No Lift from Bilstein 5100's

Been a long time since I've posted anything on here! I did a little searching and didn't have any luck. Got a weird one. I've got a '16 access cab SR5 4x4, V6. Nothing flashy, no lockers, no steel bumpers. Pretty much stock.

The shocks were horrible and I found some gently used 5100's for sale and picked them up. Front and rear shocks, and the fronts had factory coils on them. Guy I bought them from said they came off of his 3rd Gen Tacoma (can't remember the year), and he had them set at the 1.5" notch. I got a set of spring compressors on loan from Auto Zone and changed the setting to the 1.1" notch. I made sure the coils were on the seats correctly, torqued everything down, etc. Installed them on my truck and the sucker is sitting at the same height that my stock set up was. Basically, no lift at all. I measured 36" from the ground to the fender flare with both set ups. I realized that's not the recommended method for measurement, but either way I didn't gain a thing!

I'm beginning to wonder if the guy actually had 4Runner coils on there instead of Tacoma coils. When we met up, he was in a 4Runner. But isn't the 4Runner coil more or less the same, just a shorter shock? I'm at a loss!

Anybody ever seen, or even heard of this before? Thanks for the help!

 

Certain gen 4runners are the same as the Tacoma.
You can measure from the bottom shock mount to the coils seat to see if they are the same length?

 

Any pics>?

 

With basically unknown springs, it is hard to really know for sure. But, you should be able to get some 3rd Gen take offs for cheap. ORs have 650lb and Sports have 700lb. There might be another spring rate for the other trims. Can't remember.

 

I had always thought that the lift came from the springs, not shocks.

 

5100s have a lower spring perch that you can adjust upward to create lift with the stock springs. They usually have 3-4 notches for adjustability.

 

5100s are intended to reuse the existing coils. They have perches for different preload heights. So yeah, just the shocks front and rear. Note that for 3rd Gens, the 5100 rears have about the same collapsed and extended lengths as our stockers. So, folks would want the 5125s if they are going up with new leaf packs or an AAL.

 

Thanks for the replies so far! I didn't think about measuring the stock struts and comparing to the Bil's. I'll check that in a bit! I did have both the stock and replacement strut laying on the ground and I remember that the Bilstein set up was longer than the stock, but I didn't check to see if they were even with each other. I can certainly take some pictures, but has the process for posting them changed? I don't think I have a photobucket account anymore!

 

thanks for the explanations!

 

You're welcome!

 

Set them @ 2" and problem solved. Either way, you have yourself a much bigger, better shock than OEM. Even better than the stock Off Road shocks.

 

Oh the ride is 100% better! No question.

I got home from work, busted the ol tape measure out and it’s got to be the springs. Center (ish) lower shock mount to spring perch is a hair better than 9” on the bilsteins and 8.5” on the stock struts. Since a half inch yields an inch, the bilsteins are doing their job. So it appears at some point I’ll be taking the struts back out and putting my stock coils on there to see what happens. It’ll suck something awful if it ends up being the same thing!

 

I kept the stock coils, as per Bilstein recommends for the warranty. I'll assume this is why my 2" 5100 lift still rides like stock.