Need feedback on coilovers set to 3"

I know most recommend setting coilovers to 2.0-2.5". What I would like to know is for those of you running coilovers set to 3" how is the ride quality onroad and offroad and what brand coilovers ya using? Was it waaayyy worse set at 3" than say set at 2.0-2.5"

I still have the Revtek for now and still trying to figure out my final plan for a 'real' lift will be. As of now it's looking like ICON RR coils and ICON RR rear shocks.

For whatever reason my truck bone stock brand new off the lot had about 2.5" of factory rake. I have the Revtek which gives me 3" lift front and 1.5" rear, so I know have 1" of rake.

The front gap with 265's looks fine and the rear gap looks fine but I don't the 1" of rake.

I want coilovers for sure. I know they are not really designed specifically to lift the truck but more so for better offroad abilty but what I am trying to figure is if there is a brand of coilovers that will be less harsh than other brands set at 3" of lift. If I can stay at 3" of lift, I can back the rear down from 1.5" of lift to 1" of lift and get rid of 1/2" of the rake, which i would be fine with.

Originally I wanted it totally level front and rear but think 1/2" rake would be fine with me.

If I set the coils to 2.5" and a 1" rear lift, I would be back to having 1" of rake and would look worse than it does now because front and rear would both be 1/2" lower and would make the front gap stand out worse. I know I'm really splitting hairs here.

The other option is say fock it put the rear back to stock height and set the coils to 2" of lift which would give me the 1/2" of rake. But then I would be loosing all rear lift.

Or lastly I could set the coils to 2.5" and have it totally leveled out but have no rear lift at all.

Somebody tell me there are coilovers that are descent set at 3" LOL. I'm not too worried about how they do onroad but more worried about how bad they could be at 3" offroad.

I have a feeling the only thing that's goona work best is to set them at 2.0 or 2.5 and leave the ass end stock height.

 

They will definately be firm at 3 inches. Too much for my taste.

 

Ahhh I know what I'll do. I'll just use a little longer bolts for the coilovers and use the 1/4" top plate spacer from the revtek, then I can still get 3" of lift with only having to set the coilovers to 2.5" max. Then later If I decide to go stock height in the rear and want the front more plush, I would only need to set the coils for 1.5"-2.0" of coil lift and get 2.0-2.5" of total front lift.


Now all I need is more money.

 

looks like you got it figured out.

 

just be aware that by stacking lift components like that, you are increasing the amount of shock travel//distance between your upper and lower arms and depending on how you use it offroad, you can put undue stress on your ball joints... should your stock suspension components fail for any reason, you will have absolutely no warranty coverage and will have to rebuild all for the sake of an extra half inch of lift bling...

if a street queen, you will likely not have any issues, but having been into wheeling tacomas for the past 5 years, i have seen countless folks who did what you plan to do, and those who actually wheeled their trucks almost always ended up dropping more money into their suspensions...

if you have deep pockets, go ahead and try it... you might actually have no issues...

but if things dont quite work out, best of luck to you...

 

I don't really see how a 1/4" plate could cause any problems. I don't jump the truck or rock crawl. It's just for mud and fire roads.

In the end I will probablly end up putting the rear back to stock height anyway and if so will not use or need the plate.

The other thing is I'm not really fond of what the CV's are like now at 3" anyway. Right now at 3" the steering is a little twitchy with the stock UCA's which I expected but doesn't bother me much but the harsh ride with the Revtek is starting to get annoying and is kinda all magnified by the harsher than stock ride on top of that.

Between the twitchy steering AND the harsher ride it's starting to feel like I'm driving my old POS truck lol. If I just go 2" I should be able to get a good offroad and onroad ride and loose some of the twichy steering feeling/vibes as well. Can always get UCA's later to get rid of all the steering stuff but I'm hoping at 2" I won't need them. At 2" it can only get better than it is now. Just hope I don't rip off fender flares.

 

I'm a little confused.
How do you plan on adjusting the springs in the back??

 

The rear has the 1.5" block. To put it back to stock height I just gotta remove the rear block and put the stock U bolts back on.

I was curious what it would look like in the back with the block removed so I threw in over 20 old junk tires to compress the rear end 1.5". Aside from the tires stacked up 5 feet over the top of the bed, the rear gap with 32' at stock height came out to 6-1/4". The gap didn't look too bad.

I'm by no means a suspension guy as to exactlly which things adjust camber, toe and caster but there are two adjustable suspension washer things on the lower arm. I'm gussing one or a combo of adjusting both is how they adjust camber and or maybe toe???

The one bolt in the back of the lower arm is in the 9 o'clock position and the bolt on the front is around the 7 0'clock position.

I can tell by looking at the rear bolt thats in the 9 o'clock position that it can not push that portion of the lower arm out any further.

Does that mean that the adjustment to get rid of the positive camber (caused from the lift) is maxed out by that rear bolt being in the 9 o'clock position?

I can tell by eyeballing it on a garage floor that it has very slight positive camber even after the alignment, which explains the tire wear I'm getting. You really really have to look hard but there is very slight positive camber still.

I need to get my ass to the alignment shop and see what's up. If it turns out that it is maxed out for camber and I'm stuck with slight positive camber at 3", then I'm hoping that 2" of front lift will bring it down enough to fix it. I'm trying to avoid buying adjustable upper arms if possible and still get the camber right.

If I had to get arms to correct camber, those Light Racing arms are the only ones that are most like the stock arms (no ball and heim joints) and they say they fix camber as well as castor. Now before everybody jumps on the Total Chaos or Camburg arm bandwagon never have I read on any site including TC's and Camburgs site, that says their non adjustable arms fix camber, only the $900 adjustable TC's fix castor AND camber.

So ya I still have more homework to do on this stuff.

 

Well to correct myself I noticed Camburg has their new 1.25" Uniball upper arm design for $640 (at wheelers) instead of those $900 TC arms with the heim joints. Camburg says it corrects castor as well as camber.

$640 is a hell of a lot better than $900. I can live with that price tag, if I end up needing arms. Plus the Camburgs use the factory like bushings instead of those heim joints.

 

if you get new UCA's your gonna want to get the ext travel CO's to get the max travel out of your new suspension. wheelers has package deals when you but Icon CO and Camburg UCA's and you get free shipping.

and yeah, $900 is way too much for UCA's. i think all TC stuff is over priced and thats why i go w/ Camburg