akarocket

I ran Rancho control arms for over five years with no problems. Initially I did have some alignment issues, but I solved those with a Total Chaos idler arm. I thought it worked great with 33" tires.


didn't flex too bad either:


I decided to go to larger tires so the truck looks a little different now

JamesD

I see you are running spacer as well. What kind of angles are you running on the front axleshafts? Did you use the spacers that came in the kit for the front diff or did you use the angled ones you can buy? What alignment issues did you have? Before I even put this kit on I want to make sure I'am not messing with it the whole time cause that gets old fast.

James

Silver_Truck

only spacers i see are BJ spacers...available from trdparts4u or 4crawler.com

JamesD

No what I meant was for the front diff relocate not the BJ spacers.

James

deathrunner

Yeah, he is only running half of the rancho kit with bj spacers....I bet those cv angles get pretty extreme at full droop.

JamesD

I hate to ask you guys all these questions but I don't understand your logic. How do you run "half" the kit? So far I'am tempted to sell the damn lift kit go with another IFS lift. I'am not going to SAS either as of yet, I have the axle in my garage IF I do go. I thought of Total Chaos but that stuff is for the desert and too wide for some of the trails. Besides one good wack on a rock and those chromoly arms now have stress cracks.

James

akarocket

I was also running Porsche 920 cv joints at the time. The angles would be too great for standard cv shafts.

deathrunner

He is running only half of teh kit because he didn't drop hios diff down with the crossmembers. That is a big part of the rancho kit design. I like the idea off what akarocket did. he didn't lose ground clearance because he didn't drop the diff. He gained height and clearance with the upper arms and bj spacers. Plus he gained some travel. To remedy the cv angles he got stronger Porsche CV's (I'm guessing about 1,000.00 right there). The only other parts I can thing of taking abuse this way would be the bj's. I think this setup is actually an improvement over the rancho kit. Maybe I'm not seeing all the possible problems, though.

SRV1- You don't have to get rid of your kit, it's just good to know the downsides to your setup. Every setup has downsides, wether it be strength, wearing other parts, or price. I believe if you can set your rig up to keep problem areas within reasonable limits, your kit can last a long time.

Akarocket- How did you like those cv's? How pricey were they? If I ever break an inner, this is what I plan to upgrade to.

JamesD

Well so far I really haven't heard anything good about this kit. I hear more negative stuff than anything else. I should have researched it before I bought it but I was going on the name itself since they always made good products. I should have read on this place before as well. I need to get the BJ spacers, torsion bars and some 33" and call it a day

James

deathrunner

skip the t-bars. They will make your ride harsh and kill flex. If you do get t-bars anyway...get the ome's they are the softest of the aftermarket ones at 23.4mm

with stock arms, just stick with soft t-bars. You could sell that rancho kit and get bj spacers, shocks and a downye spring pack for the rear.

Akarocket seems to have liked his kit, but he modified it quite a bit, so I guess that's not comparing apples to apples.

I'm surprised mroe people haven't chimed in with there experiences.

akarocket

I had about $700.00 into the shafts. I got the Rancho control arms off Ebay. My biggest problem was steering components. The tie rods run at such steep angles that It bent the center link. I then had to track down the Rancho one. After that I could not keep a idler arm on the truck. I then spent the big bucks on the Total Chaos one. After those two problems were fixed the truck was about as indestructable as could be while keeping IFS. Remember also I never ran a tire bigger than 33". When it was time for new tires, I wanted to upgrade to something bigger. That is when I went solid axle. If the truck was still a daily driver, I would still have the same IFS setup.

akarocket

From what I gathered on the full Rancho kit is:
You will never get a good alignment with your Torsion bars adjusted to raise the truck 3 inches. You have to lower it a bit to get the camber and caster correct. You then are not getting the advertised 3 inches. Not worth all the headache to drop the diff. I would just run the control arms, but you might have some of the steering problems I had. You will need selectable hubs and that bigger center link. That cardomain pic in the first post don't look like that is installed right. He has the dropped crosmember installed, but it is not attached lower to drop the diff.

Praufet

Where did you get the beefier shafts?

Rocklobster

I will soon be running akarocket's old setup as soon as I get around to putting it on so I should have some comments/pictures on how affective the setup works.

by the way akarocket: this is C.J., have you had your 4runner down to Kansas yet?

deathrunner

700 for porsche cv's and beefier axle shafts??? I guess that's what I'll do if I ever break the stockers.... I hope they can make t-100 length axles.

Bear80

I just wanted to bring this back up since I recently installed the Rancho/Downey kit on my truck. I did a write up over on IH8MUD here: http://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=67470

I'll just say that so far I really like the kit. It makes the truck handle great and rides really well. I held off on the longer front shocks and weld on tabs, so I just modified my standard rancho shocks.

Which leads to my question: I cannot get the front to travel back up to full compression. I do have the mega travel Downey ball joints, yet it will not compress anywhere near the lower bump stops. I had to crank the crap out of the t-bars to get the height I wanted. Could this be a reason? however the truck doesn't ride like it would with overly-preloaded bars. Lately I've been thinking about the 1.5" spacers like akarocket ran, so I get some pre-load off the t-bars. I also understand the spacers will allow stock ball joints to travel back to full compression, is this correct? So maybe all in all I don't really have Downey mega travel ball joints?

deathrunner

cranking tbars kills flex. period

bj spacers will definitely help. I'd rather be low and flexy than high and stiff.