How I got my Jimny to drive almost like a monocoque SUV

The Jimny is now superb in fast road handling with much-enhanced stability, both on and off the road.

BHPian ShivC recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I wanted to improve the lateral body roll in the Jimny which becomes pronounced with a 40mm lift (or any lift for that matter) and get it to drive as near a normal monocoque SUV as possible. On doing some research and going through various forums narrowed this down to correcting the Panhard rod alignment.

There were 2 ways of doing this (a) install adjustable rear Panhard rods or (2) install a Panhard bracket. I chose the second option as the first one involved finer tuning to adjustments with proper values on the geometry – one that I wanted to avoid as was not sure that I could do this correctly with no professional help at least in my city and very few installation videos on geometry correction of the Jimny. Also, the second was way simpler.

Thus started the search for one. Checked with ARB – Oldman EMU makes one but they do not just sell bracket stand-alone in India. Also, the product had multiple adjustments with multiple washers near the Panhard rod – so not a good design per me - so decided against even importing one. Narrowed the sourcing of the bracket down to Lambert Engineering – a small business in the UK where the owner has a Jimny himself and was recommended. Ordered one – but turned out to be not suitable as was made for a 3-door and the 5-door has a nut welded to the chassis where this bracket would fit – after spending nearly a full day with multiple trips to the lathe machine we FAILED.

Not one to give up – decided to get one made-to-order on measurement in India as all the brands available outside India - Hard Race, Taniguchi etc. are all for the 3-door.

One distributor of similar products promised to make one for me – has a Jimny himself but it was one week merging into another merging into months. Kept telling me they were on the job but had given up any hope of them making it.

I was going through the brochure of 4XForza as wanted to order the underbody protection and saw that they sell XshockDakar suspension – the 3” one had Panhard rod mount re-locators mentioned as one of the components in the kit. Called them and spoke about my requirement for a Panhard Relocation bracket – was put onto their technical and design team – a post which magic happened. In no time designs were sent to me - fabricated and delivered to me – with 3 options incorporated on request – options for a 30 mm, 40 mm and 50 mm lift. Was playing it safe this time

The before and after – the pictures speak for themselves – put the rod on the 40mm lift slot – checked the basic geometry – it was perfect and better than fixing it in the 30mm and 50 mm slots (both of which were tried as well).:

Panhard Rod before installation of bracket:

THE VERDICT: Our Jimny has now the best of both worlds – a lift and a much reduced lateral body roll. Would stick my neck out and say it drives almost like a normal monocoque SUV now. Superb in fast road handling with much-enhanced stability both on and off the road.

Some facts on the PANHARD RELOCATION BRACKET:

It essentially just corrects the angle of the rear Panhard to be parallel again with the diff/axels to work as intended. It essentially raises the rear roll centre.

The Panhard relocation bracket is a component that is used to keep the Panhard rod level and prevent bump-steer. It is not a must but is considered a good idea, especially when the vehicle has a suspension lift. The bracket raises the mounting position of the Panhard rod to suit the new position due to a suspension lift being fitted.

The purpose of the Panhard relocation bracket is to maintain the proper alignment of the Panhard rod, which helps to prevent lateral displacement and keep the Panhard bar parallel to the axle, helps to avoid bump-steer, which is the tendency of the vehicle to steer to one side when encountering bumps or uneven terrain. It can also help improve the handling characteristics of the vehicle, reducing rollover steer and settling the on-road and fast road handling.

A special word of thanks to the 4XForza team for their excellent professional support in making this possible.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.