- Hey guys Shawn again Custom Offsets / Custom Offsets TV
with another episode of Sh*t I Never Knew.
It's been a while because there hasn't been shit much
that I've known lately,
but I just realized I do know one more thing
that I'm going to share with you.
So this is episode 10
and we are gonna call this one
Level With Me Bro.
This is gonna be all about level kits.
So we do a pile of these and it's been super popular
that people are leveling,
especially with the Chevy Silverado 1500s
so they then can do 10 wides and 33s
with a little bit of trimming.
So what we're getting is a lot of questions around
what is a leveling kit?
How the heck does that even work?
How high can I actually go?
So we're hopin' this is gonna help.
So there's probably three major ways to level.
One, would be just for GM
and it's a spacer...
Under...
The strut.
There's another that's super common in many of 'em
and that's a spacer
above or on top of the strut.
And then for the older trucks and a lot of the HD trucks
you're going to have torsion keys.
A lot of people, those are like the duck head...
Duck head style keys.
So those are the types, let me show you a couple of those.
So this one from TGC
and you can go on their site if you're interested
in snappin' some of these up.
This isn't something that we're currently carrying
on the site.
Um, but we use a ton of 'em here in the shop,
they're fairly inexpensive.
So these are stacked together
and they go on your lower control arm
right here. (metal clinks)
And then your strut is reattached
and that space that it's creating between there
is what's gonna actually lift that front end...
Two inches.
So that much lifts the front end two inches
and what that does for a Chevy Silverado 1500
if you guys have Chevy’s, you know this.
A lot of the other trucks are like this, too,
but we do a lot of Chevy’s.
That your Chevy with your square wheel wells
comes with the ass end of it up about two inches.
So when you lift up the front two inches
with that spacer underneath the strut,
it basically levels this thing out front to back.
What it also does is it pushes that wheel and tire down
and gets it a little more out of this square wheel well
so that the tire going down
creates a little bit more room here and here
so you can go bigger and wider.
So that is the um...
Below the strut, so that's number one.
The other one, which is super common, same strut
and for those that don't know, the strut goes there.
It goes this way, so this is the top of the strut
it goes into the strut tower.
So this one is a strut spacer
and this isn't for this truck,
but it basically goes here and it puts the spacing
at the top of that strut so that again,
it's pushing the truck up and away
and lifting it up that two inches.
So that one again, is typically a two, two and a half inch
um, spacer at the top.
ProRyde, these guys, you've seen 'em all over our site,
we've used a ton of them,
they created one that's adjustable.
So what they've done, is they made this
so that you can adjust it
thus being able to change.
So if you wanted to go up three inches on the front,
using this spacer, you can do that versus two inches.
So that's an example of the same one,
but this is fixed and as you can see,
the ProRyde is adjustable and can go up.
So if you picture it on top of that one,
instead of being on the bottom,
it's going on top of the strut.
So that covers that one.
And then the third and final one
would be your torsion keys.
So on the torsion style, and I'm gonna have Junior right now
show you a pan of the CO2s, 2500 for those torsion bars
running front to back.
This piece here, when you twist it,
it twists that torsion bar.
(drill whirs)
(soft rock music)
So this is something it took me a while to learn
'cause I'm not a very fast learner.
But basically what you have
is your um, lower control arm comes out like this
and that torsion bar is got like a hex design to it
so that when you twist it,
it moves this thing up and down.
So as you crank these torsion keys,
which are down inside of there,
as you crank them, it twists that bar
and then twists this lower control arm
and that's what moves the front of the truck up and down.
As you can imagine, that also moves your alignment.
So you got your wheel hanging off right here, your tire.
And that's what messes with the alignment
and that's why you have to have an alignment done
every time you have a leveling kit.
Any style of these is gonna be moving these components
so you're gonna have to have that alignment done.
Um, but back to the keys.
So the key style, it's basically
instead of being a stock key
which has a certain curvature to it,
it makes it a more aggressive curvature
so that it's already twisting that torsion bar
more than the stock one at all times.
And then like the ProRyde torsion key kit,
it's gonna come with two different sizes.
So this is for the guy that doesn't wanna crank
the living daylights out of it,
these bolts are for the guy that's gonna crank it way up
and really raise that front end.
I believe this kit goes all the way up to three
or three and a half inches.
Three inch.
So this'll go up to three inch.
You'll see a lot of 'em that are cheaper
than the ProRyde and the reason is
they don't go all the way up to three inches.
I think most of 'em are two or two and a half,
two to two and a half inch.
So with these longer bolts
you can go all the way up to three inch.
The reason, and it also comes with,
because it goes up to three inch,
it's gonna come with shock extenders.
So these are gonna go in there and they'll basically go
between where your shock mounts now and your shock
to extend it so that you don't have that shock completely
stretched out when you've got this thing totally cranked.
So because it goes up to three inches,
you basically would have squat if you did a Chevy
because remember we just talked about that your Chevy...
Or Ford...
Or Dodge
is basically wow, Junior, shit got weird back there.
Like an Aztec or Avalanche or somethin'.
So when you bring this up three inches,
now you're actually going to be about an inch down
in the back, so you're gonna have that Cali lean
or that Carolina squat, whatever you wanna call it.
If you want that, that's awesome.
Over in the Wal-Mart Parking lot,
that is definitely the thing that's happening right now
and I'm down with it, I'm cool.
If you don't want that, you now have to level the rear.
So you went from doing a leveling kit
to get your front end equal with your rear,
till you went three inches
where you actually lifted the front,
now you have to lift the rear to compensate.
So there's kits like this one,
which can go from one inch...
All the way up to two inch.
So this removes the blocks in the rear
so you have your leaf springs.
Let's make sure I draw these right, Junior.
If you're looking at your back wheel, your leaf pack,
we're gonna exaggerate, it comes through like this
and your axle is sitting in there
and there's a block on the bottom of that pack.
So what we're doing is we're removing
that factory block, which is two inches,
that gave you that rake of the vehicle
and you're replacing it with this block that's four inches
and you're stabbin' that in there.
So now what that's doing is it's pushing your axle down
four inches, an additional two inches
and bringing the ass end up two inches
so now you're three up in the front, two up in the rear,
which is a total now of four up in the rear verses three
so now you'll have an inch of rake.
So instead of the Carolina squat,
you will be back to ready to tow.
Junior, I don't know what's going on.
You'll be back to ready to tow
where the ass of the truck would be up one inch
in the back.
You'd be up, so you'd have that rake again.
And the reason they do rake on vehicles,
in case you never knew,
is so that when you hook a load,
your trailer, your camper, your jet skis to the back of here
and it pushes down on the truck,
it still remains fairly level
and doesn't start lifting your front tires up
off the ground.
Because if you've got a level truck,
just picture this, you're all leveled out
and you borrow Grandpa's 40-foot trailer,
and you load that thing down
or fill it with a load of gravel,
you're now one of those Carolina squat kids.
Your whole front end's up in the air
and your steering becomes pretty light
because you're taking basically
the front end of the truck off the ground.
(sighs) I'm exhausted, Junior.
I think that's everything I know.
So the most common...
Let me make a point.
The most common thing people are doing
is they're coming into our shop
or they're coming onto our website
and they're buying a two inch front...
Level...
Kit.
And then an alignment.
So that they can put 20 by 10s
and 33-inch mud tires on their Chevy.
Some of the other kids
are getting the same thing for their Ford.
So this would be quite a good amount of trimming still.
This would basically be no trimming,
just the valance.
A Dodge fits all freakin' day, no trim.
Some guys will even go, they'll take the 2500s,
especially the Dodges and the Superduties,
your Superduties...
And they're doing a two-inch level.
And then they're putting 20 by 12s
and 33s.
Or they're doing 20 by 10s...
And 35s.
And that's why they're doing the level
because you started off with a truck...
That looked just like Grandpa's.
Where the back end is two inches up.
So it's got this kind of look to it
and they're basically bringing up the front end
two inches, creating more space,
puttin' the wheels down here, that wheel stays put
and now you've got your clearance
so that you can put those bigger wheels and tires in there.
That's Level With Me Bro, peace.
(upbeat music)