sees it at the extremes of travel, but with plunge you get a tremendous amount of heat, over time, break down of grease, and destruction of the joint.
Robert and James brings up a decent option and a way to go about it, if you removed the tripot boot and put everything together minus the shock you could cycle the suspension and see how far out you could position the bearings in the tripot. As they mentioned shortening it might actually gain you something. It would be rather minimal though.
Robert, I think you'll find that dropping the front diff would be very undesirable unless you remove the front subframe cause you would need to drop the CV below the subframe, that's more than 6". Might be able to squeeze a Colorado front diff in the stock subframe and gain a locker. But you're talking a lot of fab.
build thread All things in moderation, including moderation.
Some people never go crazy... what truly horrible lives they must lead