This has been covered to some extent for years, however OME offers different rear leaf springs than most of what I'm finding online. I'm reopening the discussion to allow for modern takes on Old Man Emu suspension and what they offer for 89-95 toyota pickups.

1989 Toyota Pickup, Regular Cab, 4WD, 5 speed W56 manual transmission, 4.10 Gearing, 22RE Motor, 31x10.5 Tires (might move up to 32x11.5 Tires in a year w/ Re-Gearing to 4.88s).

I'm looking into Old Man Emu lift options. Can't decide between these two Rear Leaf Spring options:
CS019R (Medium Duty) or CS020R (Heavy Duty).

Truck use:
70% Daily Driver, frequently in snow on dirt or paved roads w/ 150lbs minimum constant load when Daily Driving, generally no more than 200lbs constant weight load.
30% off-road driving, mostly bumpy/rocky/whoopy trails and fire roads with occasional "gritty" trail or "send it" moment, also frequent on-road snow driving - in this scenario I'm usually carrying constant weight loads between 200-650lbs+

My current suspension is super worn out. The rear springs are always bottoming out. My torsion bars are stock and pretty worn out as well - torsion bars are pretty relaxed. Both my front fender-to-top-of-tire (31's) measures 7.5in and both my rear fender-to-top-of-tire measures 6.5in.

My main concern is I don't want the truck to have extreme rake once OME lift is installed (extreme being around 2.5in+ higher in the back than the front). Ideally the springs sit about 1in higher in the rear than the front after settling but I don't want the rear to sag when I load 600lbs into the bed. I can deal with minor stiffness when unloaded or minimally loaded (100lbs-ish). I'm worried that if I go Heavy duty (CS020R OME Springs) the truck will have a 4" rake and only settle 2inches with 700lbs in bed. I'm getting a lot of mixed feedback when searching threads for the varying outcomes of installing HD vs MD springs.I definitely don't want to crank the torsion bars up super high to level - ideally torsion bars are very relaxed for comfortable ride. I'd rather not install a Ball Joint Spacer to level the front unless it's quite minimal so I as to keep torsion bars relaxed. I would rather not do a diff drop as a result of ball joint spacer unless it's needed. I know the rear springs might have to settle over a year or so through loading weight and using them.

I'm curious how much the CS020R springs will settle vs CS019R say after a year or two of moderate use with 500lbs+.

Does anyone think If I went with the HD CS020R springs, and rode around with about 500lbs in the bed for a month, would those springs settle for about 2in of lift when unloaded?

Any input is appreciated.

 

I have the CS0919R and have been running around with 300lbs of sand in the back and they haven't settled too much after over 500 miles. The heavy duty springs are usually recommended with people using toppers.

 

I decided on the medium duty OME rear springs and am pleased with them.I thunk the heavy duty ones would ride pretty stiff for a daily driver.