I have an old style 99 K1500 Suburban. I want to lower it & I have been looking at a kit from Belltech for it.
The front is torsion bars & the rear is leaf springs.
A friend of mine lowered his Chevrolet pickup in the front without buying a kit & just bought the kit for the rear.
He said though on the front he cranked down the torsion bars 2" & it has a rough ride.
My question here is do I need the kit for the front or can I just crank down the torsion bars till I get 2" lower & be ok?
What is the kit needed for?
Will the kit help the ride & alignment or will it be the same without it?

 

Adjustments to the torsion bar keys will give you an inch or two drop or lift. You can match the turns to the screws. As you're lowering it the suspension will load up as the t1res resist the spreading of the wheels, that load will make it drop not quite as far as what you've adjusted for. To compensate and relieve the force you'll need to drive the truck backwards and forward again during the process to get it to settle, otherwise you might find that you've actually lowered it too far.
Lowering or raising will affect alignment slightly, might be worth checking it after to prevent weird treadwear.
Look at it this way - Lowering it by adjusting the keys is basically free. If you're unhappy with the ride after you can always order the Belltech bars with the different spring rate.

 

So what do the torsion keys do?
Will they give you a better ride?

 

The arms at the end of the torsion bars that the adjustments screws push against are called keys.