Torsion bars are t3h sux0rz. I'm in the process of swapping to coils myself. This is from my own experimentation. I'm sure everyone will tell you how wonderful flipping the torsion keys works and theres never been any horror stories about such...

I had a set of re-indexed torsion keys made 3 years ago. Since then I have gone through 8 SETS of upper control arms. They last for all of 6 months at best. Lowers are cheap and easy to do so I didn't run a tally on those.

Your suspension will SUK! You WILL have bump-steer when you hit a pot-hole and finding shocks that don't ' blow out ' from being compressed all the time is another issue unto itself.

Theres 3 solutions to what you are thinking of doing and NONE are under 1000$, let alone the ' cheap ' price of 600$ you were trying to get under in the first place. Doing things CORRECTLY is NEVER cheap.

*Nobody* wants to see you post a thread saying ' It broke and I was in the hospital and I took out a few people that were on the sidewalk when it all fell apart.. '.

1.) Find an xlt in the boneyards, take out the lower control arms, spindles.. Basically the whole suspension setup and graft it on to your current frame. It will require you cutting and welding on a location/connection point 1-7/8" forward on the rearward lower arm locations on BOTH sides AND fabbing up a coil bucket to be used with the XLT suspension.

2.) Purchase a set of QA1's and fabricate onto your present shock mount locations and use the QA1's coil-over instead of a shock/torsion bar combo. You will want 750lb rated springs and the length will be determined on how far you wish to lower your truck.

3.) Easiest route : Trade in what you have and get an XLT.

My BIGGEST issue with lowering/dropping an ' Edge ' or torsion suspension : Crossmember in front hits things.

The engine crossmember sits VERY low to the ground and has the rack and pinion right on the front of it to smack into everything.

I sit about 2 inches lower then a Factory XLT with a 27.5 inch tall tire.