Difference Between Body Lift and Lift Kit

Posted By: Superior Engineering Staff Published: 31/03/2025 Times Read: 736 Comments: 0

Who doesn’t want to lift their 4X4, right? By raising your rig, you’re gaining clearance for bigger tyres, which then increases your underbody and diff clearance. You’re also allowing fitment of longer springs and shocks, and in some cases suspension arms, all of which can increase wheel travel and overall vehicle control.

However, there are a lot of ways to effectively lift your 4WD, but relatively few ways to do it correctly. The main two options are suspension lifts and body lifts. They both raise the height of your door handles, but other than that, they’re quite different and serve very different purposes. They also require their own specific approaches and can have varying implications for the legality of your 4X4, so getting it right is important.

Here we are going to cover how they both work. Where do they differ? How can they affect the day you’re going to have when the cops pull you over? and some other things you’ll need to consider before handing over your hard-earned coin.

What Is a Body Lift for a 4x4?

The majority of 4X4s are built with a body-on-frame construction, the new Defender and certain Pajeros being a few exceptions. This construction is exactly what it sounds like: A pair of longitudinal steel chassis rails are joined by several lateral crossmembers to which the drivetrain and suspension are mounted. A body is bolted on top, and boom, you’ve got yourself a vehicle, well, almost. Nearly all 4WDs (and most heavy vehicles) are built in this fashion, not only due to cost but also because one chassis can suit more than one vehicle and share the same basic design.

A Mitsubishi Pajero Sport shares a Triton chassis, and an Isuzu MU-X shares the D-Max frame. In fact, every single Toyota body-on-frame vehicle (LC300, Prado, Tundra, and soon to be HiLux) shares the similar TNGA-F platform. Obviously with certain design tweaks, but it’s fundamentally the same chassis.

All of which brings us back to body lifts.

By undoing the body mount bolts and inserting metal or hard-plastic blocks in between the body and the chassis (usually between 6 to 12 points), you effectively do what it says on the box and raise the body by the thickness of the block. These are commonly 1-3” in height, with a 2” body lift being the most common.

There is one reason and one reason only to do this: to fit bigger tyres.

That’s it. You do not gain any more suspension travel or any off-road benefit other than increased clearance under the wheel arches.

What Is a Suspension Lift Kit?

A suspension lift kit, on the other hand, has a lot more going on. This is where the factory springs, shocks, and in the case of more comprehensive kits, suspension arms, are replaced with aftermarket components. They are specifically designed to increase ride height, wheel travel, and off-road ability with the added benefit of clearance to fit larger tyres.

Things like spring rates (how much weight each spring can safely support), shock lengths, steering geometry, and more are all considered and catered to by the kit manufacturer. As you can imagine, quality can wildly vary.

However, a quality kit will not only improve on-road handling but will also improve off-road performance. The key is to buy a kit that works in harmony with all of its parts so low-speed flex is increased without unwarranted sacrifice to high-speed handling. A good kit will also cater to your weight loads and the vehicle’s load-carrying ability so you can tow and load up the camping gear for longer touring trips without a worry. Or if you travel light, you can increase flex by catering the spring to a lighter load.

Other than springs and shocks, good kits may include things like replacement suspension arms, which aid in keeping the suspension and steering geometry optimised, replacement bushes and joints, steering arms, brake line extensions, ABS line brackets, sway bar extensions, and a whole host of other gear depending on the design and manufacturer. While some lifts will allow you to get away with a simple spring-and-shock upgrade, talking to an expert like Superior Engineering about your specific requirements is time well invested.

Differences Between Body Lifts and Lift Kits

As we said, the advantage of a body lift is really only limited to wheel arch clearance for bigger tyres. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there is a fair bit of added complication with lifting modern vehicles. Brake lines, steering shafts, and handbrake cables will likely have to be extended, as will any mechanical manual gearbox and transfer case levers, to compensate for the raised body.

If your rig has a CANBUS or a Body Control Module (BCM), you may also have to find a means of lifting the body without impacting the electronics. Then, assuming you have bar work fitted, that’ll also have to be raised to accommodate your new headlight and sill heights—which may involve re-drilling and re-welding mounts, adding time and expense to the install. It’s never as straightforward as undoing the body bolts and slipping in a few blocks.

While you are gaining clearance under the sills with a body lift, your chassis will not be raised. With a suspension lift, however, everything above your diffs is raised, including the chassis, exhaust, engine sump, and fuel tanks, gaining overall off-road ground clearance.

Think of it this way: a suspension kit is the first step. A body lift should only really be added later if you want to fit bigger tyres or want a bit more clearance under the sills.

Vehicle GVM and Its Importance

Just a quick sidenote: When fitting new suspension to your vehicle, make sure you have a good idea of what weights you’ll be carrying. There are two main types of load: Constant load, which is the weight that is always on your vehicle such as, Bullbars, winches, canopies, water tanks, long-range fuel tanks, and rooftop tents. The other type is Variable load, which is the stuff you occasionally have on board, like your trailer ball weight, camping gear, 12V fridge, or dirt bike on the tray. All of this will add to your Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM), which is the maximum legal weight your vehicle can be. Exceeding this figure is surprisingly easy to do, particularly with modern rigs, and even quicker on those older rigs. If your suspension isn’t designed to handle it, not only will your vehicle be susceptible to damage and unsafe handling, but it will also be illegal. And the fines are not small.

The good news is that Superior Engineering offers a range of GVM upgrade kits that can be tailored to suit your needs perfectly at the same time as your suspension is fitted. Get in touch with the team to find out more.

Legality and Safety Considerations

As you may have gathered, simply bolting up a set of body blocks or longer springs and shocks is not as clear-cut as it may first seem. Significantly altering your rig’s centre of gravity and handling can mean big changes in how it drives, corners, and stops. So, getting it right is incredibly important.

As we’ve spoken about, getting the suspension and steering geometry dialled in is paramount. Things like pinion angles, Panhard misalignment, steering arm angle, caster angles, and excessive body roll correction are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to designing a good suspension kit.

Body lifts are much the same. The blocks are the easy part; getting your vehicle’s electricals and body-to-driveline mechanical linkages working properly is also important, yet overlooked by a lot of retailers who’ll happily sell you a set of blocks and longer bolts but let you figure out all that other stuff on your own. That’s why it pays to come to an expert like Superior Engineering before you start shopping.

We often get asked, “Are lift kits legal?” which does not have a straightforward answer. There are some lifts that will require an engineering signatory to sign off on in order to remain on the right side of the law. Superior Engineering makes this as easy as possible to do so as we work hard to conform to VSB14, which is the Vehicle Services Bulletin put out by the government that outlines the technical requirements for modifying a vehicle. Once an engineer has seen that these requirements have been adhered to, they’ll be much more likely to sign off on the lift, and the process will go a lot more smoothly. Again, give us a call to discuss your desired setup specifically.

What 4WD lift type works for you?

This is a question that can only really be answered by you and is dependent on your needs from your 4WD. For a general tourer who wants a slightly bigger set of tyres and upgraded shocks to handle the Outback corrugations, then a mild 2” suspension lift will be a great place to start.

For someone who tows heavy and wants to take the kitchen sink with them over several thousand km’s of hard driving, then we’d need to start looking at GVM upgrades and a more comprehensive suspension lift package.

If you’re somewhere in the middle and maybe want to head to a couple of A-grade tracks with your mates on the weekends, then a 2” body lift and 2” suspension lift will open up a large range of bigger rubber and higher wheel travel to you, but close or limit the door to legality.

On that note, we really can’t stress enough that what works for your mate might be awful for you. Especially if you have different vehicles. Make sure you consult a suspension specialist before doing anything. There will absolutely be a great set-up for you, but getting there may take a slightly different path from what you may be expecting.