xlcaferacer
Adventurer
This thread started out to show what some simple modifications to an early Toyota ifs suspension was capable of; both to increase trail performance and to give some room for increased tire size on the cheap. As my experience with the truck on the trail has increased, so have my modifications. I now aim to take this thread in a slightly different route. I want to show those that are getting into to the world of exploring with an early ifs (torsion bar front end) Toyota Pickup or 4Runner how they can modify it in stages in order for it to do what they want it to do, all while keeping it budget friendly and without having to do a solid axle swap (SAS).
All of this comes from my real world experience and will not be sugar coated (if others have different experiences please share). I am updating my first post from many years ago so that that what you read is my true progression of what I have done to make my early ifs Toyota more capable for getting out and exploring. I tell people that my truck is built to get me to the secluded camp site that they can't get to. It has also been a fun evolution!
I do have a true build thread of my truck on here that is filled with both trail worthy stuff and various modifications to my camping setup. But I want this thread to be all about how to gradually increase your ifs truck's capabilities on the trail.
What I started with back in 2011 was a bone stock 1989 Toyota pickup with a 22RE 4cylinder engine and 101,000 miles. The build slowly began from there. The only notable features that have not been included in the following posts is that I have re-geared to 4:88's in the differentials with a Detroit locker in the rear and put a 4.7 gear kit in a single transfer case.
PLEASE chime in with real world experiences on what you have experienced off-road with your trucks so that others can learn from your experiences.
Here is a pick of where the truck is now and the following text is where it started with the original post. Hope some folks can learn something from it:
And the story begins:
So, it was nice out today in my snowy little ski town and I had a little time on my hands so I thought that I would see what the results of my winter suspension mods would do. I started the winter with no lift up front and Old Man Emu "medium" springs in the rear to handle the weight of my Wildernest camper. The camper weighs about 300-350 pounds and with the OME "mediums" in the back the truck sat about 3/4" - 1" higher than stock with the camper on and none of the load that I carry when on the trail. I am running 33x10.50 BFG M/T's and had slight rubbing issues on the front without any lift, even with some trimming and pinch weld hammering. I had already done some trimming in the rear to get rid of some rust on the upper wheel wells and to gain some clearance for a bumper that I built.
I decided that a small lift was in order to gain some lift in the front to alleviate the rubbing, and to add a little more weight carrying capacity to the rear. Over the winter I added an extra leaf to the rear to make the springs the "heavy" version of the Old Man Emu setup. For the front I went with 4Crawler's 1 1/2" ball joint spacers and a 1" diff drop for sake of cv joint longevity. I also relaxed the torsion bars a half inch to put the cv's in a closer to stock operating position while running down the highway in 4wd during the icy parts of winter. Overall I ended up with about 1" of lift up front and about 1 1/2" in the rear. I would have liked to have added Old Man Emu shocks as well because I feel they would have given a better ride but, I went with KYB Monomax's for a 0-2" lift as I am on a budget and they were half the cost. They ride firm but they are o.k. and not too stiff.
Today I stacked some blocks to drive up on and see how the setup flexes. I started with a 12" wood block and backed my rear driver's side tire onto it. I continued to add height to my makeshift RTI ramp until my suspension was maxed out front and rear with the final block measurement being 19 1/2 inches tall. Although I have not tested the truck on the trail yet since they are still under snow in my part of the country; with my testing today, I feel that it will give me a competent setup on the trails when they do melt out. I'm sorry that I don't have pics or results from when it was stock but the info and pics that follows gives a pretty good idea of what about $600 in parts can do to an early IFS Toyota for a minimal lift, with tight suspension characteristics (I don't have a front sway bar) and decent flex. After a lot of research this is what I feel is the maximum level of performance you can get out of the early IFS without going to a long travel front setup. I have been street driving it for about 2 months now and am quite happy with the ride. Time will tell how the cv's hold up on the trail, but with the diff drop and relaxed torsion bars I feel like I will be o.k.
This is how the truck sits on level ground (forgive the plywood in the driveway, it is mud season here and with a dirt driveway you do what you can to keep mud from getting tracked into the house).:
Pic from the driver's side. Note that the front wheel is about 1/2" off the ground. I am using stock upper bump stops and low profile lower bump stops. I will probably switch back to stock lower bump stops as well because I don't feel that the low pro's made that much difference as the truck was teetering and I had yet to hit my lower bump stops on up travel on the passenger side. Here's the pic:
From the front:
From the passenger side:
Finally, from the rear:
A pic of the "block" I used:
And finally a pic of what it looks like on flat ground with the camper on:
By measuring from the top of the rim's lip to the fenders at all four corners while both sitting level and flexed out, I figure I have about: 2 inches of down travel and 5 1/2 inches of up travel in the front for a total front travel of 7 1/2 inches. In the rear I measured 3 1/2 inches of up travel to a flat spring and 9 1/2 inches of down travel until a front wheel lifted off the ground for a total of about 13 inches of travel in the rear. Again; 7 1/2 inches up front and 13ish inches in the rear give or take, as my method of measuring is subjective. While it is no rock monster, I feel that this is a fairly respectable suspension setup for a combination daily driver/weekend explorer/trail toy/camping rig. I hope this helps out anyone looking for a budget suspension that I hope will hold up to the task of moderately difficult trails when I get to play again this summer. I will definitely update this in a few months when I am able to put it to some real world testing. As of now I am happy with my setup. I do have some questionable cv boots so we will see how they hold up to the BJ spacers ( I do have new boots ready to go on but I want to see what happens to the old ones in the interest if science and engineering). I hope you enjoy!
All of this comes from my real world experience and will not be sugar coated (if others have different experiences please share). I am updating my first post from many years ago so that that what you read is my true progression of what I have done to make my early ifs Toyota more capable for getting out and exploring. I tell people that my truck is built to get me to the secluded camp site that they can't get to. It has also been a fun evolution!
I do have a true build thread of my truck on here that is filled with both trail worthy stuff and various modifications to my camping setup. But I want this thread to be all about how to gradually increase your ifs truck's capabilities on the trail.
What I started with back in 2011 was a bone stock 1989 Toyota pickup with a 22RE 4cylinder engine and 101,000 miles. The build slowly began from there. The only notable features that have not been included in the following posts is that I have re-geared to 4:88's in the differentials with a Detroit locker in the rear and put a 4.7 gear kit in a single transfer case.
PLEASE chime in with real world experiences on what you have experienced off-road with your trucks so that others can learn from your experiences.
Here is a pick of where the truck is now and the following text is where it started with the original post. Hope some folks can learn something from it:
And the story begins:
So, it was nice out today in my snowy little ski town and I had a little time on my hands so I thought that I would see what the results of my winter suspension mods would do. I started the winter with no lift up front and Old Man Emu "medium" springs in the rear to handle the weight of my Wildernest camper. The camper weighs about 300-350 pounds and with the OME "mediums" in the back the truck sat about 3/4" - 1" higher than stock with the camper on and none of the load that I carry when on the trail. I am running 33x10.50 BFG M/T's and had slight rubbing issues on the front without any lift, even with some trimming and pinch weld hammering. I had already done some trimming in the rear to get rid of some rust on the upper wheel wells and to gain some clearance for a bumper that I built.
I decided that a small lift was in order to gain some lift in the front to alleviate the rubbing, and to add a little more weight carrying capacity to the rear. Over the winter I added an extra leaf to the rear to make the springs the "heavy" version of the Old Man Emu setup. For the front I went with 4Crawler's 1 1/2" ball joint spacers and a 1" diff drop for sake of cv joint longevity. I also relaxed the torsion bars a half inch to put the cv's in a closer to stock operating position while running down the highway in 4wd during the icy parts of winter. Overall I ended up with about 1" of lift up front and about 1 1/2" in the rear. I would have liked to have added Old Man Emu shocks as well because I feel they would have given a better ride but, I went with KYB Monomax's for a 0-2" lift as I am on a budget and they were half the cost. They ride firm but they are o.k. and not too stiff.
Today I stacked some blocks to drive up on and see how the setup flexes. I started with a 12" wood block and backed my rear driver's side tire onto it. I continued to add height to my makeshift RTI ramp until my suspension was maxed out front and rear with the final block measurement being 19 1/2 inches tall. Although I have not tested the truck on the trail yet since they are still under snow in my part of the country; with my testing today, I feel that it will give me a competent setup on the trails when they do melt out. I'm sorry that I don't have pics or results from when it was stock but the info and pics that follows gives a pretty good idea of what about $600 in parts can do to an early IFS Toyota for a minimal lift, with tight suspension characteristics (I don't have a front sway bar) and decent flex. After a lot of research this is what I feel is the maximum level of performance you can get out of the early IFS without going to a long travel front setup. I have been street driving it for about 2 months now and am quite happy with the ride. Time will tell how the cv's hold up on the trail, but with the diff drop and relaxed torsion bars I feel like I will be o.k.
This is how the truck sits on level ground (forgive the plywood in the driveway, it is mud season here and with a dirt driveway you do what you can to keep mud from getting tracked into the house).:
Pic from the driver's side. Note that the front wheel is about 1/2" off the ground. I am using stock upper bump stops and low profile lower bump stops. I will probably switch back to stock lower bump stops as well because I don't feel that the low pro's made that much difference as the truck was teetering and I had yet to hit my lower bump stops on up travel on the passenger side. Here's the pic:
From the front:
From the passenger side:
Finally, from the rear:
A pic of the "block" I used:
And finally a pic of what it looks like on flat ground with the camper on:
By measuring from the top of the rim's lip to the fenders at all four corners while both sitting level and flexed out, I figure I have about: 2 inches of down travel and 5 1/2 inches of up travel in the front for a total front travel of 7 1/2 inches. In the rear I measured 3 1/2 inches of up travel to a flat spring and 9 1/2 inches of down travel until a front wheel lifted off the ground for a total of about 13 inches of travel in the rear. Again; 7 1/2 inches up front and 13ish inches in the rear give or take, as my method of measuring is subjective. While it is no rock monster, I feel that this is a fairly respectable suspension setup for a combination daily driver/weekend explorer/trail toy/camping rig. I hope this helps out anyone looking for a budget suspension that I hope will hold up to the task of moderately difficult trails when I get to play again this summer. I will definitely update this in a few months when I am able to put it to some real world testing. As of now I am happy with my setup. I do have some questionable cv boots so we will see how they hold up to the BJ spacers ( I do have new boots ready to go on but I want to see what happens to the old ones in the interest if science and engineering). I hope you enjoy!
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