Ironman 4x4 Foam Cell Pro

I don't have any complaints other than my leaf packs are squeaking... I've thought about wool wax or just some grease. Anyone else have similar issues?

 

I’ve just used Woolwax, coating on and inbetween the leaves while treating my truck for winter and have not had any issues.

 

Did you ever get to drop the coils to be built or are you going to keep the Elkas?

I think mine have finally settled and I need to crank them back up some… or get a new alignment/move wheels forward myself. I’m having some, what I think is, rubbing during full turns in parking lots. I tightened down the LCA nuts, in case it was that. I might throw a camera in there to record what’s happening too… or old school and use chalk on the inside fender to see what’s taken off.

 

My leafs make a ton of noise even after hitting them with a lubricant. IM actually just sent me out a new set of bushings so I'm going to try that to see if it stops the squeaking.

 

I haven't dropped off the coilovers off at Ironman yet. I can probably use new rubber at top spring mounts too.

I'm digging the Elkas. Pretty great on the road: soft comfortable ride. Not bad off-road either. So far I've only done some muddy gravel/washboard trails in the Olympic Peninsula but thought the Elkas felt more compliant than the constant load IM FCPs. I'm hoping the lower spring rates on the IMs will be similar to the Elkas' ride quality. I am not sure what the Elkas have as a spring rate. I don't mind the IM FCPs with constant load spring rates since I tended to air down for long off-road trips, but if I can get a compliant ride without airing down all the time, I'll be happier.

I've read some complaints about the Elkas having some clanking noise and lower mount bushings go bad prematurely. Too early to tell. Hopefully that won't be the case with mine.

What caster did you get at your last alignment. I think 3 degrees or so will prevent rubbing. Kinda depends on your wheel width and offset too, tho. I have 255/80/17 with 0 offset (Icon Rebounds). No rubbing with caster set forward.

 

That’s cool your liking the Ekas so far. It’ll be interesting to hear how they compare to the lower spring rate.

Right now, I think I’m close to 3° both sides. I think the shop that did the last alignment (Firestone) just moved them back whenever it was done last. I’ll either move the wheel forward a bit or change my SPC to move the wheel away from the wheel well. I’ll still raise the front slightly first since that may help. Something in there is rubbing, clunking or making noise. I can’t tell which. At first I thought it was just going to LCA bolts not torqued but I’ve felt it since then but at full turn going slow in parking lots. It does not do it around my house so that makes it fun to figure out.

 

After 3 years of collecting parts. Today, I finally got 'er done.


Before

After

-Iron Man FCP's front & rear w/720's & stupid stickers removed
-SPC uca's
-Wheelers front bumps
-Icon rxt leaf pack (opt. 2)
-Rago Fab hangers & shackles
-Archive Garage U bolt flip w/ opt. 3 yellow speed bumps
-17" T4R pro sema's (matte grey w/ black logo vinyl insert)
-285/70/17 Maxxis RAZR AT's (C)
-ECGS bushing
-Carrier bearing drop
-Sway bar relocate
-Black Gorilla lugs
-Fresh oil in the tranny & both diffs (rear diff howl is GONE. Yay!!! Musta been low on oil from the factory?)
Still have RCI sliders, SSO slimline hybrid bumper & the MT accumulator delete to install.

Truck is now balanced left to right, measuring 23" & 3/16's at both front corners and 24 1/4" in the rears. (Hub to fender well). Frame sits exactly 4" higher off the ground.

Zero vibes, shimmy's or shakes. No cuts, except for the exhaust. Had to cut the pipe back a couple feet to clear the hangers.
Can't believe the front tires clear the mud flaps. Although I did get a slight rub backing & turning out of a parking spot. Tires are really quiet, no noise at all. Very pleased this lift turned out so well. Almost too good to be true. Guess we'll see if it holds up. Gonna try to hit a trail this weekend.

 

that’s a lot of work but the truck looks great!

 

Oh no, my bad. Didn't intend to make it sound like I did the work. Shop did 80% of it. Took 2 days, 1.5 at the shop.

 

No worries about that, still a lot of changes! So what’s next lol

 

So I finally took some time to pull two of the leafs out of my leaf pack and wanted to show the difference. Kind of hard to tell, but it did lower that back down about 2" and the truck is pretty much level now. I have a rear steel bumper coming in with swingouts so I may end up putting #5 back in, but until then I'll keep rolling this way.

Full constant load leaf pack:


Leaf 3 and 5 removed:

 

sliders & bumper. Need to finish sanding & painting... Ugh, I hate sanding!!!

I haven't read this thread in a while. How are those new springs treating you?

 

Lol, prep work can be pretty annoying.

The springs have been great, a much better ride with those compared to the heavier springs.

 

Sorry been a while since I talked about 34's on IM UCA's........and I ended up chickening out and going with stage 1 and SPC's lol. Still pulled the 3rd leaf, so will show some photos now of what it looks like, GFC + 3rd leaf + around 300 lbs in the back (4 pro wheel/tires + 1 scs/g003 wheel/tire) and one with an empty bed.

Note - I ordered the 2.5", but the shop set it to 3" and also did a BMC and viper for the 34's, nothing rubs so far on-road.



Fully loaded in the back (drops 1")


Empty bed (+1")


Was expecting a lesser drop with only around 300lbs in the back. 1" for 300lbs seems like alot.

Err - I guess I should explain that total weight in the back on the first photo is around 600lbs. (GFC + Awning + wheels in the bed). The +1" increase is for taking out the 300lbs (wheels in the bed). Somehow I thought these leafs were superman and wouldn't drop till after 800lbs lol. It's not a big deal it's still pretty beefy, I'll have to test it's limits with the 3rd leaf pulled.

Also - I was pretty hesitant to go with 3" up front based on some comments here about harshness, but so far the ride has been night and day against stock 4600 OR shocks......no complaints even with the gf. Feels fine, over speed bumps, driving around on road-road....no issues feels normal/fine/doesn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

 

Lol, I’m not sure about the drop but your truck does look good! Those 34” look really nice!

 

Curious, what made you want to go with some SPCs rather than the IM UCAs? I'm on 35's with the IM UCAs and they've been great so far.

 

Just the lack of information about confirming if they would work or not. If I had seen this post before I may have kept the Stage 2's. Shop didn't push for SPCs vs IM but I just asked them, if I were to go with SPC's would I have a better chance of not rubbing, they said yes, so I went with SPC's.

 

True the SPCs definitely provide more adjustability. I just go to a decent 4x4 alignment shop near me and they were able to get me aligned with no rubbing on my 35s.

 

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this but the sleeve for the bushings on the IM leaf springs are definitely what has been causing the noise I’ve been hearing. Looks like it was crushed…not sure how this would happen. They were torqued to the spec IM provided.

 

Hey all!
I just installed the stage 2 foam cell pros, 2.5" heavy load front coilovers and heavy load rear springs (didn't remove any leafs and ride height looks great!) and shocks on my husband's 09 Prerunner yesterday.

Interesting situation: I had to modify the bottom brackets for the rear shocks ever so slightly to get them to work. I shaved off about an eighth of an inch of material from the outer portion of both brackets in order for them to not contact the shock body.

I swapped shocks side to side, put more weight in the back (already has Ironman fridge, full kitchen setup, RSI SmartCap, Ironman rooftop tent and awning.... not light back there!!) and jounced the truck to get the suspension to settle a bit, but couldn't get them to clear. The minor shaving of the non-structural part of that bracket isn't a big deal at all, but it confused me that no one else seemed to have this issue.

I scoured this forum and others, as well as called Ironman to see if anyone else ran into this.... but... nope! It appears only me! Is this a 2WD thing?! Is our truck "special"?!? This is my first time installing suspension from this company so I'm feelin' green AF!!

Also, gotta say: LOVE the quality of the product, and customer service. Need their suspension kit (and much more!) on my 4Runner now!!

Thanks in advance for anyone's feedback!!