Long travel suspension questions

I am a new Tacoma owner... I just picked up my 2010 Tacoma 4x4 double cab, short bed, 4x4 with off road and tow packages 3 days ago. I have been lurking and reading for some time on the forums and have some questions about long travel suspension set ups vs more traditional coil over kits.

From what I have gathered I am not going to be able to get more than about 3" or so of lift and 33" tires without severe driveline vibration, suspension travel, and tire fit issues. I see that the most common method of increasing travel up from are longer upper/lower control arms and drive shafts. It appears most of these kits require the use of replacement fenders... something I ma not willing to do. It looks like Allpro offers a slightly shorter armed kit that will allow the use of stock fenders; however, it still has the common factor I see in these long travel kits which is a much wider track up front than in the rear. I also dont want to have too wide a stance to fit on tighter trails or even narrow parking spaces. This leads me to my questions...

What is the impact on handing with the wider front track?

Can you use a different offset of wheel up front to help reduce front width to rear width mismatch? I know offset has NOTHING to do with the wheel fitting the caliper (its all wheel shape) that the offset is used to clear the control arm only and that this diference in wheel backspacing would only allow rotation from right to left and not front to rear, if it worked at all.

Can you put spacers on the rear wheels to get additional width to get the track back to a similar stance and not end up with tire to fender contact on compression of the rear suspension?

Does the Allpro rear long travel kit use factory spring mounts or do the use their longer baja spring which requires new spring hangers that are further apart?

Basically, I am trying to decide if I should go with a more traditional 2.5-3" coil/shock leaf/shock with just some upper control arms or if I should go with a full long travel kit. I am pretty happy with the feel of the front suspension as is, but the rear I feel needs the most work. It really feels like the rear could kick up on me at high speeds. More travel front and rear is always a good thing but not if I sacrifice on road handling, drive line issues, or start contacting my fenders when compressed at full steering lock.

Any insight that can be offered is greatly appreciated.

 

wow, that was alot to read. um lets see here...

basically it comes down to budget and type of wheeling your gonna be doing. can you justify the cost of long travel? are you gonna really take advantage of it's ability or will a simple CO/UCA combo be enough? you said you dont wanna use fiberglass fenders, that really limits your LT option to the all pro kit. it's only 2" over per side (IIRC) as opposed to TC/Camburgs 3.5" and Engage's 4.5" because it's pointless to run those kits w/o fiberglass.

your truck is brand new, do you really wanna start tearing it up and breaking stuff, becuause you will with LT. it's $4-5K just to get the kit on the truck. then your gonna eventually want to LT the rear and stock parts of the truck that cant take the abuse will break and so on and so on.

if trail riding and crawling are the types of offroading your gonna be doing then a decent mid travel front and new leaf pack and shocks out back will be fine. if you like to spend time in the dez (i dont know where you live) then maybe you can justify the cost of LT.