Custom Lift and Suspension - Background

For the past year and a half, I have been researching and planning to put together a custom suspension for my Trailblazer, one that addresses several issues I had encountered since starting to upgrade my vehicle. But first, some background.

Through several iterations, I had modified my blue 2002 Trailblazer to the point where I was almost fully happy with the build. It had the following installed at the time of my tree accident:

• BDS suspension lift
• BDS body lift
• Bilstein HD shocks
• Custom rock sliders from National4WD
• Curt front hitch receiver
• MileMarker grille guard and winch mount
• T-Max 9000 winch

Here are some pictures:

However, after all this was installed, I started to notice some problems. Mainly it was the accelerated deterioration of the Bilstein shocks, specifically the front ones. I believe that all the additional weight I had in the front, including the 33" tires (which put strain on the shocks going upwards) was too much in the long term for even the heavy duty Bilsteins.

The other inherent problem with this setup was the reduction of front approach angle both from the MileMarker and the Curt. I left the Curt on the vehicle (which bolts to the frame) as a strong winch/tow point.

So, even though I was pretty much settled on the front guard/winch setup (notwithstanding the approach angle issue), I started looking for alternatives to solve the shock problem, which unfortunately is made more difficult as the front suspension is a coilover setup.