Has anyone installed a DayStar lift kit?

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Looking to find out if anyone has installed successfully a Daystar lift kit yet...? Also what did it do for handling etc...? Did you increase the size of your tires...?

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I've never heard of a lift kit for a 450 but have lowered a 450 and the handling and steering especially is enormously improved as a result. Principally because lowering flattens the angle of the rear transverse arms and that eliminates the toe change when turning into a corner that necessitates a second application of steering lock. Raising will go in the opposite direction and I suspect create a spitefully steering car. I'd strongly advise against.
My lowered 450 ran with Roadster steel wheels and 195/50s front and rear, both summer and winter tyres. How big do you want to go on tyres and why?

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The reasoning behind my choice to lift the car is strictly to install wider, taller side walled tires. Yes in complete opposite effects than what you have done...lol. Here in canada we have many gravel back roads that get extremely rutted or wash-boarded. The suspension as it is is incapable of withstanding these roads for any lengths of time. The taller side walled tires and wider wider stance will help the suspension soak up these types of badly maintained roads. I come from an off-roading past, lifted Jeeps etc with far greater heights so the feel isn't new to me. You simply adjust your driving style to accommodate for it. I am only going up 2 inches in body height and 4 inches in tire size. 205/70-R15 Massive compared to the tires you used...lol.
I have a desire to drive my Smart to the Arctic Ocean and to do this I need to be able to drive on the Dempster Highway, youtube it, I have done this 3 times on an adventure styled motorcycle. I'm no longer capable of riding a motorcycle so I am using the Smart as a substitute. It gets far better fuel economy, you stay dry, warm and more comfortable. I have also installed a Clever-End onto the Smart to increase the inside space, which enables someone to be able to possibly sleep where the passenger seat would normally go. Hypathetically speaking.

So, that's my plan...the whole vehicle has been rebuilt to make it as new or better than new. Just a few things to button up to get it finished.

The lift I used half of the Daystar lift, the front end parts, the rear I simply lifted the body off the sub frame to keep all suspension angle correct as not to stress the drive line.

I'm sure people will think i'm nuts, but that's my plan so far. Dip a tire into the Arctic Ocean....Yes it has been done in the winter over the ice roads......just a bit too cold for me...lol.

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I hadn't appreciated you were doing a body lift on the 'chassis' - a concept I'm familiar with from a GMT400 forum I frequent as I replaced my smart with a Suburban C2500. What I said previously obviously doesn't apply as you are leaving the rear suspension geometry intact.
I haven't worked out the difference in tyre diameters but it seems to be quite a bit - which will affect gearing - which you have probably considered already as familiar with 're-gearing' off-roaders. I guess you will just use the gearbox's lower ratios more than normal but there are differently geared transmissions from the gasoline models though possibly harder to source in Canada. Have you considered how the ECU will react to the new tyre size? Disconnecting the battery and reconnecting re-boots the ECU to allow it to learn new sizes - within a 5% tolerance at least to permit the ABS/ESP to function correctly. Not sure how much of the wheel speed is fed back into the transmission operation eg, gear changing. Have you got it covered?

edit PS. Just Googled Day Star and obviously this and big tyres are nothing new to fortwos. So gearing etc should be well figured out..

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Yes I used the spacers from the Daystar kit which simply drops the steering rack so to speak but used the strut spacers which drops the struts. There is a steering linage adapter which is required. But that's about it for the front. Yes the 4 subframe bolts were extended and spacers turned on the lathe to mate exactly up to the cone shaped areas at the front of the sub frame and simple stepped spacers for the rear. It sits solidly on these spacers which are roughly 2 1'2" round. It's not as if it's getting tortured off road on trails like the Jeeps were so I'm expecting the stresses to be far less. As for the gearing, well, I didn't know that there were other gear ratios used in the gasoline version 450's....that is interesting. But I have a Star unit so can reteach all actuators to work with the new issues from taller tires. It's roughly if I recall correctly 16% maybe less.....at 60 mph reading you are doing 72ish mph, so the tire comparisn charts tell me. I will turn off the ABS/ESP if the ECU /SAM won't play nice. Either by a switch or bridging the two pins in the OBDII port. Time will tell on that..? I'm not a speedy driver when driving the Smart any way as I now drive for fuel economy....at present in stock form I get an average of 80 mpg. So can accept a drop with taller tires. Again time will tell what that will drop to. I have installed Roaster front rims on my winter beater and expected the 4 wide tires to have reduced my mpgs but it hasn't..? I had expected the rolling resistance to have dragged down the mpgs...but no.
I also installed a factory tow hitch to it and removed the stock honeycomb rear bumper.
I'm at the moment still figuring out the engine wiring or sensor issues I am having that's keeping it from starting. I'm reading too low of fuel pressure I think. When rebuilding the engine I didn't replace these sensors as they operated perfectly well before. The fuel high pressure fuel pump is a known working model also and I have a freshly rebuilt one. The tank fuel pump is also working as it should. Fuel sending unit operating as it should. So I still have a few bugs to iron out....no rush...it's a hobby just an adult jig saw puzzle.....a toy to play with.

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Bridging the relevant pins on the OBD will disable the ABS/ESP - just make sure you get the correct ones or the ECU can fry. I built a few Trustplugs - and OBD connector wired to connect the two pins so all that was needed was plugging it into the OBD port (with the ignition switched off).
Having STAR will be a big help. With all the tyre changes I did from the stock skinnies to 195/50s all round via 175 front, 195 rear my mpg never suffered as I could carry corner speed. They were all road tyres. You will likely take a hit with chunkies though.
The 700 cc gasoline models had 6th gear circa 14% shorter than the diesel - which would return it stock if you wanted to. 600cc models and Roadster and Brabus fortwos were shorter still. Whether a gearbox from a gasoline model works with a diesel ECU I have no idea.
Don't know much about the diesel engines but there's someone here on the forum who does. If you are struggling with diesel related problems, start another thread mentioning CDI in its title and you'll likely get his attention.

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The tires I will be buying will be basically all season tread pattern not typical chunkie off roading mudders. The car won't like my usual tire choice of Super Swampers...lol. Plus I want a somewhat normal driving noise level. The Super Swampers sounded similar to a DC3 coming down the road towards you....lol. But they could get through anything you through at them terrain wise...lol. I am after being able to air the pressures down to help when on gravel roads for longer periods of time, similar to off roading.
As for the transmission speaking with the ECU, doesn't the gasoline versions use the same drum styled gearbox etc, so all you need to do is tell the drum where each gear is and if the same design I would think they would use the same style of wiring between each transmissions, no...? That would make sense but then again, look at what car we are speaking about...lol.
I will work with the stock transmission at first and if that doesn't like the tires etc then i will be going after something else perhaps. Again thank you for all the help.
As for the pins in the OBDII port I think they were #4 and #7 to get bridged off the top of my head, i used a simple toggle switch to jump the two when required for winter snow.
Sometimes you need to be able to sin freely the tires to get through the deeper snow......and when all the safety **** is engaged the car shuts you down. This is good when driving normally but a real pain when dealing with deep snow.

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Pins 4 and 7. I've just checked out another thread about it and there are dire warnings about ensuring that only these pins are bridged, and that they are only ever bridged with the ignition switched off. It was snow and ice that I needed it for. I did my plug like the one here >> https://www.evilution.co.uk/mod/trus...ation-plug.htm
Problem with using a gasoline ECU with a gasoline gearbox is that it wont cooperate with a diesel engine - unless it can be re-programmed - I don't know if it can or can't be. The MEG ECU controls both engine and transmission and the transmission shifting requires a whole host of inputs and nothing happens until the ECU sees the rotational shaft speeds it wants to see. Different ratios I'd guess will screw that up.
Similar dilemma with my Suburban. Road tyres were hopeless in last winter's snow so now have ATs on and hope they are aggressive enough for snow. Didn't want too aggressive for all the reasons you mention. The change from road to AT hasn't noticeably hurt mpg but they are noisier and the steering less precise - can't have it all I suppose. Snow soon will tell me if I've got what I need!

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I have fried one ECU, accidentally....I was trying to clean off some green growth off 3 pins. I sprayed sensor cleaner onto the pins and started brushing it with a plastic tooth brush.....very carefully......as I was brushing the pins in the suds, I saw a lightening flash travel across the suds...I knew instantly what had happened.....there are capacitors inside the ECU and they discharged......cooked it.....fubared...completely! Just as a warning to others......be very careful not to jump the wrong pins accidentally as the capacitors will discharge and fry your ECU....The SAM doesn't have this problem. It will take a bit of abuse compared to the ECU. I now have 3 spare ECU, SAM and Speedo units. You can't simply swap one out unless you have the use of a STAR unit, to be able to teach them to talk to the new unit. That STAR unit has paid for itself many times over by now. From coding key fobs which are $450 a shot at the dealership here....no kidding! I charge $100 for it....and when you do one you should do both of your keys as the second fob is useless after recoding the first one....so it adds up quickly! So much can be done with the STAR to get the initial cost of it back. If you wish to make some spare coin.