jacksonpt

Yesterday I spend the day at Paragon. Nothing real hairy, but still fun. I ran in a group of mostly lightly modified vehicles - small lifts and tires. Several Land Rovers and a couple of Wranglers, a Ranger, a Taco and me. There was a Cherokee on 33s with a rear lockers, and a SASed Pathfinder, but we were all built pretty similar.

Anyways... for people running these types of setups, modest rigs that are good for road and trail, I think IFS takes waaay to much heat. I went everywhere the locked cherokee did without any problems. Only the SASed Pathfinder tried harder stuff, but he had noticably more ground clearance, and had a tow rig to get his junk home if he broke something.

I guess my point is that for average wheeling - i.e. not competition rock crawling type stuff - IFS does just fine. I don't care if your rig is IFS or solid axle, if you pick a bad line you're going to have problems regardless.

mt_goat

I agree, especially if the IFS has lockers front and rear. With lockers F & R you can have 2 wheels in the air and still motor right along. I have a hard time finding challenges on what the Colorado Forest Service calls "difficult trails".

934rnr

I loved hearing "the thing oh you guys have IFS you probably can't take the same lines as us"
I have been to Badlands once and Paragon 2 times once with my pathfinder and once with my nissan pickup the first time I went I ended up doing easy stuff green and blue the second was blue and black intermediate trails.
BTW the front nissan IFS flexed like crap compared to my yota.




My old cardomain site: http://www.cardomain.com/id/shadowman2k

Anyways,

Most people are onsided on IFS because they have never owned it. They just hear people complain about it and think that it don't flex at all and it's crap.
It will get you through alot of stuff but a soild axle will survive alot more of a beating unless you have a Jeep with a dana 30 and Dana 35 those guys seem to frag alot of U-joints though and break axles on the Dana 35's so they aren't all that tough with oversized tires most of them have to beef up to either stronger axles in the D35 or replace the front with a Dana 44. I can say from experience I saw Jeep Rubicon frag a front U-joint on a dana 44 and he was only running 33 MTR's he was in our camping group when I went to paragon and he said that was the second time it had done that.

MODZILLA

All I know is if I had a rig as nice as yours Jackson I'd be proud to run it just about anywhere. That's one tough lookin ride man.

roger

I tend to agree...IFS is fine for what 95% of us do, and is far superior for street use so if your rig is also a daily driver you're probably better off with IFS.

alltheway

Its a running joke amongst my friends to call IFS "inferior front suspension" In all actuallity most of us here do just use our trucks for the modest 4wheel driving. Most are pavement pounders and that is cool, but if you are getting into serious wheeling you need a solid front axle. Look at all the competition rigs out there...do any of them have IFS...Nope. But don't get me wrong you can still wheel on IFS. Oh and here is a quote that i heard from a Pirate on the Rubicon "sometimes the worst line is the best line." People like to make it a challenge for there rigs and push them to places they never thought they could accomplish.

JMyerz

Actually, there are several custom built buggies with IFS and IRS. These systems of course are built from the ground up and can take way more abuse than the average IFS sytem.

Take a look at last years Red Bull comp rig. D60 / IFS hybrid.

Justin

ldivinag

fortunately for me, i installed the TRD IFS cooling fan along with the aux cooler to keep temps down...

Tacoma Dude

The solid axle is the coveted mod. People are going to want it and trash everything else before they have a chance to really see what IFS can do only because the solid axle is the "in" thing.

Soon enough there will be something as close to 1 in 10 SAS going on that are never going to see action beyond what an IFS could do.

Buki

Here's a URL with a few IFS photos:
http://www.brian894x4.com/picturespage4.html
I would agree with Brian and look into getting the newer kits as they seem to be a lot stronger.
Richard

kyle_22r

i'm not a fan of IFS for anything involving rocks, but i'd prefer toyota ifs over any jeep axle less than a dana 44 from an FSJ. dana 30s are complete junk any way you put it.

ldivinag

on the contrary. people ALREADY have had done everything they could IFS-wise...

if you remember, back then, there werent anything like there is right now for IFS.

one of the earliest that i know of chris geiger's 2nd gen 4runner. i followed his adventures from IFS to the one of the first well document SAS.

i personally talked to him about other IFS alternatives, like the WCOR kit he was considering, until he found all pro.

in the end, he was frustrated in breaking parts that he saw other wheelers with a SA could go into, and not have problems.

but i wouldnt call a SAS the "in thing" really.

for me, going to to a WCOR meant easing off some of the trails. plus having to use it then, say 1996'ish, as a daily driver, i wanted the comfort of the ride. and when my wheeling dropped to once every month, sometimes longer, i knew, this would be a decision i could live with...

besides, worse case scenario, that's what a winch is for...

joez

For what most people do IFS works fine, but no matter how much you want to deny it, you can only go so far. Scott at Rockstomper's goal was to have his IFS truck ramping 1000, but eventually gave up and torched it all off. It was possible, but not practical

For the kind of wheeling i do, i will never go to an IFS rig. Im used to my solid axles, my truck is predictable, balanced, and i know i can bash the axle all i want on rocks and not worry. If i ever build something high speed, you can garauntee it will be an IFS toyota.

Guess what, he cant drive. He probobally bought it as his first 4x4 thinking it can go anywhere, and uses the stupid pedal to overcome his lack of skill. I wheel with a kid who runs 38" sx's on the rocks, and 38.5 boggers on the trail on D44's. He wheels hard too, and his only problem is he keeps twisting rear axle shafts. They are under a Zuk that weighs probobally 3K pounds and has over 115:1 crawl ratio.

Lockers and gears make a much bigger difference than anyone usually wants to admit, along with driving skill. Wheeling is supposed to be a progression, and if you jump from open/IFS to locked/SFA and complain about how IFS sucks, you are an idiot(not pointing at anyone in particular, just making an example). The two cant be compared.

If i had more time i would keep going and probobally end up typing a novel, but im out of time.

dragr1

iTrader: (3)

Where are the flex pics with those new tires?

Tacoma Dude

I don't doubt that many people who have done the SAS have already exhausted the IFS capabilities. I'm just remembering a few threads here and on TTORA where people are talking about how they want the SA 85 4runner or they want to do an SAS when they've only gotten a small taste of offroading and want to look as hardcore and bada$$ as possible.

BruceTS

For the type of driving I do IFS works.... If you want to run tires bigger than 35" then our front drivetrain is way too weak. As for wheelin, I've seen more rigs with SFA and same size tires as I run, get hung up more than me. My front suspension simply slides over rocks, where the diff on a SA gets in the way. Yes there is a small percentage of terrains that SFA will out do me, but considering I drive a SUV and it's my DD, I wouldn't attempt it in the first place.

Doing a SAS is a lot more work than most think, I've seen so many problems with too many rigs that have done the swap. Once I get to the point where I've wheeled my rig to it's limit, I hope to have my buggy project finished.

Simply put, if I had a SFA on my rig, it would actually prevent me from doing some of the stuff I currently do now, if all other factors are the same, like ride height, tire size, etc.

Morerunner

I had a 91 pu that was my DD. I had 31's and a locker and it would go quite a few places. I eventually did a SAS w/a 4" lift and yes, it was a whole lot of work. Once I did it, it actually handled just fine on the road considering. Of course it didn't handle like the ifs, but none the less it was very road worthy. It's hard to compare entirely, but in some cases where the ifs would slide over rocks, the sa cleared because of articulation. Most of my testing was done on 21 road in Grand Junction, CO. It's just a matter of what you need from your vehicle and how much offroading you will do.

jimbo74

you are right, ifs doenst get the credit it deserves... if you look at all the new rage in championship rock crawling, they are all running ifs these days..... stock ifs is fine for basic, everyday needs...

jimbo74

ifs race trucks http://www.off-road.com/race/2004sco...ipe/index.html

ifs rockcrawler http://www.truckworld.com/trail-truc...ion_shark.html

ldivinag

it's been like that for years. going has been the IFS forte...

this is apples to orange...

stock even to semi wild IFS designs just doesnt have enough travel:

1. without increasing width within reasons or DOT legality
2. without spending 2-5x as much as a proven SA design

hey more power to you if you wanna rock crawl with stock to semi stock toyota IFS. in my experience. you will be

1. draggin alot.
2. breaking something.
3. getting stuck alot...