TROPHY TRUCK TECH Long Travel Suspension Explained
When you hear Raptor guys who venture into the desert talk about “long travel suspensions,” it might have made you curious. What is a long travel suspension and why would you want or need it? We’ll get you an answer in this brief Trophy Truck Tech.
A long travel suspension is designed to get more travel out of the suspension than what Ford or any OEM had intended your truck to see. You get more travel by extending the arms in the front while the rear leaf springs need to not only droop more but have longer shackles installed or have the shackles flipped.
This allows your truck to travel the rougher terrain more easily and gives you a little bit of a ride height increase. The biggest thing it gives you is a bit more up travel in the suspension so you can get over larger rocks and deeper ruts before hitting the bump stops when combined with a longer travel shock, coilover, and possibly the addition of a bypass.
However, if you truck is sprung by a torsion bar, you won’t be able to use a long travel suspension due to the arms becoming longer. Your suspension arms act like a lever against the bar and, without going to a very large and unforgiving bar, your truck won’t even be able to keep itself in the air. Thus, when you have a long travel kit for a torsion bar truck, it requires a conversion to a coilover suspension.