How bad is a 1/2" top plate spacer

I currently have these parts sitting on my living room floor:

Front/Rear 5100s
Eibach 1.6" springs
Toytec 1/2" top plate spacers
Toytec 2" AAL
LR UCAs

my original plan was to set the billys @ .85" with the eibachs and the top plate spacers, which would put me right at a 3" lift up front.

Now I'm questioning the spacers, because everything I read about spacers is negative. Will a spacer as small as this cause me any problems such as shock breakage or ball joint wear?

 

When you say....1/2" top plate spacer....

Is that the TOTAL lift amount that they advertise?
Or
Is that how thick the spacer is?

If that's the total lift amount... 1/2" is fine.

But, if the spacer is 1/2" thick in actual size...that's 1" of lift and I wouldn't recommend it.

 

It's advertised as giving 3/4" total,

 

Thats the setup I am going to be going with when I have to replace my stock shocks. You should be fine man!

 

Thanks man! It's good to hear some positive feedback. I got to reading about spacers breaking ball joints, etc..and got a little worried! I can't wait to get all this stuff installed and take some pics!

 

All the bad talk is about the 2.5 to 3.0 inch top plate spacers.

 

Earlier today I went to autozone to grab a "free" spring compressor, but the thing looked pretty shitty. Those springs are pretty stout, and I'd hate to have the compressor break on me. I called a suspension shop and they said they'd assemble the shocks/coils for $40. I'm gonna run by there tomorrow and get em put together.

 

Those little top plate spacers are fine. They are not big enough to be a weak link. That's what I use to get that extra 3/4" of lift because I didn't want to pre-load the springs by setting the 5100's at 0.85". I want them as flexy as possible for trail wheeling.

 

Why is it like that? What I mean is why would the total lift(1") be ~twice the size of the actual(1/2") spacer?

 

The spacer is closer to the pivot points at the base of the control arms than the tires.

To visualize, stick your arm straight out in front of you. Lift your arm so that your elbow rises about 1/2" from the starting point. Your hand actually raised a couple of inches though with the same move.

 

Thanks! LOL that was easy to understand.

 

i ran a 5/8" spacer that my buddy made for me on three of my previous tacomas( 95.5/ 97/ 01 models) and never had any issues. On my 97 model i put about 90K miles on it for a total of 198K and i had to replace the CV boots. I can't really blame the spacers though since the truck had 175K miles on it when i replaced them.

 

Any type of lift is equally hard on CV boots. The only determining factor on wear of CV boots is the height of the lift, not the lift type. The cure to that problem is a diff drop kit.

With that many miles though, things start needing replacement whether you took perfect care of them or not.

 

Thanks for explaining that. I figured someone was gonna ask about that (they always do).

 

Good description! Rep for you

 

Awesome. that makes me feel a lot better about the setup

 

Actually, it was going to be my next question

 

Thanks for the reps.

 

I find it hard to imagine dropping the diff to keep it closer to stock geometry could cause problems. Buutttt, I believe you though. I'm sure it does occasionally happen. Every truck is different.

My personal philosophy is to keep the angles as close to stock as possible. That 2* may get an extra 10,000 miles out of those cv's. Who knows?