RTdawgs

have you measured your IFS travel, how much is it?

in this picture i measured a hair under 9" b/w the fully compressed and fully dropped tire.



i turned around and went the other way (downhill, all the weight on the front end) and i measured almost 10" of travel.



whats everyone else getting?

jalaber

7.5" with sway bars removed. Factory springs/shocks when I measured.

RTdawgs

no one else?

ravencr

I have't measured the front, but I've measured the rear:



Chris

ravencr

Here's another view of what a poser shot it was:



But, I've been able to get much better "Real Life" Flex shots on the trail, beause one front will be stuffed and the opposite side tire will be stuff causing a lot more weight to be on them, resulting in better flex. Poser shots really aren't true indications of what's up.

Chris

az4x4runner

I'll get you a 2nd gen measurment in a couple days.

az4x4runner

The most I could pull off today was 8" on a 2nd gen with pretty much stock suspension. The area I went was hard to find places where I could really flex it out (didn't have time to go farther because of work). I think it can do better, I'll try again tomorrow most likely.

BruceTS

14" but I have my limit straps set at 12", because they will stretch that extra bit....

EDIT* this is the suspension travel and not overall wheel travel. The measurements were taken with spring and wheel off the rig, then cycling the suspension, measuring from the hub assy for reference. Overall travel for flex purposes will be a bit more with the tire distortion added.

ravencr

Well measured the travel of my front end today, and it looks like I had a difference of 8.5-9" between the stuffed wheel and fully dropped wheel. I have stock 1997 coils, cornfed 1.5" spacer, revtek 1/4" top out extender, OME firm front shocks, and stock a-arms.

Chris

P.S. I have pics too, but haven't had time to upload them.

Jeff the marmot

7"-7.5" with SAW's, swaybar disconnected, no spacers, and stock A-arms.

You know guys, it would also be beneficial to report compressed and extended wheel travel from the center of the wheel hub - not just the travel distance. That way people can see where they're missing out on more travel. I'd recommend measuring from the center of the wheel hub so it's independent of which size wheels someone has or whether they have aluminum or steel wheels, etc. So it seems to me that the center of the hub would be a good standard. Even the fender flares extend totally flat from the metal fenders, so a measurement to the fender lip would be pretty independent of the model of 4Runner.

In 2001 when I first installed the SAW's, I got on a ramp and measured the front wheel travel to go between 18" and 25" from the center of the wheel hub to the fender lip. That's 7" of wheel travel with the swaybar removed. Note that since it was on a ramp, a majority of the weight was shifted to the rear wheels, so I could have gotten more compression than the 18" compression number shows if more weight was on it. Probably 7.5" or so of travel with more weight on compression.

I do know that the Fabtech/Fox coil-overs gave me more travel (primarily up travel) because I got an RTI score of 773 on a 20 degree ramp with them. I don't know the exact numbers of wheel travel for the Fabtech/Fox. Then the next day I swapped to the SAW's and ramped a 700 on the same ramp with the SAW's. I've known from the start that they are stiffer but with far fewer "issues", so I took the compromise. BTW, the SAW's have never been the ultimate solution. They've always had trade-offs.

Lately I've been impressed with the potential wheel travel numbers from those with aftermarket upper A-arms. And since none of those people have yet destroyed their steering racks from too much angle, I'll probably get either the Camburg or Total Chaos uniball arms this next year. They both claim 9.5"-10" of wheel travel assuming you have a coil-over that can cover that range. Only based on RTDawg's numbers, I assume that the SAW's can be spaced down a bit to utilize most of that travel.

I know that the Fabtech/Fox, Sway-A-Way, and Downey coil-overs all have to be just slightly compressed to fit into the stock droop of the A-arms. So they should allow only slightly more droop than a stock 4Runner, even with uniball upper A-arms. Kings are said to be too short since the a-arm needs to be lifted up to mount them at max droop. So this is when a small spacer above the coil-over assembly might help to shift the shock's travel down for more droop. A spacer there won't change any spring rate or the amount of weight that the coils support, as was discussed elsewhere. It just shifts it downward. But then with a spacer the SAW's or any of the common coil-overs might max out on compression. I don't know.

Downtravel seems to be limited by max shock(coil-over) extension, upper A-arm ball joint angle, and maybe other stuff binding such as steering or CV's. Uptravel seems to be limited by coil spring rate, resistance in the coil-over (bushings, etc), maybe coil bind, if someone spaces it down too far then maxing out compression of the coil-over, and if you can get there - the bumpstop.

Both Ravencr and RTDawgs have the Revtek top-out spacer. If I understand that correctly, it fits above the entire coil-over assembly to shift the shock travel downward which allows more droop and apparently isn't maxing out in compression. I'm amazed that ravencr's stock ball joints survive that. RTDawgs also has ATS a-arms.

BruceTS

Donahoe worked with Total Chaos in designing a set of shocks that give 9.5". the best part is they use 2.5" shock with 3" coils and are heim jointed top/bottom. I almost went that route, but I just had to try something different....hehe

What I had planned on doing was get 500lb springs but a bit longer in conjunction, so as to preload them. That way you could get the flex with the ride height without having to crank them up too far. You could even go with a lighter spring, just make sure you do the math on compression preload so you know how much longer of a spring to order.

Jeff the marmot

Yeah, the Donahoes seem to be king of the hill now. You also pay for it. The schraeder valve location is another feature that's a major disadvantage with the SAW's, but is awesome with the Donahoes (and Kings).

Concerning the 2.5" shock body, yeah the shock might perform better and the larger diameter coils might fatigue less, but I'm also aware that the hard core crowd at Pirate is generally avoiding 2.5" shocks (in favor of 2" shocks) because there is far less selection for coil rates, plus the coils and shocks are more expensive for generally the same end result. So I'm no longer convinced that 2.5" shocks are worth the extra money in the first place. Part of the advantage of adjustable coil-overs is the ability to tune them to your unique vehicle by replacing coils or re-valving shocks, both of which I've done in the past.

On our coil-overs, AFAIK all the popular ones come with 14" uncompressed coils. If you're going to move up one step in length you have to go with 16" coils. Even one year ago SAW was the ONLY company to make any 16" coils. Eibach is now making them. Others likely will if they haven't started already due to the explosive growth in use of coil-overs. 4Runner Downey springs are notably wierd in that they are custom 15" coils to fit over a 2" shock body. But if you're going to swap out coils, it's far easier and less expensive to buy a rate and length that already exists instead of custom mfg'ed coils.

Bruce, I'm still amazed that you're using 500 ppi coils with the longer lever arm of your new A-arms. I don't understand it. Do you know if Total Chaos moved the lower coil-over mounting point further out on the arm? That could counteract a lot of the added leverage, but would have a different angle (would get progressively stiffer) during further compression. IMO, Fear's look like his springs are too stiff since he should be able to get more compression out of that setup. If I'm ever in CA I'd love to check out the ride of both yours and his trucks.

ravencr

My upper ball joints seem to be fine with my setup. As far as BruceTS's setup, I would think his lower mounting location for the shocks would have to be further out on the a-arm if he's only running 500lb springs. The only problem I would see then is the overlength of the SAW's would need to be longer, I would think.

Chris

BruceTS

Yes, I do understand the dilemma with the 3" coils costing more, but they'll last longer. Considering the final goal is to make it flex as much as possible, I wanted the largest diameter spring that would fit. As for cost of custom springs, that's the price I'll have to pay venturing into unknown territory. At least with my trial and errors, others will have a better starting point to go with. Ultimately I'll have 2 sets of springs one for my normal use and one for slow speed crawling. I don't think it's feasible to use such a light spring for higher speed driving. In other words, I may have a very light set of springs made up with a bunch of preload, just so I can easily stuff my wheels to the bumpstops, with this in mind, driving at highway speeds could be unsafe, not to mention the additional body roll in cornering, but that could be augmented with larger swaybars.

As for down travel my set-up can go way beyond what the CV joints can handle, that why the limit straps. You'll have to be very careful with the stock suspension, not to extend too far, otherwise you'll make it easier to break axles.

When I first bought my 4Runner, I did some research into what mods I could do to it and at the time there just wasn't much that thrilled me. About a year ago, I started surfing the net and bookmarking every 4Runner site I could find. I kept up with all the stuff that was being tried, read the boards and taking notes. Even though I've only been posting a short period of time, I've been in the forums for a while now. It's just that I've always found the answers I needed, buy doing a search, rather than asking, no reason to say anything, until I physically started on my project.

What I did learn, is the current thinking on what's the best for IFS suspended 3rd gens was very limited. I wanted to do something that hasn't been tried yet, adding to the options open to the next person that modifies their rig. I'm in no competition on trying to be "King of the Hill" because I already lost that with the choices made. At best my ride will be a compromise with streetability the top on the list.

Jeff, if I get my ride finished and able to get the time off work, you may see me at the Colorado Jamboree next year.

RTdawgs

Jeff -

the 10" is without the Revtek spacer. it is with SAWs, ATS arms, and swaybar disconnected.

i havent yet measured the travel with the Revtek topout spacer, ill get that in the next few days.

ravencr

I've got some great flex shots loading as we speak, so stay tuned!

Chris

ravencr

Here's the latest flex shots from my trip this past Saturday with Dragr1 and his wife:





















We had a blast, and if you want to see the rest of the pics from this trip go here: http://www.toyota-4runners.com/windrock12-27-03.html and http://www.toyota-4runners.com/off-roading.html to see all my pics and vids.

Chris

P.S. I measured 8.5-9" , and I can't imagine having 14" with the TC kit. That would be awesome!

Robinhood150

hmm...just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if 4th gen X-reas shocks can be adapted to the 3rd gens? If so, then you can cross link them like elripster's air shocks and have low spring rate coils for off road. Put in a lockout valve and it's good for the street too.

ravencr

Have you ever thought about what would happen on an off camber with those cross-linked shocks?

Chris

Robinhood150

Yeah, that's why you have the lockout.