Bear80

Well back to Jon's question. I'm assuming that the spindles you have are replacement ones set up for the lift, plus the dif lowering brackets.

So you wanted somthing to handle more weight, give some more flex and improve handling? Since the TC arms are longer, perhaps you could try the same Rancho upper arms I run with your setup. They should give you better handling and a little more wheel travel.

jon_7248

Correct, the lift came with replacement crossmembers (front/rear) and spindles that are taller. See I never knew Ranco makes upper arms. hmm

Bear80

Well the only problem is Rancho doesn't make these arms anymore.....but you can still find the kit. I say kit because it is part of a 3" lift kit that comes with diff lowering brackets. That means the price is reflective of a kit, and you only use 1/2 of it. Best to find it used.

Bear80

off topic here, but Jon are you part of TTORA?

They are heading to barnwell mtn. on the weekend of the 21st. I'm not a member but I'm going to crash in since I'm a TLCA and BWMR member. You should come out and have a good time wheeling and talk first hand with a bunch of smart guys about what you're after.

AH64ID

I am suprised you think that.. .I had the rancho lift... and it was the biggest POS I have ever seen... It wouldnt hold an alignment, it was not stable at all... and it is very very hard on torsion bars due to the pivot point not being in the middle of the bar.. The diff drop bracket puts odd side to side stress on the CV's...

There is a reason it is discontinued...its a very poor design that isnt functional...

If you do rocks do not waste your cash on a very expensive LT kit, SAS it. The SAS will handle the load you want.. But if your happy with what you have just upgrade your Tbars... I have 25mm bars and even with my ARB bumper and winch they are barly tightened, there is lots more load carrying to be had. If dont have a heavy bumper I do not reccommend 25mm bars, your ride will be really really stiff..

They do attatch to the spindle the same, you could use the uniball on your 4" setup... But like I stated above thats a ton of money for rocks, and to just carry extra weight when tbars are only 100-150 IIRC.

Bear80

AH64ID, I still have not seen alignement issues with my setup. I knew going into it that people have complained over and over about this with the Rancho kit.

Before I ran the setup I did replace the supplied poly bushings with the stiffer Downey bushings. And I've talked to guys that ran just the arms like me minus the spacers and all agree that the handling is a huge improvment over stock.

jon_7248

Yea, and of TTR. But I dont know if I will make it cause I want to try to make sure the 4Runner I get this weekend will be up to par. Else I will be fixing it.

jon_7248

I dont want to SAS it. I would make more use of the high speed handling that the TC kit has to offer, plus be able to travel the rocks nicely (versus stock ifs). I know SAS would be perfect for rock, but I wouldnt go past 33" tires and thus dont think I would make full use of the SAS benifit.

mastacox

Unless you really plan on racing the truck, or baja-style driving, I would do the SAS. Cheaper, better in rocks, end of story. The LT IFS will cost you about $3500-4500 after all is said and done, while the SAS will cost about $1500-2000 and get you far better articulation if dialed in correctly.

AH64ID

I ran it with and without the diffdrop... which doesnt affect handling... however it was really unstable for me, even with RS9000's and 25mm barz. It was really tippy at speed on dirt roads, when I went to my 4" bracket lift my stability/handeling was greatly improved..

Bear80

I think I know where you're comming from cuase it's exactly what I'm after, BUT you want to keep the lift you have since it replaced a lot of the stock parts. I still say find a set of Rancho upper arms, get the Doweny poly bushings, and the Downey idler arm gusset. If you don't already you should add low profile upper bump stops. The stock axles can handle the travel added by the rancho arms alone.

Bear80

Hmm.....that's odd. All I can figure is that you had the hight set too high. I went from stock arms with poly bushings and 25mm t-bars to the rancho arms and the handling was night and day better. The rancho arms really only have a "useable" added hight of 2" otherwise you'll be topping off the arms on the upper bump stops constanly.

jon_7248

This is where my stuborness comes into play i guess. I know I can get better travel with a SAS, but I dont need all that travel. I want the handling and cornering and ride that the TC kit offers. Handling that the SAS wouldnt be able to give me. ALthough the SAS can let me run 35s+ better, but I wont do that either.

jon_7248

Not simply cause the kit replaced the parts, but cause I would have to buy those original parts back which means just more time and money for something I already have. However, since you have to fit special shocks on in it looks like I will have to get the orignal parts back installed. According to that TLT article, they didnt have room to adjust the coilovers when they placed the springs on the shock. but it gave then a nice 3" lift over stock. Damn catch 22s


EDIT
Well I thought wrong. I am assuming that the 4"s of lift that I have now will stay the same. But since I will be removing the torsion bars and rely on the coilovers to maintain ride stance, I shouldnt have to worry about gaining more than 4" of travel cause it's not the current 4" plus 3-4" of lift I was thinking earlier. This hit me on the ride home.

pinnacle

The reason they didnt have a lot of adustment is the fact they used a long spring on a short shock, SAWs are shorter than the other shocks (Fox, King, Bilstein). I'm running the same size shock but a King and the same length spring and I have some of room for adjustment.

deathrunner

I am running softer coils on the shorter sway aways and I have plenty of adjustment. In fact, I believe I have my 4runner dialed pretty low. I think I am sitting at 1.5-2" over stock. I don't like it tall. I had teh 4" bracket kit and it was way more than I need.

jon_7248

What load spring are you using? 400? Are you saying that with the 4" bracket kit and the softer springs your still at 2" above stock?

deathrunner

I am running 450lb coils.

But let's clear one thing up. Unless you retain all of your bracket lift, including the spindles.....you can't use it with the chaos kit. There is no way to only use part of it. If you only use the spindles, the arms will be spread too far at the tire. If you use only the bracketry, the arms will be too close at the tire. The distance ratio between the ball joints and the distance ratio between the arm mounts must remain the same. The only acception is a bj spacer which makes minimal change to this ratio. If you mess with that, you will have massive alignment issues and wheel travel geometry.

My bracket lift is long gone. I only have the JD Fab suspension kit. Because of the softer coils, I have more room to adjust my height. I have only cranked in a little lift, but I could go up to 4", maybe higher.

jon_7248

Oh I understand all that, kinda assumed it when I first was thinking of this earlier this week. I just wanted clearification on your statement about the coils not dialed in right. It sounded like you had 2" of lift witht he softer coils and where maxed out at the 2". Just wanted to get more info on that. Oh, and you are using 18" coils?


Thanks guys for all the help here. Lots of thinking and planing ahead.

Yota82

I have a lot of room for adjustment. This is a LT kit that I made for my truck, very similar to a TC Caddy kit. I use a 10" shock, I could have used an 8" but I wanted to have dual rate springs. I run a small top spring which is a 400 and a longer bottom spring whick is a 600. Presonally I think they are a little on the stiff side, but it is easy to change different spring rates. There is plenty of room for adjustment though. I am currantly at about 2.5" over stock. There is pretty much no way I can run 4WD unless I made different bends in the arms and made my own Gen. II kit which I might do some day.