4th gen... how much diff to level front and rear
 

Done a lot or searchin and a lot of readin.

Anyone have a definitive idea of the amount of extra lift required in front to level the 4th gen ?

Its really difficult to determine except by eye.

I jacked the front on a floor jack to what looks level and I know how much the underside of the fender needs to raise but its difficult to relate that to a spacer set up due to spring preload, above and below top plate spacers etc.

If anyone thinks they got it nailed down, please let me know....

Many thanks

David

a 3.5" spacer upfront should do it.

Biff,

Thanks for the email mate :D

I forgot to ask how much you have in back with the 2.5 in front or are you running nothing in back ???

David

I'm just running the front, if I had 4wd I would have done the back as well.

Measure from the top of the fenderwell to the ground on a nice level floor.
The jack it till it's level (or till you like it) and measure again.
That's the size spacer (or whatever) you would need.
Spring preload and all that stuff make no difference here - the springs will still carry the same weight so their loaded height will not change - if you put in a 2" spacer it will go up 2".

3.5" in the front, Biff?! I have 1.5" more in front than I do in the rear and even that makes it look like a rocketship pointing to the sky ...

And no, Phil, if you put 2" of spacers in there, it is going to give you more than 2" of lift, period.

Biff, did you mean 2.5" ? You wrote 3.5" ...

psss tracy, he's 2wd remember? (not as much nose weight)

if he doesn't have as much nose weight, then 3.5" is still going to be too much! if you are referring to the fact that it means 2" spacers are going to give 2", then that's my mistake.

The reason that a fixed amount of lift at the shock corresonds to more lift of the truck or at the wheels is due to the fact that the wheel is all the way at the outside of the lower a-arm and the shock mounts part of the way down.

What this means is , if you increase the length of the strut/coilover by say 1" , it pushes down the a-arm 1" at the point at which the shock is mounted.

The wheel is mounted further out from that point and as the lower a-arm 's inner point is fixed, the a-arm moves more than 1" at its outside end or where the wheel is mounted.

There is a ratio for how much the wheel moves down for how much the shock length extends. I will do some measurements tonight and work it out exactly (I have no life :D )

Draw it...it really is true :)

David

David, thanks for expanding on that -- I agree with what you are saying, as it's what I have found as well, but Lance seemed to be disagreeing with me when I stated that a 2" spacer would give more than 2" of lift at the wheel.

What would Lance know...Rookie :laugh:

(ducking for cover..... while Lance goes for chain saw )

:saw:

David

rookie here never stated 2" will give 2" :) thank you for reading between the lines.

i just stated that he's 2wd so he's abit lighter up front and it'll give him abit more room for height. as for the 3.5" lift i'm pretty confident he's wrong but he doesn't have any rear lift unlike you tracy so he will get abit more up front w/ his 2.5".

hope this clears up

remember he's 2.5" more up front than the rear since he's stock in the rear so he won't be nose down (draggster style).

nah, Lance is probably right, and I'm probably just an idiot who is missing the point here.

no, I know that Lance, I was not saying he would be nose-down, I was saying that if you put 3.5" up front and nothing in the rear, you will be nose-up. aren't we saying the same thing, Lance?

welp i've never seen anyone do a 3.5" up front and nothing on the rear so i wouldn't be able to say what it'd look like (would like to see for kicks though....)

since you're redoing your lift, how about a quick photo for us? ;)

but i would suspect that 3.5" up front would make it level to some degree if you look like the contour lines of the 4runner. the headlights will point up though but i suspect it'll look level.

when biff installed the 2.5" lift it still looked like it could go 1 more inch to make it level (this is all perspectives though but we both agreed that maybe 1 more inch will make it truely level).

not sure as we didn't have any means to testing it out but i know he's pretty happy w/ the 2.5" :)

yeah, 2.5" would be around what i'd guess would be near level ... i have a 1.5" difference between my front and rear heights, 4" in the front and 2.5" in the rear, and people tell me it looks like the rear is sagging, and that's only with 1.5" more in the front than in the rear. at the same time, however, measurements from the ground to the fender show it to be exactly level ... despite that in looking at it, it appears that the nose is up. so, the contour lines do definitely effect your perception of its being level ... just not sure to what degree.

how much lift do you have, front and rear, Lance? maybe we could get a few pictures up in this thread that show different lift heights and the difference between front and rear lift, so we can see the different looks? i'll try to dig through some files here and find some ... if you have any, i know it'd be a great resource to add to this thread!

hmm i'll have to look for some... i never took straight level shots since most of mine are ugly action shots.

i have no clue how much lift i have exactly now but i guess i can just get my measuring stick and measure it when i have a chance :)

with no lift:

http://box.ixolo.com/none.jpg

with 3" of lift in the front and 2.5" in the rear:

http://box.ixolo.com/revtek3.jpg

with 4" of lift in the front and 2.5" in the rear:

http://box.ixolo.com/ne4.jpg

well, it looks like with no lift, the contour of the bottom of the truck where the running boards would be is almost completely level/horizontal to the ground. this would make sense because in producing the stock 4th gen., the nose is meant to be raked down, and the contours of the truck were designed in light of that fact to still look normal and level. it has been my experience that in lifting the truck, when it is truly level, the running boards (or if you have taken them off then the line of the frame where they'd normally be attached) will begin to slope upward toward the front. this makes sense because when they designed it to be nose-down in stock form, the contours, frame, and running boards would aesthetically need still to be level and parallel to the ground (in spite of the nose-raking).

edit:
looking at the pictures i just posted ... i just realized that while the running boards and frame might be parallel to the ground without any lift, the actual cladding slopes downward toward the nose ... so as you lift it in the front, while the running boards and frame might not appear to be "level" (in the sense that they are completely parallel to the ground), the actual cladding lines will start to look more level.

edit #2:
oh, and keep in mind that the driveways in these pictures are sloped a bit...

FWIW-

I am running 2 3/8" total spacer height up front and am just shy of 5" of lift. I have a 1 5/8" tall lower and a 3/4" tall upper spacer. n99 did a pretty good job of explaining it as best we can. when the height is added at the strut, exponential gains will be made as you move to the wheel...think of it as a simple fulcrum situation if that helps...the farther you get from the point of pivot, the more movement rendered. You all seem to have it pretty much nailed down by this point in the thread...i just wanted to shed light that my spacer height is giving me double at the hub.

Anthony :)

R- those pics do a damn good job...thx!