For someone without a hydraulic lift, what is the all-around best method/alternative to get my Maxima off the ground enough for me to self-install, say, a Y Pipe? If possible, I'd like to keep costs down, but still want something to get the car raised to a good comfortable height sufficient to do the job properly. A link to your "favorite" lifting tool/product would be helpful.

 

2 ton jack and 4 jack-stands

 

Believe it or not I was able to replace my Y pipe with just 2 car ramps... I had enough clearance to get to the cat bolts and everything else..
this is what I use for all my oil changes too...
here is an example, just like mine, yellow LOL
http://hattiesburg.ebayclassifieds.c...s/?ad=12103279

 

How in the world do you get your car on those? My buddy has some of them, the bottom edge of my bumper touched the ramp before my tires..and that was at stock ride height and no lip

 

How do you guys lift up the rear? When I use my jack, I center it on center of the beam and lift it up, but because of suspension compression I can never get the back end high enough for the highest point on the jackstands.

 

bump

 

one corner at a time.
trying to cheat can break things.
Check the owner's manual for proper jack points.

 

Newer had a problem... stock suspension... next time I'll take pics

 

The center of the beam suspension is a jack point, and even when I do one corner at a time I can still only get the car up to 2 jack points high, not the 3rd final jack point.

 

I have ramps that contact the bumper before the tire. What I did was cut pieces of a 2 x 10 to fit between the wheel and the ramp. I beveled the ends and now I drive up an the 2 x 10's and then onto the ramps.

To dwapenyi - about all you can do is get a different jack that has a higher lift. Some people will jack the car up, support it, then lower the jack and use a spacer to jack it up some more. That sounds a bit scary to me, though.

 

This. My dad has a 2008 Impala with aftermarket body lip. Sits way too close to the ground so we made ramps with stacked 2x12's. A little heavy but they get the job done. And still easier to drag out than jacking up the cars every time we need to do an oil change. I'll try to get some pics up here.

 

i have made a setup like that at home except used 2x6. works fine for stock tires, anything wider you better of with 2x10 boards.


OP, as far as jacking up a car, are you using a 1 1/2 ton - 2 ton jack? Usually with a heavy duty 3 ton jack, it should have enough lift to get you to the third notch on the stand unless of course you're using some heavy duty truck stands, in that case you'll need to re-jack as mentioned above.

 

I actually bought an SUV hydraulic jack and I STILL have the same lifting problems

I will try the blocks of wood approach or perhaps your 2 step method.

 

I did the rear header with a 4 ton jack and jack stands.

Needed two 2 ton jacks for ease of lifting/shifting the engine, but that had nothing to do with the required elevation.

 

You needed 2+ stands to install your headers? Sheesh. I have Cattman headers waiting to be installed and I'm trying to get the courage to do it myself. Your post isn't helping

 

Holy hell, that came out wrong. hehe.

I only needed 2 jack stands. One 4 ton jack, (100$ SUV hi lift from AutoZone). Use that jack to get the elevation, and then set the jack stands and then remove the jack and use it to move/lift the engine when removing the xmemeber and mounts. Sorry about that.