I was wondering why people don't skip the 1" and 2" Body Lifts altogether and do a 5" Tough Country Tacoma IFS front and a Rear Leaf Spring Conversion?

Rear Leafs is a piece of cake, now a front SAS is not. So why didn't I do this, because I wanted to try an SAS and an 8.5" front diff sounded good to me.

But this would be a low cost, keep your front drive train and steering system and gain the height for 35's. By leaving the front with a stock coil and a nice shock with no spacers or lift springs, it will have alot fo droop and up travel.

Seems like a nice idea to me.

 

aren't those kits around $1500 not including the rear leaves????
I understand your point, but I was able to "ease" into the 265s--285s--305s

Tundra/TRD setup was pretty cheap and the BL came later

My buddy wants to run 35s on his 99Taco and wants the Fabtech 6" kit. All those brackets turn me off. don't know why, just do

PLUS when we all saw how well your truck worked with the FRank setup, it is a little hard to spend all that cash, when it works much cheaper.
THe Tundra?TRD was the icing on the cake

 

Sure the kit is $1500 but the penguin flippers are going to work a heck of alot better at stock height.

315's are where you want to be.

 

and i was only plannin on 305s...Thanks

 

Just out of curiousity, is the front suspension of 96-02 tacoma the same as the front suspension of a 3rd gen 4runner or do you have to do something different to make the kit fit on a 4runner? If they are the same than why doesn't someone offer a 5" or 6" front bracket kit for a 3rd gen 4runner and then just use longer coils with a panhard drop bracket instead of leafs in the rear? Would it really be that complicated?

 

Wouldn't the cost of those two kits be around $3000? That much money I would do a long travel with rear leaf spring coversion....whats another $1500-2000.

 

Yes. The links are too short for lift like that.

Front is the same.

 

Total parts would be $2500 tops. $1500 for the front and $1000 for the back if you did it fancy. With factory brackets and Alcan or custom leafs.

This assumes you can do more than just "bolt on" of course.

 

Why switch to rear leaves? Why not get longer coils and links?

 

I tried that, got her up to 4.5" and it wheeled weird and was down right scarry on the freeway at 70+

Leafs are so easy to put on a 3rd Gen and seem to work just fine.

 

Long springs are not the answer for the rear especially with short and weak links that Toyota supplied them with. SteveO I think had a setup like the one you are describing and it seemed to have worked pretty well.

Steve did you put the chevy leaves in the rear or did you go with somehting else?

 

FJ-60/62 rear leafs, sprung under.

 

I had a '00 4runner and actually looked into exactly this. Turned out quite a bit needed to happen to make the rear drop that much. (driveline, gas tank, ect)

 

I looked into this as well and got word that it would be somewhat unstable with the leafers in the rear?? If i could get some more answers, i'd consider doing this.

 

Why would it be unstable? All 1st gens had rear leafs, along with many other SUV's. It might be a bit stiffer, but thats it.

 

Yeah, i don't think it would be unstable...Just a bit stiffer...Only, don't put in blocks to lift the leaves, get a pack set for the height you want. Blocks are very bad.

 

Simple answer: People like BOLT ON application where they can go back to STOCK when needed. Getting rear leaf means lots of and only a few are willing to do that mod. Some people freak at the idea of just grinding stuff down so just imagine what they would think about welding! doh! Ya also gotta play around and tweak/tune the rear until it's set perfectly where most people don't have the patience to take the time to do so. So I think that just rules it out.

But I think those that do plan to keep their vehicles have more choices than just bolt on applications though.