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PART 5

GETTIN FLEX... UMM... SORT OF...

So, do you want flex? Or do you want to stuff some bigger rubber under your guards or just simply look good? Ask yourself all these questions, then start doing your homework.

Nobody has ever done an X-90 lift over here that didn’t involve grafting other stuff underneath them. God only knows the X-90 has already suffered enough with its Suzuki Swift-like nose, retro targa-roof and bum transplant off a Mazda 121, all plonked onto a Vitara chassis and running gear. It appears Mr Okimata may have had too many sake’s this particular day in the design office.

After chatting back and forth with David Kampa at Calmini, it was decided we’d give the Calmini 3in suspension lift a go. It had already been used on other X-90s with varying degrees of success (and stuffing around I’ve since found out) and promised good flex. We ordered the 3+3 kit, which included the bodylift, which we will get to later on.

Now, there are a few things to consider when lifting your fourby, with one of the most important things being the weight of it... as we were to find out later on. Just because a kit fits and gives you the desired height and flex, doesn’t mean that it’s the right one for you. It’s a fine balancing act best left to the experts, it gets complicated... which is why this section will be in a few parts.

When the gear arrived at Mannell Motors, the boys unpacked it all for a pre-fit once over. The kit is comprehensive and includes everything you could possibly need and then some. Well made and powder-coated Calmini blue, it arrived faster than Hugh Hefner at a lingerie launch.

Luffy... Loofy... Torsten... depending on what mood Stuart was in, stripped off the old rear suspension in no time flat and popped in the shocks and coils. The standard Vit’ 3-link was removed and replaced with a you-beaut, custom arm system with a heim-joint, with the idea being that you could adjust rear drive line angle by winding it in or out. That was the theory anyway, but more on that later. The rear trailing arms were replaced and all was looking sweet, too easy.

Then the trouble began...

X-90’s don’t take too kindly to being stuffed around with, and tend to protest rather strongly about it. First issue was the front arms and, more precisely, the coils. Ever tried to get a size 10 foot into a size 4 shoe? The coils were indeed 3in coils, but the compression rate was so high that Luffy and Steve just about gave themselves a hernia trying to get them in.

When you have to literally use the weight of the car itself, a set of coil compressors, two long jack stands, two mechanics and a hoist to get them in... you get the idea that there may be a problem somewhere. But, giving benefit of the doubt and my assurance that they were indeed the right ones, the boys got them in.

There was another bracket in the kit that dropped the front diff to improve the drive angles, so spanner in hand, Luffy whacked it in. Now the instructions are somewhat ambiguous to say the least, this being the only real complaint I have with the Calmini kit.

Whenever we test anything here at 4WD Action, we attack it the same way the average bloke with minimal mechanical knowledge would, just to make sure stuff is foolproof to fit... so after a fair bit of back and forth (and the discovery that you still had to shave the bottom of the diff to get it to fit properly and give ample clearance, the grommet supplied is a bit skewhiff and it’s a bugger to get in) it was done. Yes, it dropped the diff... but only by a whisker. So, after popping in the tail shaft spacer, it was dropped off the hoist.

The X-90 did its best VW Beetle impression.

Its front wheels were just about touching in the middle... it basically looked like it had copped a swift kick in the goolies. The springs bulged out, it groaned, it creaked and the CV’s angles looked so, so wrong.

The backend looked like it had copped the mother of all wedgies... its bum had shot up to the point where I could rest my chin on the rear spoiler. It was not a happy little camper.

Once again, giving benefit of the doubt, Stuart took the wee beastie for a spin. The look on his face said it all. Stuart does this quizzical eyebrow thing when he hits on a notion... and the notion was the X-90 was not going to be one of those “one hit success stories”. Now I know why Nick had sniggered when I had mentioned the words “bolt-in”... he knew better.

Ever heard a tail-shaft sitting at near 90° either end and CV’s just about near vertical? It sounded like a crazed axe-murderer getting sharpened up for a long weekend. The Calmini kit is designed to be fitted to a Vitara, which apart from being much heavier, is also wearing the rest of the Calmini body armour – front winch bar, rear swing-away bar, roof bars, rock sliders etc.

We wound the heim in and out, we loaded it up with 150kg of blue metal to test the weight theory, we swapped grommets to get the front diff lower. Oscar responded with even more grumbles, growls and groans... it was an X90 posessed. The official verdict? We had to get this Zook a little closer to the ground or it was going to grind itself to death.

So... we have an X90 that rumbles like a freight train and has the ride quality of a shopping trolley... bad, very bad. What now?
Nick is not the kind of bloke to let an ugly little bitsa get the better of him, so it was pen to paper... and we’ll get back to this soon enough.

In the meantime... there was a bodylift kit in that box as well...

To be continued...