different way to lift a mazda

Interesting ideas. I checked summit. They have coilovers that might work for about $180 ea. Plus springs. Has anyone verified that a set of coilovers would fit through the upper control arm?

I also wondered about welding on some of those cheap ebay coilover sets using stock shocks. But then what do you do when your shocks blow out?

Make the coilovers fit thru the arms or buy / fabricate new uppers.

only other problem I see is that you would need to construct an upper mount, cuase the stock shock mount was not meant to hold the weight of the truck up. but in a prerunner, making a tube shock and coilover mount would be a benifit anyway.
I am still trying to figure out if I want to make my 2wd truck a prerunner or bag and drag it. both would be fun, and it looks like I could still use my bed with both of them. and both have their benifits, both have thier downfalls as well. both would be expensive too.
-Mike

anyone know how wide hub to hub a ford 9" is. I am thinking of finding out how wide I could go with making my own A-arms up front with coilovers, kind of like the sandrails and buggys. I have some ideas, but I want to see how wide I could go if I used a 9". a long arm suspension could be fabricated off a belly cage, and I could do an interior cage at the same time.

what engine should I go with. I dont think the 2.0 would be strong enough or could take the abuse, since it would be a second daily driver, have a car that I drive too, I dont want to go with a big motor. The 4.3l vortech is a good motor, so is the 2.9l ford v6. lots of stuff to think and draw out now.
-Mike

I would buy a toyota if I was into 4x4s
I like lolo's and mazdas are the best lookin' if you do any of this , make sure to take pics
i've ofter thpught about fabbing up a strut type front end too for a static drop b22

I have the thing planned out in my head, I am just not good at technical drawings to show exactly what I want to do. I ave the design of the belly cage, the motor placement, the roll cage with the hooks for the sandrail to be pulled into the bed, the pocket flairs.

after looking at some dune buggies and other atv's, I have this down. Now I have to wait untill I move to start. The way I have this designed in my head, it could be a bolt on thing that I could possibly sell, but I dont think the demand would be high enough, but it could be adapted to other trucks. Hopefully, I can get this designed on paper before I forget the good parts.
-Mike

depending on what model it came out of it could be different lengths from hub to hub. it sounds like you are wanting to use it on the front? if this is so, you would be better off using leafsprings on the front instead of running an i.f.s. setup, as the axle would have to be shortened, them make halfshafts from the axle, then adapt them to a spindle with a hub assembly, which would be quite expensive & a whole bunch of one off fab work. now if you want it for the rear & run an i.f.s. up front for a pre-runner that would work. you have me a little confused about the cage thing....?other than that, the 4.3 would be sweet, but you still run into the issue of modifying the firewall because of the dizzy on the back of chevy engines, which with all the other custom stuff, shouldnt' be much of an issue, parts would be cheaper than on the ford, and are probably more readly available.

....with coilovers.....

The 4.3 is a good swap. The distributor will clear the firewall, so no problems there. Consider the Mazda V6 though. It should bolt in using a MPV bellhousing and clutch. It wouldn't provide as much grunt as the 4.3, but it would be a good match for the truck and would be a lot easier to swap in.

I want the 9" for the rear, I would be making a whole custom front end. Belly cages are weird, I will have to draw it out and put it up here to explain it.

is the v6 in the mpvs the same as a ford v6? I was thinking of a 2.9 or a 4.0 v6, but I didnt know how it would bolt in and the 4.3 is so much easier to find parts for.

a lot of rock crawlers use belly cages and add thier 4 links off of those. I'll try to draw something up.
-Mike