Suspension Help

Well guys I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with this thread so hopefully someone can answer me quickly and get this over with. I have been searching, looking, wanting, dreaming about upgrading my suspension on my tacoma for awhile now and I am now somewhat in the position to do some upgrades!!

I drive my truck on the highway about 60 - 80 miles a day. But I hunt and fish all the time and this requires me to get off the pavement and to kick it in 4wd every once in a while.

So I have a few questions and hopefully this will clear up all my wondering about what to buy and what to put on my truck.

The ride on my truck sucks flat out is horrible 185k miles and its time to upgrade.

1. I'm not to concerned about lifting it up and being able to run bigger tires (but I wouldn't mind 1" to 2 1/2" increase) but im more concerned about the ride.
I have been reading about the front end. I have almost decided that im going to go with billy 5100's but with that said do I need to buy new coil springs along with the struts? I assume I do. (If you have a better setup let me know)

2. For the rear end I want to do it right but I also don't want to dump tons of money into it. The rear leafs may not be shot but they are pretty close. If I added just an AAL and some billy 5100 would this help my ride quality a noticeable amount?

I am going to replace all the bushing and small stuff like that too. My ultimate plan is to keep the truck once I graduate college and just have it on the side to drive and have fun in and build it into a rock crawler so that is why I don't want to throw tons of money at it right now because I don't want to turn around in a couple years and take all that stuff off.

I will admit that I am somewhat lost right now because there is almost to much info and to much know how about this stuff on this site lol.

So here's my main question for ya'll who have done this before

If you would do the same thing again, what did you do and please be some what detailed.

Guys who maybe have not done it but are in the same position I am but know exactly what they want to do please let me know and give me your thoughts and ideas.

I know I have looked all over the site and I don't know what is wrong with me but I cant put my finger on exactly what I want to do.

Thanks

Barry

 

I would recommend OME stuff over the Bilsteins. I have OME shocks and springs on the front of my truck and they're noticeably better than the Bilstein 5100s I have on the back. I'd also say to consider a new leaf pack, OME can cover ya there too. Check out Wheelersoffroad.com for prices and stuff. My .02

 

I've never had the OME shocks but I have a set of leaf springs on my FJ-40 and they are very stiff but it may just be the way they are designed for the FJ-40's.

I'm still wondering though if I can skip the new leaf pack by just adding an AAL??

 

Bump?

 

I put in Bilstein 5100s on the front of my 03 double cab about a week ago. I was mostly going for looks, but was also interested in a better ride. I decided to put the C-clamp of the 5100s on the 1" spot (you can go stock, 1", or 2.5".... approximate). The more I drive it, the more I feel the difference. 1" isn't much, but the front end is noticeably higher when you walk by the front or sit in the cab. I have less than 70K miles so I didn't bother getting new springs. You may want to with that many miles on your truck. The 5100s are designed for use with the stock springs.

I also looked at the OME springs/shocks. They look nice, but are lot more than the 5100s with stock springs. I didn't do anything to the rear. Maybe I should have, but I figure with so little weight over the rear I would get the most bang for the buck with the fronts.

With the 1" lift on the front, I still have rake but the gap between the fender flares and the tires are the same front and back (when low on gas the back gap is still about 1/3" more, but with gas they are just about identical). You could go with the 2.5" setting and an AAL for leveling, but the higher compression on the front springs may give you too harsh of a ride..... don't know.


5100 in the front 1" setting.


Matt