Back in 2002 when I was part of the 4X4 Wire staff I put a suspension collaboration together. It can be found here:

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/4Runner/tech/suspension/

Since then they have removed my name and given it to someone else. Irrelevant. But I would like to state is that basically ALL of the info in the article is WRONG. Four years later we have come so far with making the 3rd Gen 4Runner work extremely well off road with simple, high quality parts.

Today I am beyond embarrassed and humiliated with what I "thought" was good 4 years ago. Back then there were so few items for the vehicle and very few were even taken off road. There were no Straight Axle 3rd gens and it seemed as everyone regarded the "Most Expensive" parts as the best regardless of how they worked.

In fact the info is so bad that I honestly think a bone stock 3rd gen could probably out wheel a rig set up with that junk.

Today 4+ years later we have far superior coil-overs if that is the route you want to take and the Tundra coil lift that is just so outstanding and simple it is crazy. We have evolved so far, I would hate to see someone spend money building a seriously outdated rig from day one.

I just wanted to put the word out that I consider the article out of date and at this point in time an omen as you will be given advice that is no longer regarded as accurate.

Just a warning. The article is seriously out of date, one person passed away, many no longer own 3rd gens and the ones that still do, at best one guy still has on his truck what is listed.

 

It also matters what you are going to do with that setup. The all OME setup is pretty decent for the 95% onroad, 5% offroad that I do. Same thing goes for the PP springs and the bils many people are still using those and are quite happy with them. I understand the serious rock crawlers/offroaders should be heading towards and OEM setup like you guys developed but for the average joe, some of those are still old, but effective setups (again, keep in mind the usage).

.....SAWs were a different story, but we'll leave that one alone.
(in all fairness even those could be appropriate for a Baja built 4runner)

Steve, you've certainly been a huge pioneer on this front for sure!

 

Thanks for the update Steve, parts and research has come a long way!

 

I remember researching lifts back in 2002 when I was new to all this. I kept coming back to that page for a valuble source of info.


Ha, oh how my lift route outlook is different today

 

so, was everyone drunk back then when they said all those good things about OME stuff? there are some good endorsements on that page, i've read it many times...

 

OME is better than stock saggy springs and in my opinion, better than SAW's.

at that time, nobody had tried a better spring that gave a similar lift that had a decent price.

OME's were more of a "winner by default" than necessarily the best that could be had.

 

steve,

not trying to get into a pissing match here, but steve, you really gotta clarify here:

what you've written is only valuable insofar as you pointing out that there are better options than was previously available---and thats it. you've written in the past that one set up is really good, but then later, said its no longer good b/c something is better.

and so i dont think a blanket condemdation re "bad/wrong" is helpful. and what does bad/wrong mean anyways? does it mean its dangerous? if so, that would be very helpful to know. or does bad/wrong mean that there are severe limits to any particular setup that are not worth the money, have history of breaking cvs (for example), etc?

so again, it would be helpful to know which setups are not that great and why. otherwise, saying something is bad/wrong won't help anyone and might inflame said users and 4x4wire.com members/staff (not a good thing for anyone).

bob

 

Bob-

I have asked them to take my contribution down and they have refused. I am embarrassed on what is posted under my name as I have learned so much more and moved so much further forward since then. I just want to make it clear to everyone I no longer agree with what I wrote 4 years ago in 2002.

I consider my contribution to be inaccurate garbage and everyone should disregard it. I wish they would take it down as it no longer reflects any of my current views and it is very embarrassing to me at this time.

I will e-mail them one more time and ask that my inaccurate submission be removed.

Steve

 

IIRC the OME setup was designed for the heavier LC Prado 90 series, for a small lift and mroe weight carrying through the bush of Australia. Correct me if i am wrong but they do a little different style of wheeling down there. most of the pictures i see are in the open, or light wheeling. I am not saying that they dont, but i am saying that is what i came up with when researching a lift for my 4Runner. The artical is not showing up, and there is no reaosn that anyone should hold that against you, technology and experience change alot of things. I absolutely love the TRD LC lift, i am 100% street driven right now, and the ride couldnt be better. but if that was not known, im sure that I would have gone with some other setup that was the best at the time.

 

steve,

ah ok, now i understand what you are saying. its not the whole section per se, but what you wrote.

personally speaking, what you think is garbage in retrospect was invaluable information back then. someone has to try and pioneer things. it was expensive i bet, but from there, alot of people and companies piggybacked off your experiences (and money) and created better solutions

in short, dont be so hard on yourself job well done.

bob

 

Uhhh, linky no worky. I kind of get the jist though. I love my OMEs, when the time comes, I hope to pair them with better shocks then the KYBs, but they work extremly well for weekend warriors like myself. I get pretty decent flex, and have been up to level 2s at Paragon, I will probably run level 3s when I get my sliders on, but overall I have been happy with them. If I had it al to do again, I probably would have bought your OEM setup, Everything I got from you was very excellent(just put a set of your bumpstops in, got them used here). A few other guys run OMEs here, and no major complaints. Wuld help if I was able to pull up the link though.

 

Link doesn't work for me.

 

apparently 4x4wire.com is down...

 

The 'Wire got hacked last week, and they have to get a new box.
There is a thread on here about it.