How reliable is IFS long travel?

As the title says I'm looking to see how reliable a long travel IFS setup is in the long run and far off road. Recently saw a guys front diff mount break down a trail, putting a hole in his oil pan and it took him 11 hours to get towed off the trail. I cant decide which direction to go in now, SAS or long travel (2nd gen). And I did search on Google and in the forum and there's not much explaining ifs reliability. I see the main benefit of ifs>sas is keeping ABS and the electronic goodies like a-trac, etc. But I'm just torn at this point.

 

IFS is plenty reliable. Lots of LT guys thrash the bejeesus out of their trucks on here and check out Marlin Crawlers new rig. IFS on 40s.

LT will add some more maintenance over stock parts like uniball care and replacement as well as coil-over/bypass rebuilds. Be prepared to add a bunch of reinforcement/gusseting as well.
Here's a good thread to read up on: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/considering-long-travel-read-here-first.180457/

SAS is a whole different animal. You get a beefy setup, but it takes a lot of work unless your dropping it off at a shop.
Here's another good thread to look at: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/sas-quick-guide-cost.138316/

You should consider what type of offroading you plan on doing. Both of these will take you down a financial rabbit hole.

 

Front diff bolts loosening up have nothing to do with long travel. That's poor preventive maintenance practices. (I'm not shitting on it, I've definitely got my own list dumbass mistakes)

Reliability has everything to do with how hard you abuse it and how well you set it up and maintain it.

Who was it that had that happen? I've only seen 2 people on here report having that happen.

 

Performance and reliability comes down to preparation and maintenance. Keeping components clean, well lubricated, and properly torqued will go a very long way. Bushings and Uniballs are wear & tear items that need to be kept up and replaced when necessary. A well maintained Long Travel system will easily last many years and hundreds of thousands of miles.

Contact us if you have any questions about TOTAL CHAOS Long Travel Systems

TOTAL CHAOS
WWW.CHAOSFAB.COM

 

How did the mount break - it seems logical he didn't have proper skid protection for the kind of wheeling he was doing. Those things are bolted to cross members (that are supposed to be) protected by skids.

 

I doubt they broke. It a common thing to see this happen after someone does gears and the mount comes loose.

 

Maybe he had a diff drop, which causes the mounts to protrude a la mjp2

 

Loaded question. What kind of hard wheeling? Rock crawl, mud, or high-speed jumps? How much are you looking to spend on upgrades?

 

I honestly don't see myself jumping the truck as I've never done it before, so I don't know what it's like. And I live in montana so there are more rocks to climb than whoops to jump. I just want the most reliable option available for a wide variety of off road challenges, it's the whole reason I go a taco. I already plan to 4 link the rear regardless. If I'm spending the money for a full front long travel kit, it'd probably be around the same or a little more for a 4 link set-up and my own axle. I've already spoken to Rock Slayer Offroad and they have everything needed for 4 link front and rear, and I can weld and fabricate so I'm not worried about paying someone. But since I'm doing the rear long travel first I have a lot of time to decide.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm-BqrOnWFl/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=160w4ffsy0eo2 it was a 4runner, but still ifs. User t4r_juan on Instagram. He doesn't have the video but the link above is the video when it happened.

 

In that case, solid front axle will be more reliable. Certain things like CV shafts, steer rack, and tie rods, reach a limit in how much they can be upsized and strengthened.

 

Gunning it in 4x4 in rip rap isn't a good idea - as you can read he burned up his rear diff which is in a solid axle so even a solid axle won't save people from poor choices. My neighbor was stuck for a whole day and night when he broke a bracket on his steering in his Jeep which has hundreds of off-road and crawling miles without a driving mistake leading to a break down. He may have not tightened one of the bolts on it, leading it to have enough play to put a big moment on the bracket or it was just it's time and it broke when he had the wheels up against a rock. Bottom line, IFS or SAS won't ever be bulletproof and can fail in the event of a driver making a bad choice.

SAS does generally have an advantage in big rocks and trail riding because the bigger diameter axles and no cv joints, but even a well piloted IFS equipped vehicle is very capable off-road. Ultra 4 cars can be successful with either setup (not that long travel or SAS Tacomas are a good comparison to a race vehicle of course). SAS does sound like it could be a good route to take for you, but I wanted to share some objective information at the same time.

 

I have thousands of off-road miles with a +3.5 lt kit and a Dmz sua. It hasn't left me stranded yet .I travel to some pretty remote areas in Utah. The biggest thing to remember is that you have to drive it home.

If you go SAS be prepared to sit down and get the geometry right. I have seen many SAS conversions and they are damn scary to watch going down the freeway at 70 mph. Highway manners are important especally for long distance trips. Do you have a wife or gf that will drive the truck? Would you feel comfortable letting them drive the truck if you did a SAS conversion?

You can't go wrong with a chaos or camburg lt kit. Don't get a +2 kit. They are a waste of money in my opinion.

 

I've decided to go spring under axle and ifs long travel in the front. Seems more versatile.

 

unless you get an engage kit, the arms themselves will have no durability issues. mounts, spindles, frame etc however would need to be prepped for it

 

For starters the 4th gen (like the one in IG post) T4R rear diff is prone to breakage. 5th gen was upgraded. I have both 4th and 5th gens and the front diff mount on the 4th physically looks weaker than the 5th gen. I may look into strengthening my 4th gen. Not sure how beefy the Taco is but if you go LT you may want to look into that. The IG post could have been a diff mount fastener issue as well. This guy is the man for beating up LT, tears it down on a regular basis, so done right and maintained it can be a beast. His whole thread is pretty detailed.

 

I’d put all pro on that list as well

 

I want to know the strength difference between some of these LT kits that use uniballs, and LT kits that use the heim running sideways with all new spindles instead of reinforced factory spindles.

generally the 3.5 kits with uniball require 8" shocks where the Heim ones allow 10"

 

All the second gen kits use either a horizontal or vertical univalve. The vertical uniball allows for infinite vertical movement. Thus allowing more travel and use of longer shocks, while limiting turn radius

 

wait vertical allows more travel than horizontal?