Armada Swap - No more playing around

Topics relating to Lift Kits, Suspension, Steering...

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rragpaoa
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Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 10:23 am
Location: San Diego, CA

Postby rragpaoa » Wed Feb 29, 2012 11:30 am

I stand corrected, they are cutting/trimming the fenders up front, but can't find any mention about cutting the rear with spacers.

I'm running 33.5 tires, 275/70 18. They are .5 larger than the 285/65 tires. With my upgraded suspension, I had to do the melt mod, but no trimming.

With my Radflo extended shocks in the rear, I'm getting close to 10" travel, and close to 8" up front. Not too shabby. Stock, the Armada's are getting close to 9", so I can imagine what we can gain with extended shocks and coils.

Radflo designed the extended rear for our Pathfinder per my specification to eek out close to 10". Our drive shafts are pretty flexible up and down and I bet I could have pushed it to 11", but I wanted to play it safe.
Radflo is an hour drive from me so I can get them to build an extended shock and coils (they work closely with Eibach) for the Armada setup if interested. I bet we can get 12-13" easily. That's more than most solid rears. As a reference, Jeeps with a decent suspension upgrade get around 11-12" in the rear, from my friends who own jeeps.


08SEME
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Joined: Fri May 11, 2012 8:51 am

Postby 08SEME » Mon May 14, 2012 9:28 pm

Is there any update on the progress? I would love to see this once completed

Frozen
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 3:24 pm

Postby Frozen » Mon May 14, 2012 9:34 pm

08SEME wrote:Is there any update on the progress? I would love to see this once completed
it's been put on hold. I have become very concerned about the added width. Was just out wheeling tonight and scratched my truck up real good on some tight trails, don't know if it would of made it with the aramada swap.

At this point I will be swapping just the diffs for better gearing when I run 33.5 tires.

1armyguy
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Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:42 am
Location: Massachusetts

Postby 1armyguy » Tue May 15, 2012 7:29 am

rragpaoa wrote:I stand corrected, they are cutting/trimming the fenders up front, but can't find any mention about cutting the rear with spacers.

I'm running 33.5 tires, 275/70 18. They are .5 larger than the 285/65 tires. With my upgraded suspension, I had to do the melt mod, but no trimming.

With my Radflo extended shocks in the rear, I'm getting close to 10" travel, and close to 8" up front. Not too shabby. Stock, the Armada's are getting close to 9", so I can imagine what we can gain with extended shocks and coils.

Radflo designed the extended rear for our Pathfinder per my specification to eek out close to 10". Our drive shafts are pretty flexible up and down and I bet I could have pushed it to 11", but I wanted to play it safe.
Radflo is an hour drive from me so I can get them to build an extended shock and coils (they work closely with Eibach) for the Armada setup if interested. I bet we can get 12-13" easily. That's more than most solid rears. As a reference, Jeeps with a decent suspension upgrade get around 11-12" in the rear, from my friends who own jeeps.
rragpaoa, Just wondering where you got your lift set up? Did you get it as a kit or piece it together? Also if you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost? How do you like the ride on the road and how much of a difference did it make when on the trails? Did you happen to look at the calmini 5" kit before gettting your current set up? Trying to figure out which would be the best way for me to go for light to medium trails and on road performance as well.
Thanks for any and all advice

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rragpaoa
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Location: San Diego, CA

Postby rragpaoa » Tue May 15, 2012 5:04 pm

Hey 1armyguy,

Everything was pieced together. I actually brought my Pathfinder to Radflo to get fitted and tweaked. Night and day both on-road and off-road. Makes a huge difference on the trails.
Even though the IFS/IRS is limited in wheel travel, the suspension articulation is awesome (the ability to keep all wheels on the ground over the rough). I'm around 8" up front, and 10" in the rear. Not too bad considering.
For pricing, since I was the prototype, I cannot give out prices, but just go to prgproducts and price out the xterra setup and that's close to what you will be paying.
As for the 5" Calmini, I recommend you stay away from any suspension drop lift kits, and even body lifts. It weakens your overall suspension/body structure and adds absolutely NO advantage at all to the suspension performance, and reduces your on-road handling. The ONLY advantage is you get to put bigger tires (and bragging/poser rights), but gearing will kill you there at 34"+ tire size.
If your worried about your under carriage, invest in a full set of skid plates and sliders. Those would save you more than ground clearance because no matter how high you are, you will hit your under belly.

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IcedTeasley
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Location: Lakewood, CO

Postby IcedTeasley » Wed May 16, 2012 9:12 pm

Yup. Rragpaoa speaks the truth.

You gain the most ground clearance and articulation by using better springs, shocks and coilovers. Add in a set of new upper control arms with the correct set of coilovers and you can get even better articulation than more basic lifts. The Calmini bracket kit creates space for big tires but still uses the mushy stock suspension by moving it further from your body. In order to achieve 5 inches of lift, the diffs have to drop by the same amount in order to preserve the alignment as Calmini claims their lift does. If you get the same drop at the diff as you do at the wheels the only real lift you gain is by being able to use bigger tires. They recommend 33.4s (plus new wheels with more back-spacing($$$)). That's a realized ground clearance gain of 1.5 inches over the smallest stock tire size on an R51 Pathfinder.

If you have the money and want both performance and image, you can combine high quality suspension lifts with bracket kits to get a full seven inches of lift. I'm sure you can run some giant tires with all that lift. I've even seen some coilovers designed specifically for bracket lifted Frontier/Xterra/Pathfinder front-ends. If you want to go big the right way, it's going to cost you huge dollars.

If I had to do it again, I'd go with my original choice - New coils, shocks, coilovers, ect. See my signature.

Oh and I love my skid plates. I installed them over the winter but I know this 4x4 season will be worry free. I'll be repainting them frequently.

To get things back on track, I'm still waiting for someone to finish an Armada swap. Please!!

08SEME
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Joined: Fri May 11, 2012 8:51 am

Postby 08SEME » Sun May 20, 2012 3:57 pm

Frozen wrote:
it's been put on hold. I have become very concerned about the added width. Was just out wheeling tonight and scratched my truck up real good on some tight trails, don't know if it would of made it with the aramada swap.

At this point I will be swapping just the diffs for better gearing when I run 33.5 tires.
Thanks for the reply! I plan on Titan swapping the front so I figured I would do the rear with an Armada Swap. If you guys know of anyone who has done this, please let me know! Also if anyone has the IRS setup out of their truck and wants to sell let me know. I would be willing to trade for the Solid axle in my Xterra which is C200.
Josh

1armyguy
Posts: 81
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:42 am
Location: Massachusetts

Postby 1armyguy » Sun May 20, 2012 7:35 pm

rragpaoa wrote:Hey 1armyguy,

Everything was pieced together. I actually brought my Pathfinder to Radflo to get fitted and tweaked. Night and day both on-road and off-road. Makes a huge difference on the trails.
Even though the IFS/IRS is limited in wheel travel, the suspension articulation is awesome (the ability to keep all wheels on the ground over the rough). I'm around 8" up front, and 10" in the rear. Not too bad considering.
For pricing, since I was the prototype, I cannot give out prices, but just go to prgproducts and price out the xterra setup and that's close to what you will be paying.
As for the 5" Calmini, I recommend you stay away from any suspension drop lift kits, and even body lifts. It weakens your overall suspension/body structure and adds absolutely NO advantage at all to the suspension performance, and reduces your on-road handling. The ONLY advantage is you get to put bigger tires (and bragging/poser rights), but gearing will kill you there at 34"+ tire size.
If your worried about your under carriage, invest in a full set of skid plates and sliders. Those would save you more than ground clearance because no matter how high you are, you will hit your under belly.
Thanks for the clarification on this and the excellent advice. I am not looking at spending any money just for looks. I want to be able to use what I spend as well. Don't own a bank and I'm not into that look thing anyway. I want to use it as well.

Skylar1692
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Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:24 pm

Postby Skylar1692 » Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:26 pm

Sorry to resurrect an old thread. Just seeing if anyone has completed this swap all the way around yet and if so, what were some of the issues you ran into?

I have an 05 Pathfinder SE Off-Road with the Rancho quick lifts all the way around with SPC Uppers in the front, the Rancho spacers in the rear and a 2†lift on top of the strut assembly up front. I’ve been running this setup for just over a year with some minor issues here and there. My final straw with this setup was last week when I snapped my right rear shock. So, I started picking up parts to swap it all out. (After looking at the quality of the Rancho, I would never buy another Rancho product again.)

So far I have a 2010 Titan front differential. For the front I have Upper control arms (need to pick up SPC uppers again), lower control arms, front spindles/knuckles, hub assemblies, sway bar with bushings/end links (if I decide to use it), rotors, calipers, and front cv half shafts all from a 2008 Armada. For the rear I have all rear control arms, trailing arms, spindles, hub assemblies, calipers, rotors, all from the same 08 Armada. I know all the rear control arm parts are the same as the Path. I have all new offset bushings that I never got around to installing, so I figured I would press them in the Armada pieces and just swap them out when I take everything off. I also found a guy getting rid of a nice clean set of 18†stock Titan wheels with tires (need to be replaced) for dirt cheap!

A few questions that I have…

Will the Pathfinder master cylinder and booster be able to give enough juice to this setup?

If not, does the Armada or Titan booster and master cylinder bolt right in place of ours?

I know, I was long winded, a lot of info thrown out there. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Thupertrooper
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Location: Mesa,AZ

Postby Thupertrooper » Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:00 pm

Xterra and frontier have run the bigger brakes with stock booster.

But check out offroadgorilla.com they have a booster kit just $$$

But I think you will be fine with stock booster. The 18†rims are a must to clear the calipers.

Skylar1692
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:24 pm

Postby Skylar1692 » Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:32 pm

Thupertrooper wrote:Xterra and frontier have run the bigger brakes with stock booster.

But check out offroadgorilla.com they have a booster kit just $$$

But I think you will be fine with stock booster. The 18†rims are a must to clear the calipers.
I looked for the booster kit you were referring to but couldn't find it. Do you have a link?

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Thupertrooper
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Location: Mesa,AZ

Postby Thupertrooper » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:08 pm

call them

Kilo Golf-60
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Location: Danville, IN

Postby Kilo Golf-60 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 9:07 am

While I will probably not jump right into an Armada swap before doing another sort of lift, I would like to get a feel for this more. I have seen more than one Titan/Armada swapped up front but I have not seen any that have done it all the way around.

Has anyone done this yet?

How much lift is this going to be?

I am not looking to create some monster off road rig but I do want some lift and some added capability for some county volunteer work I do in the winter and/or emergencies in the spring and early summer. A friend of mine and I have been talking more and more about doing this but I don't think I'm willing to jump in with both feet yet.

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Thupertrooper
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Postby Thupertrooper » Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:58 pm

Kilo Golf-60 wrote:While I will probably not jump right into an Armada swap before doing another sort of lift, I would like to get a feel for this more. I have seen more than one Titan/Armada swapped up front but I have not seen any that have done it all the way around.

Has anyone done this yet?

How much lift is this going to be?

I am not looking to create some monster off road rig but I do want some lift and some added capability for some county volunteer work I do in the winter and/or emergencies in the spring and early summer. A friend of mine and I have been talking more and more about doing this but I don't think I'm willing to jump in with both feet yet.
Armada swap only works in the front

the rear you can only get the 2" lift with running armada springs. couple of us are currently trying the Armada ranchos in the rear to help with dampening but not confirming yet.

Even though its possible to swap the entire Armada subframe in the rear no real reason to do so.

wider track not travel.


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