I recently lifted my freelander 1 TD4 (from 2005)
For that I used TJM springs instead of spacers. The entire car gets somewhat stiffer and gets about 30 mm extra clearing. You will not need to make any other mods, the springs will fit in the same space as the originals. It will not really affect on-road handling, but it will allow you to climb / descend some steeper hills then standard. I am unsure if you can still get them (easily) though.
I really like them except for the sound they make on full lock, it keeps making some annoying pling and plang sounds. But they seem to handle great.
They cost me about 120 euro for all four and about 10 euro rent for the spring fitting device (and a few euro's for my lill brother, the mechanic).
And although the yellow springs look cool, after a few metres of greenlaning they are just as brown as the rest of your car :-D.
Regarding tires, I guess there are a lot of great tires out there. I run the General Grabber AT (not the AT2) at 225/75R16. It might sound strange but the AT is the 'new' European version which is supposed to have less road noise. The road noise is doable for a daily driver but do not expect the same whispering sound as a road tire. Last weekend on an off road weekend in Budel, NL (and yes, it was 95% green laning and only about 5% real off road in my class) I found them perform rather well. They handled great on dry ground and on mud as long as it could grab something below the mud. But don't get in wet, plowed trough mud as you will not be able to cross it. But on other DRY stuff, in my opinion they stick like glue. But remember, I have no other tires to match them to except for the original tires that were on it, and that were no AT tires.
