Yota82

I have King coilovers on my 86, had to remove 4WD because the shock diameter is too large for the CV axles to fit through. It can be done and retain 4WD but it would be tricky. You will not get anymore lift using c/o's or t-bars, the bump stop and droop stop will be in the same place no matter what shock or t-bar you use. There is a noticeable ride difference depending on spring rate. The advantages to running a coilover is simply a less breakage issue. C/O's are more reliable than t-bars. It is just about impossible to break a c/o spring compaired to t-bars mounting locations, sockets, and moving parts which can be a constant problem (from experence).

Sonofmayhem

I always wanted to do this, didnt think it would be very hard. i think they should build us some kits just so you can put in a co, but keep stock width.

JamesD

Huh? You can have just about any spring rate you want and you can easily adjust your ride height. I was thinking about doing it as well. If you want an IFS to flex in the front, you need softer springs and sway bar disco's. The stock Toyota t-bars are still too stiff for flex.

James

AH64ID

I dont buy that at all... I have HD 25mm bars and get full flex, with sway bar attached, now it goes to full easier w/out it, but flex is not limitied by the OEM swaybar or torsions.... Any softer of a T-bar would be too soft.... I have 25mm and they are too stiff, even with an ARB bumper and winch... But the OEM's are too soft, maybe the OME ones?? Its not that mine are rough or limit travel, but I have them as loose as I can get and I have about 4.5" of lift, I would rather sit at 4" and have more droop...

91ToyTrck

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Has anyone found a link or someone that has pictures of this done on a t-bar ifs rig yet? I would just like to know if there are more advantages than disadvantages before thinking of doing this at all. I'm all about different things. It looks like a good idea, but there are just questions needing to be answered and it seems this thread has been forgotten.

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ewong

First - its an "interesting".

Not sure if it has any advantages when you are done.
It will be ALOT of fab work - more fab work than say going to a Total Chaos LT setup... and the end result will be... um ... less travel than the LT setup.

That being said - here's some thoughts becase I tride to do something similar...

The torsion bar upper A arm's "hole" for the shock is very small.
Thats why the Downey dual shock setup mounts the shocks with the cans on the lower A arm... ther's NO ROOM for the cans in there when at full droop.

So you have to either use
-- a custom upper A arm
OR
-- cut and weld on BOTH the upper A arm and the lower A arm from the Taco

The reason is that the Taco steering knuckle is different than the torsion bar knuckle. For one its mega taller - off the cuff the upper ball joint is not "inside" the rim like on the torsion bar IFS.

So we are talking about a ton of fab work to get hte suspension on there with the end result of.. less than LT travel??

But if you have a Taco cheap (rear ended perhaps) and had the fab skills... it would be interesting..

It would almost be simpler to do a body swap (i.e. Gen1 4Runner on say a later model 4Runner running chassis - this has been done BTW)

91ToyTrck

any pictures or link to a thread on that one ?

ewong

Currently I have 300M torsions cranked up about 1"
I also have a Downy bolt on dual hoop and am currently running dual bilstien's up front.

I started with Doestch Tech - and then the shocks ripped the OEM tab off the arm. This was before I knew alot about single shear versus double shear etc... (I was still in engineering school)

The Doestch Techs lasted form 30K to about 90K and then the Bilstiens went on for another 200k+ and oh 8 years before the truck was parked in storage in a barn.

THe Downey dual shock setup also has issues.
The second shock forward can interfere with the steering tie rods.

To get the forward shock to clear the tie rods - its pulled in at the bottom - so it does NOT actually mount parallel to the first shock...

At one time I wanted to upgrade the dual Bilstiens with a single remote res 7100 series shock.

I based the lenght of the shock on the dual Bilstien and the valving based on people with prerunner experience..

I got the shocks in and then DOH...

There is a REASON that Downey's setup mounts the dual setup with the shock can on the BOTTOM - attached to the lower arm.

Normally you want to mount the can on the frame and the rod to the arm - that way you reduce unsprung weight.

The problem is the OEM A arm on the first gen IFS (86-95).
The hole in the middle is too small.

Note that the OEM shock mounts the stud eye BELOW the level of the A arm - its visible in that pseudo coil over picture.
(BTW at one time NWOR/Downey old an aftermarket shock that had a coil over like that for use on the IFS...)

So the stock arm is just too "thick" to have a shock tube pass through the middle.

A custom arm could be fabbed - but thats a TON of work to get.. what - a better shock? An OEM like coil over?
Even if you did make an arm - you also need to make a shock hoop and make sure it was strong enough to suppor the vehicle as its now a suspension mounting point and not merly a damper mounting point.
See Total Chaos's shock hoops for a good idea of how strong it needs to be.

So - we are talking about making a kit that cost what - $400 for arms and another $200 for hoops and then $800 (?) for coil overs and the end result is.... OEM travel rates?

If you could DIY thats one thing - but you wont be able to market such a kit.

Yota82

As someone who has build a few different sets of a arms I think it would be easy to fab up a custom upper arm. Take off the stock upper and make a jig for it with the correct angles for the BJ mount. You can make it out of 1.25" or 1.5" tubing and it would definantly open up the hole to fit a coilover through. I think the only limitation is weather you could retain 4WD. I had to remove 4WD from my 86 because of the diameter of the coilover was too big for a CV axle to fit through. If you ran a modest 2.0 coilover I'm sure you could retain 4WD with a custom upper arm and the lover shock mounts moved over a bit.

mt_goat

Here's a few pics of an aftermarket UCA that was made by Superlift a long time ago (they quit making them about 1996):

Bill

If you're going to build your own a-arms, why stick with stock travel? All you would need to do is extand the arms and you would get more travel, that's really all the TC kit is. Hell, if you ran the right shocks you could get 24" of wheel travel if you really wanted to(your arms would be able a foot longer than stock...but semantics).

You're right it would be a lot of fab work for not a huge increase in preformance(t-bars do just fine for 99.5% of stuff and people), but if you're going to do the work...go all out.


ewong: I might have missed it, but why exactly are you running dual shocks up front? I understand the idea behind it, but usually duals are only run when your holding up a fairley heavy motor(V8, diesel, etc), so it just doesn't make much sence to me why you'd go through the trouble of making it work on an application it's not "needed" for...and yes I do see the irony of me asking that in a thread about swapping t-bars to coils.

Yota82

I agree. I have built 4 sets of a arms now and they weren't stock lenght. But it really wasn't that difficult, a jig handles the angles. If you simply just wanted to swap t-bars for coilovers and wanted to retain 4WD you would have to make something custom weather stock lenght or extended 2 feet per side. Might as well go all out but then you run into the limitations of stock IFS parts like BJ's, tie rods, etc... Just takes money and time to get right. If you just wanted to upgrade the stock suspension and run a c/o then a different but stock lenght upper arm would be in order. No width increase, not as much of a chance to rip apart a BJ or tie rod, easier on idler arms, no t-bar breakage while still retaining 4WD etc... If there is a market for them I will start making them for people. Any intreast?

Yota82

Jigs are really easy to make. Here is 2 pics of a simple jig. This jig is definantly not for stock lenght arms, but you get the point.

WCorbett

if you could fit a Total chaos taco uppers control arm only kit into you torsion bar rig you might fit one. or creat a jig buy the tubing and go to a welder and pay for him to bed and weld the tubing on the jig.