Hello Everyone,

About 2 months ago completed a OME 2.5" lift on my 1uz V8 swapped 92 4x4 yota pickup. When I did the swap I also added 1.5" ball joint spacers to relieve the CV's, brand new OME shocks, CV's and upper and lower balljoints, 1" body lift during the swap with brand new bushings all around, inner and outer tie and an alignment. Ever since the lift the trucks ride HORRIBLY bumpy/rough, far more then it should and far worse then it rode on the old stock setup(with blown out shocks and drooping leafs on the old one), I have driven lifted leaf sprung trucks before and know there is some added roughness every time you lift but this is far far far more then normal, to the point where if I hit a bump the throttle is all over the place because the truck is moving so much from my foot and the vehicle moving, its fine for short drives but almost undrivable long distance and definitely can't have an open drink in the cupholder or even keep my head against the headrest without it slamming back and forth.

I did not use heavy duty springs and used there medium level springs, it has been about 3 months since the install and I drive around with about 200LBS of sand bags in the back to try to help mitigate some of the bounce. I have 31" tires and have tried riding with the PSI lower which helped a tiny bit but not much. My torsion bars are barely tightened at all and far far far less cranked then the ones I took off, they are currently almost untightened as far as possible, I know this is a common problem so I continued to loosen them to no real success at any level of tight or not tight.

Does anyone have any insight here on what might be going on? Everything on this truck suspension wise is new/upgraded from the old completely blown out setup but somehow rides immensely worse now even a month or two after this upgrade.

Thanks,
Sam

 

I hated mine. I ended up pulling them out, grabbing my old Toyota springs, and swapping in one leaf from the OME pack. That was the best combo I could come up with to salvage the investment.
I have read where some took a single leaf out of the OME pack and that helped. Not sure which leaf though.

Edit: one thing's for sure. If you install OME leaf springs, rear shocks will last forever. Never get used

 

[QUOTE=Jimkola;52494104]I hated mine. I ended up pulling them out, grabbing my old Toyota springs, and swapping in one leaf from the OME pack. That was the best combo I could come up with to salvage the investment.
I have read where some took a single leaf out of the OME pack and that helped. Not sure which leaf though.

I appreciate the insight, definitely leaning towards this at this point. After an extremely disappointing month long ticket with ARB they said the symptoms are abnormal (which I disagree with because clearly its a prevalent issue) and that they are unable to determine a root cause. Im going to start by pulling a leaf out of each pack sinch im usually either unloaded or under 200 LBS and see how it sits, I have also read some reports that the nitro charger shocks can actually account for a lot of the stiffness but not too sure on that one and I will wait until I pull a leaf

Overall super disappointing performance out of a nearly 3 thousand dollar suspension kit, I can't even have a drink in the cupholder without it going flying. Its like all of the bumps, potholes and rocks are not being absorbed or dampened whatsoever and sent straight to the cab on the road. Even mild off-roading with the truck so far is way too stiff and doesn't absorb any minor drops/

 

I think OME is ok for those going big and are doing SO much suspension mods that it was going to ride hard no matter what springs they put on.
If someone is trying to have performance similar to what Toyota intended I think OME is a long ways away. And OME should just tell perspective buyers this, rather than act surprised and make suggestions they know from past customer input that'll do little. I've seen comments about this all the time here, and on other forums. To say your the only one is rather disingenuous. That, or actually come out with a milder spring pack that is intended for stock height and ride comfort.

 

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Thanks again for your help on this last year, one year update time

Digging this one back up, These OME springs are just terrible. I have done everything I could think of over the last 12 months to make these usable as a daily. I pulled a helper spring as many others have, even though there support screamed not to as it could comprise and crack other leafs but im willing to take that risk at this point. It helped a tiny amount but nothing drastic, I have tried longer shackles, insured they are greased and arched correctly which changed almost nothing. Next I swapped the horrific OME "sport" shocks that came with for a new set of Bilsteins 5100's, I would MUCH rather go with the yellow 4600 Bilsteins but they do not carry one designed for a lift on a toyota pickup (that I could find, PLEASE correct me if im wrong on that ) the new Bilsteins helped a tiny bit, but again the ride is still terrible

The only way I found to make the truck semi drivable was to put 300 pounds of sandbags in the back and lower the torsion bars to the point there only about an inch over stock ride height, and I really do not want to constantly have to load/unload 300 lbs of sand when I need to use my bed.

I really love this truck and love it lifted but at this point driving it on a regular basis on the road is making me want to sell it, it is horrible. I cannot keep a drink in the cupholder or not have my head constantly slam into the headrest. Does anyone have any suggestions? any other lifted leaf sets that don't destroy drivability or possibly more road oriented shocks that work with a 2.5" lift?

 

I don’t think there’s much shocks can do to lessen the severity. If the spring pack was soft and bouncy than shocks have something to work with, but not when the springs are stiff as hell.

Having the front torsion bars as close to stock makes a huge difference in ride quality at the front. Takes a lot of stress off the upper ball joints, too. Mine was cranked about 1 1/2" over stock. Slightest bump was jarring.

i read my previous post and it’s a bit vague regarding what I did on the rear. My goal was to make it not unpleasant to drive around town. the previous owner had put spacers at the rear to compensate for sag(which caused issues with the P-brake cable), then cranked the front torsion bars to level. My goal was to get rid of the spacers and return front to stock height. The front was easy, the rear springs is where all my non-fun began.
I dragged out my old Toyota spring packs from storage, then removed the OME springs from the vehicle. Removed the center bolts from all of them.
I then removed one of the longer leafs from the Toyota pack, I think it was second longest, but maybe the third. I then removed the equivalent leaf from the OME. I put the OME leaf into the Toyota pack and reassembled and installed on the 4Runner. So i now have my original springs back on, but with one new leaf. this got my rear end pretty close to it's original, non-sag, height.
i picked a longer leaf for the swap hoping to spread the load better and avoid breaking any of the older leafs that I kept in the pack.