The calculator... I was setting it up as u stated above but the # where not looking great. I was trying to keep the lowers frame side above the bottom of the frame for clearance (have the tcase above the bottom of the frame), and it worked with keeping upper and lower links same length, nothing is set in stone yet, working on getting my shocks mounted, plan to go back and run things through the calculator (after u all gave any input as to why I'm fucking up). Running 16" king 2.5 coil overs and planning to center them over the housing ends with 6" up and 9 1/8" down (removed 7/8" from the # because of the lower spring cup and rubber bump stop) and of course the stops before I get the full travel. I've been reading, reading, reading and searching anything I can to better understand everything, this is my 1st suspension set up at this level and I am open to all feed back...
So this is my current 4 link set up with standard 4 link with the coilovers mounted to the top of the axle tube and upper link mounts.
My lowers are damn near the bottom of the frame. the bottom of the joint hangs below by 0.25" inches. It ended up this way due to packaging.
The best way to start is to measure out where you have room on the truck to fit everything. So what I end up doing before starting the building the 4 link calculator, I roll under the truck and take a bunch of ball bark measurements so I have an idea of what space I have to work with.
Start to measure:
1. How wide you can spread the lower link separation
2. The shortest height from ground for the uppers above the diff. this way you know the minimum number and then move the height up as you adjust the geometry later
3. lower and upper link length from center line of the axle to where you want to land the link mounts on the frame.
4. lower link frame mount, height from ground - Minimum and maximun
5. lower link separation, min and max
5. upper link frame mount, height from ground, min and max
6. Upper link separation, Min and Max
This should give you an idea of the space you have to work in to get the geometry to the numbers you want with the least amount of modifications to the chassis. Now, this is where compromise will start to come into play and then decide how much you want to modify the chassis to achieve better geometry.
