A lift can be accomplshed in two ways, either a body lift or a suspension lift. A body lift will give you more room for bigger tires, it will make your truck sit higher but it doesn’t do anything for the suspension.  And frankly It just plain makes your truck look amaturish. What I mean is that you  will look like you don’t really know what you’re doing.

Most off roaders will opt for the suspension lift. Not only because it looks better but it works better too. When you’re on the trail you don’t want to be top heavy and you surely don’t want to have big tires with no suspension upgrade. If you do you’ll find yourself stuck out on the trail with broken parts.

Other things to consider are how high you want to go and whether its safe or not. Lift kits normally are 4 to 6 inches but they can get as high as 18 inches or more. When lifting you want to take safety into consideration such as making sudden turns or swirving for traffic. Just getting used to driving a raised truck of 4 inches is a test.

There are several different brands of Chevy truck lift kits on the market and choosing one can be a daunting task. You have to decide if you want price or quality and then figure the pats you’ll have to replace befor you  decide on either a body or suspension kit.

Some suppliers of  Chevy kits are Pro Comp, Daystar, fabtech, Jakes, Rancho just ot name a few. I’m not endorsing any certain one you’ll have to do your homework and decide for yourself.  Good Luck

Body lifts give you a lift of just the body one, two or three inches. When you do a body lift you are only lifting the body up from the frame of the vehicle. Most of the time this is to give clearance for bigger tires which will give you some more ground clearance. Sometime people will do it just for looks. Something to take into consideration when purchasing a body lift kit is to get the best you can. You always get what you pay for but when it comes to your vehicle, you don’t want to find out later that you made a mistake.

A suspension lift kit is more work and more expense but it produces better results. In my opinion a suspension lift is more sturdy. It just seems safer to me and besides it looks far better than just a body lift. Suspension lifts are normally 4 to 6 inches, at that height handling with ground clearance with be optimal. I wouldn’t go higher than a 6 inch lift myself. One I don’t think it’s safe and two I think it looks very odd.

If your goal for raising your truck is to get bigger tires you’ll also have to think about your speedometer and odometer. They will both be off but your can fix that with a re-gearing. In fact It might be a good idea to change ring and pinion to another gear ratio. When you install new bigger tires on you truck without installing new gears the difference will definitely be noticed. I once had a jeep with stock gears, after installing over sized tires I couldn’t get it out of 4th gear. Climbing a mountain was even more difficult with constant down shifting just to get to the top.

You’ll not only have to think about the price of the lift kit but what about getting it installed? If you’re a mechanic installing the kit should not be too hard but if you have never done a lift you might want to ask a mechanic to do it. You could call friends over but that could be more of  a problem than just putting up the cash and dropping it at the shop. I’m pretty mechanically inclined but jobs like this I leave to the experts. For just a few hundred dollars you can get the job done right and not have to worry.

There are several different types of kits available from many manufacturers. So when you begin your search for the best kit you think about what you will need. If you go with a smaller lift you can probably use your stock tires and be ok. If you go with a 4 inch or 6 inch lift or higher you will probably want some bigger tires to make your truck look right. Not only will it look better but you’ll get some more clearance with higher tires.