- The cheapest leveling kit on our website is $50.
Now, the most expensive it's over 4,600
but what the heck is the difference between the two
and is it actually worth it to spend decent money
on a leveling kit?
I'm Fuller from Custom Offsets,
Custom Offsets TV on the YouTube.
And today, I'm gonna break down some of the key differences
between your basic leveling kits
and the more pricey coil over options,
so that hopefully you can make
somewhat of an educated decision
on which one to get for your truck.
To break things down simply,
there are four popular types of leveling kits,
spacer kits, lifted struts, torsion keys
and coil over kits.
The cheapest option is gonna be your spacer kit
but even within that category, you'll find prices from $50
all the way up to around $300.
And the torsion keys are in this same price range,
with most being around $100 or a little more.
Now, between those two,
the spacer kit is definitely the most popular
but a lot of that has to do
with the popularity of the trucks that they go on.
So for most half ton trucks, your Jeeps, your SUVs,
the easiest and cheapest way to level them out
is gonna be by using a spacer leveling kit.
Now, obviously the goal here is to level out your truck
and get rid of the factory rake that causes
the front of your truck to ride lower
than the rear.
That's called rake.
Now, most leveling spacers are installed
on the top of your factory strut and lift up the front up
about two inches or so.
Now, the cheapest options don't include anything more
than the spacer itself
and maybe a little bit of hardware to attach it.
They're very, very basic.
And that's why they're so cheap.
Now, if you're an absolute perfectionist,
there are options for adjustable height spacer leveling kits
but they aren't really designed to be taken in and out
and adjusted all the time,
since each time you want to change the height,
it's like doing a complete install over and over again.
On top of that,
there really isn't more than an inch or so of adjustability,
if adjustability is a word, I guess.
The biggest benefit of these simple spacer kits
on top of the low price
is that they're super easy to install.
Rough Country, among other manufacturers,
offers kits made from a strong composite polymer
that will never rust, which is neat.
But to us like the 1911 versus Glock argument,
some people just prefer real steel
or in some cases aluminum
and Rough Country actually makes metal options as well.
So they've kind of got you covered either way.
And we also see a lot of folks running
the rugged off road leveling kits
and Wicked manufacturing kits.
Now, the Wicked kits are CNC cut from a American steel
and finished in a rugged, all black powder coat,
which is really nice.
And I know for the Fords at least
they offer one of the tallest leveling spacers.
It's a two seven eighths inches,
almost three inches there.
Any larger than that and you'll start to run into issues
with the geometry of your upper control arms and CV axles.
But we'll dive into that just in a little bit here.
Hold on one second.
So moving onto leveling keys,
now, these are pretty similar to spacers
in the fact that they are cheap
and they should be easy to install.
And I only say "should" because if you've got
an older cat eye Chevy that's rusty,
you're gonna have one hell of a time
getting the factory keys out.
Now, GM does still use torsion bar setups
for the three-quarter ton trucks for some stupid reason.
But those kits start out around $100, like I said.
And the biggest difference that you see from stock
to the aftermarket ones is the clocked cutout
so that you get more leverage on the aftermarket keys.
And those are also forged.
So they're super, super strong.
Now, they work by applying more downward pressure
to your front end,
which in turn lifts the front of your truck.
And there really isn't a whole lot to talk about here
because they really are that simple.
The leveling key kit is two pieces
and it doesn't require anything else.
Now, as far as brands go,
kryptonite is definitely the leader in this category.
And most of the guys here who run trucks with torsion bars
run the kryptonite keys.
Now, if ride quality is remain concern,
I'd probably skip that spacer option
and go straight for the lifted struts.
The install is a bit more labor intensive,
as you'll need a spring compressor for sure.
And having access to a hoist
definitely makes the job much easier,
but the added labor cost is definitely worth
the improved ride quality.
So a lifted strut replaces your factory strut,
and actually utilizes your stock coil spring
in a lot of cases, with either a coil spring spacer
or a retaining mechanism for a spring perch
set at the correct height for your new taller ride height.
Now, pricing on these there's a pretty big range actually.
The best value ones you're looking at are about $350 or so.
Those are from Rough Country
and they do actually sell a complete strut.
So it's 100% bolt on insulation
and you don't need a spring compressor.
But like I said before,
a lot of the lifted struts,
a majority of the lifted struts,
do require a spring compressor.
So just make sure you're paying attention
to the descriptions so that you know what you're getting.
Now, the higher end kits run closer
to the $1,600 price range.
But those also include shocks for the rear,
which won't impact height,
but it will impact your ride quality,
and bump stops, billet coil spring carriers, roof guards,
a few other odds and ends.
You're getting a lot of stuff for that increased price.
Now, earlier I was talking about
how you can really only go up two and a half,
maybe three inches on a leveling kit,
before you need more than just your basic kit.
And I wanted to explain that a little further,
in a bit more detail,
and it'll make sense why some of these kits
are so much more expensive
than those base kits that we already covered.
So the taller you go, the more important it is
to run aftermarket upper control arms
with upgraded ball joints.
Now, this is a mistake that I made
when I ran the Fox 2.0 coil overs on my F-150.
I knew that with the serious off-roading that I was doing
that I really should get aftermarket upper control arms
but I didn't bother to look at them
or look at pricing ahead of time.
I just ordered the coil over kit.
And obviously I looked at pricing for that,
but I just assumed that tubular upper control arms
were maybe a couple hundred bucks.
And unfortunately, I was wrong, quite wrong.
I didn't technically need them.
And it actually rode really well on the road,
but I was just worried that when I'm off-roading,
when I'm beating the heck out of this truck,
I was really pushing the angles to their max
and putting unnecessary stress on my suspension components.
So I wanted to be able to fix that.
And when I started to shop for upper control arms,
I found out that the Icon ones that I wanted were $850
and that was a bit of a shocker for me,
but that's why you'll see these high end
coil over leveling kits with higher price tags,
because they come with everything you need
to throw some serious abuse at your truck.
Coil overs are hands down the best ride quality,
both on road and off-road,
and are 100% worth the money in my opinion.
And of course, on the topic of money,
yet again, you'll find a wide range of prices
when you're looking at these on the website.
So again, Rough Country, they make a two inch level
with their vertex coil overs, for under $1,700.
But on the opposite and on the spectrum,
you can get the best of the best with Cognito for $4,600
on the high end.
Their top of the line stuff is beefy though.
I would say a majority of people out there
would probably never use it to its full potential,
but if you demand performance,
then you need to consider Cognito,
and probably for more than just their coil overs.
They actually sell some of the more basic kits too.
The spacer kits for the popular trucks out there,
outside of their bare bones economy kit,
the leveling kits actually include a lot more
than what the other brands give you.
So for 680 bucks, you can get a three inch kit
that includes nice tubular upper control arms,
new ball joints fitted for proper angles and all that stuff.
So Cognito components are actually engineered,
manufactured and assembled in the US, which is neat.
And on the three inch standard leveling kit,
they take a different approach
at getting that full three inches.
They use an inch and a half strut spacer
and they also have a half inch preload spacer.
So everything stays all nice and balanced.
And of course it comes with all of the hardware
that you need too.
So, is $680 expensive for a leveling kit?
Sure, but perspective, right?
The whole three inch kit is still less
than just the control arms I was looking at
and their kit includes new control arms.
So like I said before though,
the best of the best,
definitely the full on performance stuff,
the Cognito coil over kit is amazing.
So they let you choose between
two and a half inch king coil overs, Fox Racing coil overs
with remote reservoirs,
or just the basic Fox performance shocks.
And for around $2,000,
you can get a two inch leveling kit
that includes the Fox coil overs up front,
rear Fox shocks, (indistinct) upper control arms.
And that's probably the best value that you're gonna find
or if you absolutely need the performance,
that $4,600 kit I was talking about before
has reservoir coilers up front,
remote rezzies in the back,
and the shock bodies are two and a half inches
rather than just two inches.
So they're a bit better there.
And you're looking at box steel upper control arms.
Now, they do have some upper middle ground options as well,
with king coil overs and that's around $3,900.
Still gets you some serious performance there.
So long story short, coil overs are the bomb.
Cognito makes some seriously good shit.
And if you need a level to get by,
until you can save up for the big kit,
the spacer kits are cheap to buy
and they're easy to install.
So you can go with those too.
If you guys have questions on this stuff
or need more information,
we can always help you out over at customoffsets.com.
Peace.
(relaxed music)