This is a good idea. I think that when people come up with this stuff, and they really want to make it work, it shows something about that person. If you can pull this off then you would have a truly one of a kind vehicle. I wish more people thought outside the box to come up with off the wall ideas, and had the drive to make them work no matter what.

 

Thanks!

 

My bad then... no biggie.
In the future, when referring people to Pirate, it may be good to warn them a little. It is customary for them to flame and raz newbies no matter what anyway.

On topic, I am looking forward to what happens with this as well. A rally car would be pretty fun, especially something to blaze around old fire roads on.

 

one of the pirate guys even said " they sent you here to get heckled"

which is right... whenever anyone here says go post on pirate, they are being a smartass, and that is putting it lightly.....

 

if i didn't think pirate would have anything that he might be able to find useful i wouldn't have sent him over there. Now if i said, try pirate, they're NICE guys and treat noobies SWELL, then ya, i'm being a smartass.

but if you know of a toyota tercel site that deals with modifing them for offroad use, then yes, that would have been a better place to go. unfortunatly, i don't have that one bookmarked.

 

well how they do it on the old subarus is kinda wierd. there is a crossmember that holds the engine/trans and the front suspension! so what they do is space that crossmember down and put spacers to push the struts down as well. pretty weird lookin under the hood, looks like the engine is falling out! hahahaha

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking might work on the Tercel. Don't know how the crossmember is mounted on it though. Would be cool! I wonder if longer struts could be put on for longer travel?

 

I dont know if you've looked here or not, but I was reading the Pirate thread and one guy mentioned a great idea. http://www.scca.org/garage/forum/default.asp?C=7 They dont have many members, or alot of activity it appears, but since your still in the planning stages, they might be able to point you in a better direction to pull more info.

 

I don't think longer struts would work for more travel without different arms. The arms and cv's can only move so far, so a longer strut won't allow for much more travel. It's the same dilemma we have with truck IFS.

Doing a 1" strut spacer is about the most to hope for, so maybe a 1" longer strut.

Lifting it with the stock components is concievable, getting more travel with stock components is relatively hopeless.

I'v espent hours looking at my celica trying to figure out how to get more travel or lift from it and it would just have to be fabbed alot.

The ideal situation would be if this has a solid rear axle and was rear wheel drive. Then lift would be fairly easy.

I think the most realistic combination will be this:

Strut spacer, with bigger coils or bigger struts or air struts. Then do some major fender trimming, fit those 235/75r14 swampers and call it a day.
if it is front wheel drive, there is no way to lift the front past it's window of travel without lowering the transaxle. Since the transaxle is securely mated to the engine, the engine would have to be dropped as well.

It would be alot easier to drop it on a truck frame than mess with the potential disasterof trying to lower the engine.

So in retrospect, either go all teh way and thro it on a truck frame, or max out the stock suspension height and net about 3" of lift and a really stiff ride.

 

It is front wheel drive. This suspension thing bums me out. I was hoping I could somehow put her on a rally suspension (Wow, I've come a long way in two days!), put on some decent tires and flare the fenders, then take care of the cosmetics and be done until the engine dies, at which point it would be swapped out for something more powerful. If I can't do up the suspension on the stock frame this might take a little longer.

 

"Suspensions for Dummies"

Do I have this right?

Struts - The part of your suspension that looks like a piston.
Coils - The springs around the struts.
Transaxle - The mechanism at the base of the engine that outputs the spin for the tires.
Travel - The amount that the struts & coils expand and contract.

So if the transaxle is 'mated' to the engine on my front wheel drive, it means the engine pretty much has to stay on the same plane as the front axle. I can't really raise the body because the body and engine need to be kept on the same plane as well?

When you say 'drop the engine', what you mean is that the engine would have to somehow be set lower in the body if I want to raise the body, because the engine (& transaxle) have to stay on the same plane?

 

You nailed it! That all sounds right to me.

Now, don't count out working with what you have. I'm not saying things can't be done, but thier will be limitations. As long as your final product doesn't exceed those limitations, you will be fine.

LLike I said before, you can get a few inches out of it as it stands, and if you do soem massive fender trimming, and I mean massive.....you might be lucky enough tof it 235/75R14's, but it will take all the lift you can get and a lot of trimmimg. 235/75R14 is about a 29" tall tire. OH, wait....I just checked BFG's website and found a smaller offroad tire......27x8.5R14

http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/asset...rain_ta_kd.pdf

That should make things a bit easier. What you need to figure out is how wide and tall your current tire is.

Let's say it is a 20 inch tire and your goal is that 27 inch tire....The difference is 7 inches (in height at least). Now half of that difference is above the rim and half is below the rim....

So to avoid hitting the fender, you need 3.5 inches of lift. With the above mentioned lift methods and soem healthy trimming, this can be done.....and fairly inexpensively. Keep in mind, those calculations are assuming that you have 20 inch tall tires now. Plus we didn't take into consideration the extra 3.5" in front of and behind the rim or the extra width.

I think those 27's are a reasonable goal...and a good tire to boot. If you can deal with abit of rubbing, then it will really be doable. Plus, you can always pound back the fender wells with a mallet.

 

Just going from a 20" tire to a 27" tire should make a tonne of difference then. I imagine just by replacing the existing struts and coils it will probably boost her up a bit too. I'm sure she's sagging on her stock suspension right now.

 

So if I get all new struts and coils with a bit of lift and then buy those kickass tires, what kind of costs should I expect?

 

From tirerack.com, the tires will run 87.00 a piece. Might be able to find a better deal locally,

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....e1=yes&place=0

Front struts are 49.99 a piece:

http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductL...rut%2C%20Front

Rear struts are 80.00 a piece:

http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductL...trut%2C%20Rear

Front Coils are 60.00 per set:

http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductD...ype=59&ptset=A

rear coils are 60.00 also:

http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductL...ring%2C%20Rear

Keep in miond all these parts are just factory replacement parts, so they will only bring you back to the height of the vehichle when it rolled out of the factory.

Maybe you can make a spacer to go between the new struts and the strut mount. I know on suzuki sidekicks, they flip the strut mount upside down to gain about 1". Otherwise you could trace the shape of the top of the strut and have a machien shop cut a 1.5" spacer out of aluminum.

I don't know if anyone makes coil spacer for these, but you could use a coil spacer with a new coil for lift under the strut combined with teh aluminum spacer above the strut.

You could also fab mounts to the lower arm and near the strut mount to mount a couple of the gabriel air shocks in addition to the struts. www.gabriel.com

These are just ideas, but it give syou somewhere to start.

 

Thanks. Great starting point. I have a couple of friends who know their way around auto shops. I should be able to get this stage of it done with a little help.

 

wow, i guess deathrunner is the man!! definetly keep us posted on how things go with pictures! and come back for any questions.

 

^^^ For sure. Like I said earlier, I'm still about 6 weeks away from getting started. BTW, do you guys know if these threads get deleted over time? I'd like to keep this one running, but I think it will be dormant for a bit while I build up the cash to make my first move.

Then again, I will probably be back with more questions before I actually start...

 

the thread wont get deleted