Rishi

Planning on installing Donahoe coilover (part # 5-8630) in my 2003 4runner, to get around 2.5" front lift. With stock parts, there is about 4" downward articulation possible in the front wheels (relative to normal position). Will this 4" downward articulation be reduced after the Donahoe coilovers are installed?

FirstToy

No the articulation will be fine.

Problems that you might run into is the angle of the upper a-arm will be at it's limit where it can hit the coilover on full droop and stress the stock a-arm joint. This is why people get uniball upper a-arms to replace the stock ones- also it will allow for a bit more articulation-probably about an 1" more droop.
Camburg and Total Chaos are the current options.

With 2.5" of lift, I'm not sure if you will run into this problem. I believe you can contact Donahoe and Camburg (Sway Away) to get more detailed info. Also Good Times (Lance) would be a good person to ask.
You can also contact Calrockx who has this setup on his 3rd gen and can give you insights into the "how & why". He has Donahoe 2.5's and Camburg a-arms.
Here is a start w/ Calrockx setup
http://www.calrockx.com/4runner/myru...ds/offroad.php

What are you going to do for the rear suspension?

There are other lift options coming soon also.

Rishi

Thanks. Does the ball joint upper arm have a wider opening that prevents it from hitting the coilover at full droop? Or is the arm itself thinner, allowing it to come closer to the coilover strut at full droop?

For the rear lift, I was thinking of Revtek 2.5" spacer. Any recommendations? Someone said Downey springs (for 2" rear lift) sag after time, so I want to play it safe.

Could you describe the other options that are coming soon?

FirstToy

The uniball has much more allowable movement than your stock a-arm. It is also has more clearance.
If you look at your stock a-arm and compare it to the Camburg on Calrockx site, for example, you will see the Camburg (as well as Total Chaos) has much more clearance and movement.

As for the Downey coils, Good_Times has run these personally so you can ask his opinion.

The Donahoes though, they are regarded as the best coilover money can buy and I haven't heard otherwise.

sschaefer3

Uh, no.

Of course if you take away from the 4" of droop to add 2.5" of lift you will be left with 1.5" of droop.

If you can not justify the front lift, do not add it. All IFS lift robs droop to give you height.

This is the 100% reason I installed a Dana 44. Gain height and do not give up droop.

Just because a lift costs alot does not make it better. Last January, Casey did all he could to keep up with me on our race into Box Canyon. He had SAW's and I had Tundra coils.


Casey now runs my old Tundra coils. Understand?

FirstToy

When someone w/ a 4th gen wants to do a SAS they know who to call now.

The Donahoe is the best made coilover available for the 4th gen that I know of.
I never said price = better performing lift.

The 4th gen has about 8" of IFS travel w/ a 2.5" Daystar lift, probably about 5-6" w/ swaybar connected.

The articulation will be fine. I understand Steve's point that you are loosing travel as you lift (that is true, I know that) but my point is if you need to lift it, you need to lift it. The questions are how to do it and how much lift.

So the point I'm raising is: If you run the Donahoes, check with a 4th gen owner that knows- the a-arms, as I'm not sure if the rubbing/ stock joint stress is going to be a problem or not. Also the additional droop the new a-arms might be worth it to you too.

Lots of variables to consider and the best way to tackle is, imo, to ask those that have experience with it which is why I recommended you contact the people I listed.

sschaefer3

Just to be clear here, the point I am making is that in the 3rd Gen world. We all tried these expensive SAW, KING, Etc. shocks years ago. We all tired these fancy upper a-arms. In the end alot of us ended up going back to stock components.

Stock Tundra coils, modified stock upper arms, etc.

Before this guy dumps all kinds of money into "High Speed" gear, maybe he sould consider a simple lift like your Daystar or the Revtek.

How do you know Donahoe makes the best coil over? Did you read this on the Internet or did you actually install them on your truck? See what I'm getting at.

This is the problem I have ran into alot. Cool on the internet and the thing shows up and it's junk. Buy a set of MT/R's and you'll exactly what I'm talking about.

FirstToy

I know because I've seen a Hoe coilover taken apart, explained to me by an independent authourity and have the opinion of people I trust. They are well made product. Unless I hear different, that is what I will tell people: If you want coilovers, you can't get much better than Donahoe.
How they perform on 4th gens? Verdict is out but the early reviews are damn good.

I also have MTRs and ALL my wheeling friends whom I greatly respect almost all use MTR's or rate them highly. Calrockx and BruceTS are two of my fav. 3rd gens, they run MTR's too.
Verdict is in and MTRs are great.

If someone wants spacers I'll be glad to help, if someone wants coilovers I'll be glad to help. If somone wants NE, I'll be glad to point them to an excellent repair shop.

New things are popping up for 4th gens all the time, if I don't know something then I'll gladly point 4th gen owners to those that have first hand knowledge, kind of like what I've been doing in this thread.

r0cky

I run MTRs as well and they are by far the best tires I've run on and off road. Though that isn't necessarily saying a great deal, I do rate them heads above some of the other tires I've seen people run.

The SAWs are great coilovers as well - they were recommended to me by Good Times during a long phone conversation, and ever since I put them on my truck I've been wishing I had them all along. I hear great things about the Donahoes as well, but to my knowledge, there isn't a huge difference between the two.

FirstToy

Oh yeah the SAW Racerunner. I know they have a page w/ 2005 taco pics, do you have a link or take pics of your setup?

BruceTS

The 2.5" coilovers that are avaliable today are far superior to the 2.0's that came out a few years ago. With that said, they still need to be properly tuned to each rig. Donahoe went to great lengths to pre-tune his coilovers to perform well for the Taco's, but they have been installed on 4Runners and have gotten excellent results.

The uniball upper a-arms are one of the most popular upgrades and nobody who has installed them have ever had any complaints or joint problems. The reason for replacing the stock arms is very apparent, the boots leak and when a rig is improperly lifted cause ball joint failure. Considering all the added benefits to the BLING BLING arms, they are well worth the $$$.

The good thing about the internet is you get more than one persons opinion about a given product, make sure you read them all. The bad thing is when opinions are given about a certain product by people that have NEVER tried them, ignore comments from those smoke blowers. As for 4th gen lift options, don't ask me I have no experience with them since I own a 3rd gen, ask GoodTimes, he's been working closely with a few companies on the options avaliable.

MT/R"s are an excellent tire with thicker sidewalls and are less prone to failure.......if it's not true then why don't you see AT tires being used on competiton rigs???? There's a good reason why, you get much better grip with wider spaced lugs, but then again comparing a 33" MT's to 35" AT's is like comparing apples to oranges. I went from 32" AT to 35" MT's and there was a huge difference in performance. For my next set of tires, you guessed it they'll be MT/R's......