Are longer spring shackles OK?
While many aftermarket shackles offer strength improvements over stock shackles, there are some problems associated with longer-than-stock shackles: • Some shackle side-to-side flex is required, but excessively long ones flex too much, causing bad handling traits. • When longer shackles are installed at the front end of your front springs it creates a more negative caster angle, resulting in bad handling traits. • Most factory springs are fairly weak. In most cases you are better off replacing them. • Longer shackles reduce approach and departure angles because they hang down lower than stock shackles. • Keep in mind that longer spring shackles will only give half the lift of their increased length over stock. For example, a shackle that is two inches longer than stock will only give one inch of lift because only one end of the spring is lowered.
