I have 31.7" tires and intend to stick with these for the foreseeable future; what benefit would I get from a suspension lift? Are suspension lifts just for travel clearance for larger tires and upgraded shocks? . . . or is there more to it?

I get that a lift would improve my approach and departure clearance as well but is that alone worth the effort and expense?

For what it's worth, I intend on wheeling up to mid-blues, never blacks or harsher.

If I remember seeing correctly, you are going to get armor and sliders. The lift you are looking for should lift the truck back to at least stock height and maybe between 1.5 and 2" max lift. This will raise the belly of the truck a little higher than stock.

You will want to do this once. Unlike me where I did lift the truck to lower it with armor to raise it again to then change out most of the lift components to get something better, well it gets expensive. Planning is your friend.

You can go the inexpensive route to save up for better parts. AAL in the rear and spacers in the front will get you by with minimal cost.

You will eventually want new coilovers and later on with new upper control arms, will most likely want new rear springs. The rear springs can wait until you really need them. Shackles and AAL should be ok to start.

-David

With the armor comes added weight, you will lose ride height and be more likely to bottom out with a stock suspension. There is a good chance your ride quality and comfort will suffer from the added weight.

A longer travel will allow you to droop more into a hole, to keep all 4 wheels on the ground. If you hang a wheel with an open diff it renders that axle useless. The wheel in the air will spin, causing no power to reach the other wheel on the ground.

Wheel travel can be more important than lift.

Makes sense 100%

What's everyone think of PRG's packages? http://www.prgproducts.com/shop/product/xterra-acp-plus/

I plan on getting bumpers next year, can I get this package now, tuned for bumpers, and drive it reasonably? Or will it be too stiff?

If you get 600# springs, it may seem a little stiff. I have 600# springs with full armor and bumpers, I like the 600# springs. With you getting the adjustables, you can load them for proper ride height without the bumper and then adjust them when you get one. I have the SPC arms but PRG makes nice arms. The AAL will be fine until you need to replace your leaf pack and that shouldn't be for a bit.

Doing a lift once is right. Ive done my front end three times, finally settling for radflo 2.0 w top plate and spc upper arma. The spcs are a better choice for our area due to their sealed ball joints. The prg ucas have uniballs that will face a lot more wear through our winters

So would you recommend against getting the 600# springs? My problem is, there will be a year in between getting my sliders/skids (just ordered them) and my bumpers but the recommendation is that I do a lift to offset the weight I'm adding with the armor. I really only want to do this once so I'm willing to spring for a reasonably good kit but I also need to have a drive-able truck as this is my daily driver.

I ended up ordering the PRG "uca-3-spacer-kit UCA 3" spacer kit" with the "xterra-2.5-dual-aal Xterra 2.5" Dual AAL". Went ahead and got the shims and u-bolt flip kit. Got rear shock skids in red as well.

I got a call this morning from Greg at PRG. He set me straight on a few things and set me up with a good combination of parts. He's sending me 1/2" spacers for the front w/ Bilstien 5100s, I'll have to rebuild my strut assembly but he said my ride quality on and off road will be much improved. I'm still getting the dual AAL's for the rear.

Sooo . . . . any words of wisdom on the this adventure I'm about to embark upon are welcome, I've never done any extensive work on a car or truck outside of a break job on my 88 ford escort. This should be interesting. FWIW, I welcome any help, even if it's just to point and laugh at my bloodied knuckles and poor choice of swear word combinations. Beer will be available.

Anyway, a shout-out to Greg @ PRG, excellent support on my purchase. I feel a million times more confident that I'm doing the right thing . . . now I need to actually do it.