As some of you had read, I am now in the process of fixing the previous owners mistakes. Recieved the new rear blocks today, and the rest should be here Monday. This is a simple kit im doing, just a level kit and blocks in order to fix the mistake up front, and have a rake for when I tow. Here are just some faq's on my truck, and what measurements it is giving me.

2000 F250 SRW 4x4
315x75x16 on stock Ford wheels

Front kit: Zone 2.5 inch leveling kit (roughly 350$ shipped)

-Front stock measures in at 18 3/4 from the ground to the bottom of the core support by the radiatior. (That is a rough estimate because the mistake im fixing is 2 inch blocks in the front. With the blocks its 20 3/4)

After
21 3/4-22 inches from ground to bottom rear core support.

Rear kit: Superlift 4 inch blocks (103$ sipped with U-bolts from Summit Racing)

-Rear measures 21.5 inches from the ground to the bottom of the leaf springs. (This is on stock OEM 2 inch blocks.)

After
-Rear measures 23 3/4 inches from the ground to the bottom of the leaf springs.

These are the measurements I am getting on my truck for these kits. Results may vary for each truck, just giving you my results in case anyone else is in the market for either of these kits.

Now for the write up on the companies and the parts.

Superlift 4 inch blocks.

Ive been looking and looking for a good block to use that werent as expensive at the OEM Ford blocks. Looked at the Zone, Rancho, FabTech, ect on the blocks and they all come back to being 2.5 inches wide. My truck has 3 inch leafs so I wanted to go with as close to that as I could. I came across these and talked with the guys there, and they use 3 different molds depending on what size there making. (most companies use one). Well for my truck the mold was a little over 2.5, roughly 2 5/8, so not quite 3, but more than the competition. The blocks were either painted or powdercoated when they got here, so that was good. The blocks are a 4 inch tapered style block with all the holes for the leaf spring and overload spring inserts. The U-Bolts were 18 inches, and they were 1/2 inch bolts. The box got here and the weight was right at 35 lbs just for the 2 block and U-Bolts.

All in all very good product if I have to say so.

Summit Racing.

I ordered my block kit from them this past Thursday, 8/2/12, and they got here this morning with no extra shipping cost. So that there is very impressive. I put the kit on today, and realize the U-Bolts were to long even with my overload springs on there. I take the overload off, use my stock U-Bolts to get everything together so its drivable.
Done with install, I make a call to customer support. He got all my information, got the measurements off the bolts, 18 inches long from top to bottom, 4 inches apart from inside side to side. He asked how he could fix this, then offered me X amount of dollars off my next purchase. I told him I didnt want any money back or anything else, I would just rather have U-Bolts that work with this so I dont reuse old parts. He was kind of dumb founded seems like, because the way he talked and what he offered, seems like people call to demand money back a lot. After I told him what I wanted, U-bolts rought 16.5-17 inches long, 1/2 diameter, 4 inches wide, he looked in his system and said theres only goes to 13 inches. This here got me thinking this was not there fault but was the vendors (superlift) mistake. Anyways to cut it down, the vendor is closed today so there is nothing he can do about it. They are going to call the vender first thing monday, make sure they have what I need, and then call me with when I should be expecting them. He never once mentioned anything about a payment, me paying for shipping, just stated he would let me know when to expect them.

So for Summit Racing (If he does what he stated) I will give 2 thumbs up and will be using them in the future for sure.

Zoneoffroad.com

Update on Zoneoffroad.com even though I have not got all the parts yet. Let me explain this as this is by no means the company fault. Delivery date was to be 8/6/12, and around noon I get a knock on my door and kinda excited because I know what it is. UPS is there with 2 packages for me, weird because the tracking has been saying 3 packages. Anyways thought they may have combined on so I opened the boxes to inspect the inventory, and to my suprise there are no spring packs. Right off the bat I get on the phone and speak with Shane. His statement was this isnt the first time it has happened. Put me on hold, and contacted UPS and found out they messed up the shipping and one went to the wrong location, and its getting fixed. He tells me the story so I keep checking tracking and its rescheduled for tomorrow which is 8/7/12. So today comes and I notice its out for delivery from the same place that they considered to be the wrong shipping location the day before (this is UPS). Letting it go, thought it may get here today. Getting impatient and pretty upset I started calling UPS demanding to know what was going on and where my package was. Ill leave this very short and sweet and say I got 3 different stories from 3 different people, basically they had no clue where it was. So emailed Shane (im guessing he started doing his research) looking for answeres. Checked the tracking again, and now its saying return to sender. Now im pissed, and I apoligize to him if he reads these, and asked what was going on? He stated he had been looking into it and couldnt get an answere from anyone about anything. So he took it upon himself, and him got UPS to sign off on it, they put a return to sender on my item, and he was in the middle of boxing up a new set to ship today. This is 5:30/c time and I thought he would be closed. Thats not the impressive part, guess he griped enough or something and got UPS to take the hit and ship it to me next day air saver so I will get it tomorrow 8/8. I looked into this, and that shipping method on these parts is 461 dollars and some change.

So this company is top notch in my book on customer service and knowledge of there parts. I will not hesitate to do buisness with them again seeing as if the parts are quality parts when they get here tomorrow.

Sorry for the long rant UPS just really got under my skin today.

 

Alright guys done with the install of these parts. Here are the lift values I got out of this kit. I was on the phone a lot with Zoneoffroad just checking on things and what not, and must say they are very patient and knowledgable.

The 2.5 leveling kit gives you 2-2.5 inches of lift in front of the truck. The spring pack is only 2 inches thick so thats all you get. People saying that you get more, well in my opionion and after the experience in my truck the reasons are.

1. You are not sitting at stock ride height anymore. After you pull it out and start driving you leaf springs start to take wear.

2. You are only getting that much lift, but due to you being lower than stock in the front end, and they spring packs putting an arch back into your stock springs, you appear to get more of a lift.

With this setup going together and seeing the space I had to fix between my stock leafs, to match up with the curve of the new ones, theres no doubt that I had wear on my front suspension.

The only rough experience with this I had was the front adjustable track bar. The setup I think is a good one, but the 405 ft/lbs of torque to get the bolts back on I think is utter crap. My reason being I started out going to 100 ft/lbs on both of them to go up in increments. Then went to 150 ft/lbs. Well here I started paying attention. So at this one I stuck to just one bolt, and would pull off the torque wrench and leave the socket in place. Next I went to 250 ft/lbs and went to that. The socket did not move. I was starting to get the picture. Left the socket and put a breaker bar on it to get a little more out of it. So I put a jack under the breaker bar, and started lifting. The socket never moved and I started lifting the front of the truck with this method.

So that brings my thinking to that the steel that the bolt goes between only lets the bolt go so far, so 150 ft/lbs of torque is the same as 400 ft/lbs. To back up this notion I called to Ford dealerships around my area, and asked service for a price to come in and have the bolts torqued down to 405, and got the same answere from both shops. "We dont have the torque wrenches to do that". And one transfered me to a tech that stated "Get it as tight as you can, thats what we do". So my thinking is its good. Will check it in a couple days just to ease my mind.

On the other side of things. The front kit basically put my truck level with the 4 inch blocks in the rear, so I ordered a set of 5 just now so I can have the rake back on the truck due to the fact I tow quite a bit.

Thats my info on those two venders and products. Just some more info to add to the boards if anyone is looking at either of these.