[stillsearching]

For vehicles that MUST have off-road competence...

I was hoping i'd catch the eye of maybe someone who has interests in both areas.


Assuming i'm willing to also swap tires and play with aero (things like a fender flare for the big tires replaced with a partial tire covering for highway), what kind of options are there to (perhaps substantially) change ride height and suspension travel? I'm looking for a way to potentially fit tires as large as 40 inches for off road while going back to normal stock ride height on towing type tires, or possibly even lower. I've no clue what's even possible. (and neither does anyone on 4x4/offroading forums, nor on vehicle-specific dedicated forums)

Considering off road vehicles can have very long suspension travel using adjustable coil overs (but I don't know how they adjust/have no experience with) are there ways to limit suspension travel and alter spring rates to ride low?

Is there any way to do things with hydraulics or pneumatics to raise or lower the vehicle? (in ways suitable for long range driving, not some "show drop" screwing up the alignment)

I'd even consider options of some kind of lift kit that could be removed before long trips - if it saves a dozen gallons of gas it's worth putting in an hour or two for a cross country trip.


Anyone that's thought about this please pitch in ideas... i'm curious about both 'mostly highway' vehicles (say a vehicle that could go from -2 inches stock to +4 above stock) and 'mostly offroad' vehicles (one that might still be +4 stock minimum dialed down, but up to +12 in max travel mode for instance) just to get an idea of what the options might be. I'm pretty sure once people start using crossover steering and such it's going to be too difficult to convert back (doubting i'll see one system do -2 to +12 even if that's an ideal) but maybe you have ideas I can't figure out. :)