great vids!! Amazing work.

 

Hey Nate,

Cant wait to get this on my rig!

Contacted you via the website. Interested in getting some info about the kit.
Please PM me when you are free. Maybe you're out on an expedition!

 

Awesome Robin!

Make sure you keep to the recommended tire size to get the most of it. I've beaten the crap outta mine and it's gotten me into and out of some fun trouble.

 

Thanks for the greeting. Planning on 33 x 12.5 3-4in lift nothing crazy its mostly going to be a baja expedition rig that I will occasionally crawl. Any recommendations or links I should check out I would appreciate. I spend a lot of time on here as it is!
Any ideas on how to get a hold of Blazen8?

-Robinton

 

He's around often enough. Send him a PM.

Keep on posting and make sure you get a build thread to show us your wheeling adventures.


Welcome the Yotatech.

 

Thanks Red Wagon. Here is my buildup thread just started.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f199...thread-278878/

Hopefully I can get this kit and do a detailed right up about it!

Thanks.

 

Robinton, send me a PM or write me an e-mail. My direct e-mail is blazelandn8 at yahoo.com, write me at yahoo for the fastest response. Sorry for being MIA on my build thread, nothing new to report on the 4runner.

 

I have a little news to report. I received an e-mail from King today about my front shock / spring set up. Here is the most recent conversation. (note this is after King had reviewed the videos and asked me for some measurements)

I wrote:
I had some time this weekend to check over the suspension. I found passenger side had settled. The measurement from fender to tire on the driver side was 11.125" while the passenger side was 10.500" The passenger spring length at ride height was 14.500" main, 3.625" tender. At Droop (limit strapped) 17.375" main, 3.750" tender. When I removed the pre-load (still limit strapped) I measured 17.750" main, 4.000" tender. My calculations give a pre-load of .375" main, .250" tender with a total of .625"

When I put it all back together I pre-loaded the main .750" and the tender .875" for a total of 1.375" pre-load. When I measured the fender to tire I got 11.250" driver, 11.000" passenger, a bit closer to level now. Maybe that extra pre-load and higher ride height will help with the hard bottoming and tire fender contact?

Do you think I need to adjust my valving or spring set up? If I do need to adjust my springs should I try a 18-500 or try a dual rate of, I don't know say a 12-500 and a 10-400? Or is this the point where I need to decide if I want a pre-runner or a trail crawler. Or is there still a possibility of a multi-purpose rig?

King wrote:
The spring rate sounds good, I would not see needing to make any change to that. If your tender coil is complete compressed at ride height or your coil slider is sitting on the secondary nuts to get your ride height than the preload will be measured off the lower spring.

I would suggest that since you are doing both crawl and pre-run with this truck, to add our high speed compression adjuster option. With this option you can add more compression when needed just by adjusting the knob from soft to firm. There is 20 positive clicks of adjustment. The compression adjuster cost $300.00 per shock.

 

Having the compression adjuster sounds sweet but $600 will be painful. I am sold on the compression being soft, especially in the roller whoop video. But, I also see the front end spring back rather quickly after being compressed. King doesn't mention this? Am I mistaken on the rebound?

In other related happenings! The limit straps are designed to stretch 1" per foot and are 18" long so I estimated they would stretch 1.500" as a baseline. If it had stretched 1.500" the UCA would contact the droop stop bracket. If it did hit there would be a mark in the paint, but no contact. With that info I adjusted the limit strap to give another half inch of droop. Hope that wasn't too much.

As for the bump stops you can see in the video the tire contacts the fender. And the aftermath is my fender near the door jamb is pushed in and dented. I have a set of bump stops with a 1/2" shim, I'll be installing those before my next trip.

 

Had some parts powder coated and I piggy backed in a new set of Mega Travel LCAs in the lot. UCAs are Bengal silver so why not the LCAs.

I am needing to pull the old MT LCAs off to install the new set because the new ones will have the poly bushing conversion. The alignment cams are all over the place, my theory is the rubber bushings are a factor?

If that doesn't fix it I have some other corrections to make in the design of the cam receivers on the sub-frame. The laser cut design for the "slot" length need some adjustments. I made it too short so to compensate I made the width of the vertical weld on's too wide, and this created some slop. Next sub-frame will correct these issues.

The other design short coming may be the LCAs are +6" over stock and that just flat out over leverages the assembly. Then again maybe I didn't tighten the bolts enough or they just loosened up. Time to play detective!

 

I installed bushings in the new LCAs yesterday. The full floating non-binding poly bushings should reduce the forces on the alignment cams. The old rubber bushings were showing some wear. They were getting dry, showing some cracking, and starting to chunk apart.



Off with the old LCAs, on with the new.



I came across a set of take off rims and tires on Sunday. The tires are toast but I kind of like the rims. 16x7 w/ 4.5" backspace. I think a set of 285/75/R16 BFG A/Ts would look nice. Would really reduce in the track width. It would also allow the removal of the 1" Body Lift and eliminate tire rubbing on the fenders. The complication is the 5.29 gears will be too tall and RPMs way to high on the freeway. Anyway here is what it could look like.

 

Looks good Nate. I'm getting the long travel bug again after seeing this..... Been looking into some 10" 2.5s. And bump stops.

I wonder if there is a more solid way to set the alignment? I know I've whacked mine out of place a few times.

It would be cool to maybe set up some sort of retaining pin to prevent it from twisting. But that's going to cause issues of you want to adjust it.

 

I like how you made your own shackles. I just replaced my 4" blocks with skyjacker 4-6" soft ride springs and now I have the problem of my shackles inverting and its supposed to be a bolt on product Any body know what to do? Im a newbie

 

I have not experienced an inverted shackle. Do a search or start a new thread, I'm sure some folks will be able to help. Best of luck.

 

Looks like the mega travel is moving forward. It's a sweet setup. Seen it in person and in action.

Sorry I haven't been updating much. The hoops have been installed but haven't got a shocks yet. Been posting up a lot of my current set up on Facebook pages. Got interest and I answer as much as I can. Hope to have some type of shock before the jamboree. Hope to see you there.

 

Hey Toyo! No worries on the shock hoops I sent you being on the back burner. Thanks for pimping Blazeland on your FB page. I have a FB page but nothing Blazeland related on my page. I'm gonna try and make the Jamboree!

The Mega Travel is moving forward but slowly. I have the second prototype 90% done. Its on the frame clip getting ready to go to the Fab Shop to be torn apart and estimates made for it to be reproduced. There are going to be some more refinements to get this to a production level but its exciting times. I am nervous about the financial investments. I am nervous about if I "build it, will they will come" It may not pan out, its still early and the estimates are a big unknown. Either way when I get the second prototype back its going into the Fordota. I actually started getting it ready. I bolted on a drop bracket kit to get the ride height set. I switched out the shock hoops, built the bump stop brackets, installed the spindle spacers, installed some bigger tires, etc. I have been posting pictures and a write up as I go on my other build thread. Here is the link.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f198...l#post52196343

 

The image of mega travel frame in #321 get me every time.
I looked through the thread again and again...what does the WMS to WMS come out to?

 

It is basically the same track width as any of the LT kits built to use the T-100 CVs. The same as the standard Blazeland Long Arms, which is about +3.5 longer on the control arms and +7 on the track width. I took a rough WMS to WMS measurement and came up with approximately 65"

 

Pics look awesome!!Im talking to you when i have the dough to do my 89 runner!!Gotta get my 4.3 swap sas truck done first!!

 

Not a whole lot of update items to report. Just been doing a lot of street driving. Now I am preparing her for the summer, going to be my daily driver. Remember I swapped in the new LCAs, well last week I got a profession alignment. The LCAs were identical to the previous ones, only now with poly bushing, and silver powder coat. Anyway the alignment came in spec but the caster was maxed. It drives nice but a slight pull to the left. I need to look closer at the print out.

I was pulling into the Home Depot parking lot this morning and saw this sweet looking TRD Tacoma.



So i parked next to it.



Looks like a similar amount of lift. Tire is 35x12.50xr15.



Took a picture of the suspension.



Zoomed in for another picture.



Wow look at that up travel, must be a solid 2"
The suspension from another angle.



And another. Wait, something is missing? Can you see what is missing?