dding the strut spacer and doing nothing else...how could that result in same vehicle height? vehicle knows nothing of what you did, so why would the struts now magically allow themselves to compress? the vehicle will only know that the control arms are angled down while it has not told the strut to extend...thus it's confusion and requirement of shorter rods to let it see the sensor back to the factory position.
basically you could put the strut spacer in, then drive as normal but the computer would be 'annoyed' and not lift or lower without a fuss causing fault codes and it saying "oooh nooo you need to shut this down and pull off the road"
number 2, the rod length determines the foolery it provides. it's critical to study up on the reduction lengths needed in order to provide associated foolery. meaning, in my case i wanted exactly the 2" offset amount while some people have used less shortened for less ground clearance foolery.
i like calling it foolery because that's all it is seeing as nothing fundamental changes unfortunately. the control arms go toward their maximum, the cv joint goes towards it's max, etc. the places you see rod length changed to provide 2.5" "lift" in my opinion are total **** and getting your vehicle very close to fukking it up by riding that high all the time. plus there is ZERO need to ride that high on pavement at any speed and at high speeds is ******** and dangerous. This is not lifting like a solid axle vehicle with new dampers, springs, and such to actually keep things correct, safe, and reliable. Thus these extensions should be minor and mostly only off road, even then if you try to be cute and roll at +2-4 full time, your compressor will teach you a lesson.
The beauty of the strut spacer is you can roll full time off road at +2" with zero extra work by the compressor because the strut itself is at the factory neutral length. You have to remember though that when you choose on the terrain dial, mud n ruts or anything beyond hard surface slippery "grass/snow roads", the computer will also say to itself, "oh, you certainly need ligt now too" and it will engage the air lifting it up to standard off road height.
this now will in effect be 4" above the true factory highway height. which is massive actually and sufficient for most situations. it's also right about where the factory system limits the "extended" mode height to protect the cv etc.
What i do on rougher rolling forest roads is use low range for the up/down changes, set Llams to +1 level which is about +20-25mm, and stay out of terrain response unless it were the slick hard surface mode.
When i get to something like our Naches trail here where i've so far only seen beat to hell short wheelbase jeeps besides me, i go ahead and exit llams, choose mud n ruts, often turn off DSC, and take it all in the resulting +4" that "off road height plus the spacers provides. if i get to a particularly harsh break over, ledge "butt drop", or very deep ruts, i then just use llams +20, and have llams +50 if super tricky spot but i exit that max extension the moment it's passed.
I've fully removed a strut trailside to replace and air line into it's top and do not want to do that very often, especially when it's not a beautiful warm sunny day with plenty of time, food, and beer. It would suck massively to do any real suspension repair in the dark, cold, raining, with a girlfriend who wasn't so hot on the "4x4" trail in the first place
