Need a Lift...
 

i all,
I want to lift my blazer, (96/v6/4x4/2dr) 31's seem to be the most practical but I can get my hands on some 32 x 11.5 r15 that are really nice too. Can anyone helped me out with a cost effective way to lift my truck to the point that I could use either sizes. There is just too many lift kits out there to know which ones to get. What have other blazer owners been using? what works best for our trucks? Thanks in advance.

Please be sure to read board descriptions, there is an entire board dedicated to lift tech and the lifting of Blazers.
If you take a look through that board you will find TONS of information regarding lifts for the Blazer. There is so much reading material in that board that you should be able to find your answer.

The 3 basic types of lifts for our trucks are:

Shackle & Tbar lift - The cheapest (around $60) and easiest to do. Gives you 2" of lift in the rear and 1.5-2" in the front

Body Lift - Around $200 for a cheap kit. Ranges up to $300 or 350. You can get up to another 2" with this method. They have 3" body lifts, but they're pretty hard to find.

Suspension Lift - The most involved and expensive of the 3. You can go all the way up to a 6" superlift (with a kit) and even higher if you custom fab something. You're looking at $2000-2500 base price.

Thanks a lot, I'll check through the forums and see what I find.

If you're curious about each type, use the search tool and type in "Body lift" or "Shackle lift" and you'll find plenty of material to read through :). Any ideas right from my descriptions on what you'd be looking at getting? How high do you want to go? What's your budget?

SISK,
Well I am looking to get at least enough room for the 31 x 10.50 tires that come on the zr2 models but I wouldn't mind going even bigger. I could probaly spend 1000 in total, where new tires are going to run 700, (discounttire.com) which leaves 300 for the lift, labor included. I guess what I need to know is how big of a tire would the t-bar and shackle lift allow. If I could get away with 32's I would, or even the 33 x 10.50 r15's would be even better. On discoounttire.com these BFG's are no more expenive than their smaller counterparts.
Thanks

Also, would the 2" lift kit be an addition to the 2" t-bar and shckle lift making a grand total of 4" lift? Or is that just crazy talk?

With 300$ you're looking at being able to get a 2" body lift kit and shackles. That's installing it yourself. I'm not sure what you'd add in for labour...Most guys just do it themselves to save the money.
As for the height, you are correct. A 2" body lift combined with 2" shackles will give you around 4" of lift. I say around since you probably don't want to crank your tbars past 1.5" or else you'll be going through front end parts like crazy. So you'd have 4" in the back and close to 4" in the front.
You won't be fitting 33's on with that amount of lift. NVANZEE has 33's on his truck, and he has 9" of lift. He still has rubbing issues. You can squeeze 31's under with just 2" of lift, but you'll have rubbing issues at full lock. I don't see 32's being a problem with 4" of lift, but you will probably still run into a little rubbing.
With that said, you have to keep in mind what you're using your truck for. Is it going to be a street queen, or are you going to use it properly and go mudding/offroading. If you're going to be getting into offroading you'll probably want to keep your tire size down with only 4" of lift to avoid serious rubbing at full compression when you're offroading. It also saves your fenders from a beating.
If it were me, I'd stick with 31x10.5's and put a 2" body lift and 2" shackles on. That's my plan for my truck someday..