I have been on a Quest for maximum wheel travel on my sideKick for awhile now and so we are all on the same page let me tell you what I have done and what I found tonight when I took my front end apart.

5 years ago or so I started with the old 2" Calmini lift. at the time it was the best you could get. I soon realized that I needed more ground clearance as I was getting stuck in mud holes (read not fun). So after some research I decided to combine the OME and Calmini lifts to create a Hybred lift which turned out to be about 4" in total lift once I got it together, (I was very pleased). during the install I bolted everything together without the springs and found that I could use the whole travel of the OME strut If I dropped the strut tower mounting point 2" Once I fabricated spacers for this I found I had a front wheel travel of 9" (I was Happy). Soon however the OME springs started to sag I am not sure why but my best guess would be that the added leverage of the longer Calmini control arms put to much stress on them? at any rate to keep the lift I wanted in the front I frabricated spacers to put under the springs to get back what I had lost to the spring sag. This still worked great in the mud where I had 18" of clearance under the skids at full extention, I could go anywhere. However once I got out here to Colorado I found that the OME springs would not Compress enough under the weight of the Suzuki to give me full suspension travel Infact tonight I could not get more than about 5" of travel out of the setup using a floor jack under the A arm and a Hi Lift under the back bumper to place most of the weight of the truck on the front suspension. when I pulled the OME springs out They were the Same length as the Stock coils (they were longer before). When I put the stock coils back in I again could get the full 9" of travel I'm not sure what the ride height of the truck will be when I put it back together, but at least it is compressing. I wish I knew why the OME's failed because they sure were great when I first put them in. I remember taking the truck up to the corner for gas right after installing the setup and being surprised when the back end bounced. I had driven over a speed bump with the front suspension and not even felt it, It was great.

Ok thats where I'm at right now, if the ride height of the truck isn't right I will probably talk to a local spring shop about building a spring which will work for this aplication.

in the meantime here some questions for the other Sidekickers on the list.

has anyone else tried to max out the front suspension on their Sidekick?

How much travel is there with the Calmini 3" front suspension?

anyone else had problems with OME springs saging after instalation?

PLease no flames about how straight axles are better. Lets talk about how to get the most out of the Sidekick like it is.

Sidekicks Rock

Dave

Can't help with the spring question. What I'd like to know though is have you removed the anti-sway bar if so what difference does it make to suspension travel? I have a 2" spring lift and like you did have fitted 2" spacers on the strut top mountings. I had to do this as the struts the kit came with were the same length as stock which gave me hardly any wheel drop. Even cornering on the street lifted a wheel.

Hey whats goin on, I have the calmini 3+3 in my kick at first it road like the axles were welded directly to the frame but now after about 1000 miles i now have some articulation. I have colapsed the sping the last time i tried was about 2 1/2 cinder blocks roughly 15in. with the calmini 3 in susp my axles are maxed if the strut were to drop less then a half inch from its toped out point the axle will pop out not good. I am personaly going to go with straight axles better prefomance so I am told hope this helps you a little and I was not ramblin on for nothin lol

These spacers for the front strut towers, does anyone make these? I've got no fabrication abilities and the local guys around here either aren't good enough or would need to take the entire front end apart to do it. It's my daily driver, so that won't be happening.

Interested in getting as much capability out of the stock suspension as possible. Also thinking about taking off the sway bar.

Madsidekick, I am sorry you are giving up on your Calmini lift so quickly I think that as a lift it has a lot of merit. I saw something the other day about a Calmini 6" truck ramping 1000, thats really good. I started modifying my 2" lift because the three inch wasn't available in fact some of my ideas are incorporated into the 3" lift. I wouldn't worry about the half shafts poping out, the only way the strut can go farther than its max extention is if it breaks and at that point you will not be thinking about the half shaft. I am assuming that you were testing the articulation and not the wheel travel but thats still pretty good. I tested mine with 10" wheel ramps and was close to max I had maybe 21 or 22" so 15.5 out of a bolt on kit is not to bad. It would be easy for you to get as much travel as I have now by adding OME struts and lengthining the half shafts

Sidekicks Rock

Dave

James_Holland, yes the sway bar went years ago I really couldn't tell any difference on the road but I am sure it helped off road

Sidekicks Rock

Dave

AJMBLAZER, go ahead and deep six the Sway bar. I don't know of any one besides Calmini who makes them however if you call Steve He might sell you a pair to help get you going.

Sidekicks Rock

Dave

Dave, Steve who?

Sorry Steve is one of the owners at Calmini but the spacers for that kit may be to much for your stock suspension. I replyed to your other post and discribed how to check how much you can drop that strut.

Sidekicks Rock

Dave