cbechtold's Long Travel IFS Crawler Tacoma Build and BS Thread

It's just a nightmare to actually do and have re-certified, it'll fail the visual and trip a STAR inspection. It may work and be just as effective as stock setup but convincing the BAR ref of that is still a crap shoot.

 

Wish it was that easy. If you have a "go to" guy, they will more likely turn a blind eye and ignore issue like that. These truck are so common that they will know what's factory and what's not.

Guys were turned away because of larger than normal tire size to failing visual because vacuum line were routed incorrectly and not matching schematic.

 

I think you'll need more than that. Frame modification and towers through bed is a must. With 16s, the rear end will be higher than the front or your tower must be tall to compensate.

 

Those CO's are most definitely gonna protrude into the bed. No way around it.
Just a question of how much and if they'll stick up above the bedsides...

 

Should still be able to do a trailing arm 3 link though with stock tank.

It would handle better in the go fast area than a standard 3 link

 

Packaging mainly. I have no interest in moving the gas tank at the moment. I've seen a few people already link the rear of Tacomas the way I want to do I don't think I'll have many problems outside of the few short coming of not going with a traditional 4 link to relocating the gas tank.

Just rough measurements put the top eyelet of the coilovers about an inch above the bed line, so I'm happy with that. Notching/boxing the frame is going to be a must.

While doable, and I won't lie, trailing arms would be bitchen, but ultimately I don't want trailing arms at the moment. A traditional 3 link will be a huge step up from what I've got now, and once tuned, the benefits of a trailing arm setup would only be an advantage in the desert and this truck already doesn't get much desert time as is.

 

I went with Fox 2.5x14 and the towers protrude through the bed. I didn't notch the frame but pushed the lower mount as far outward as possible and it just clear when stuffed and droop.

BTW, one of the guy I wheel with might be selling his rear 3 link kit. It's the same 4wu rear 3 link I'm running. He got all the brackets and towers. If it's something that you might be interested in, send me a message and I can talk with him. He's a couple of hour south from you.

 

I'm confused.

-You want to go 3 link for go fast, but you don't spend much time in the desert...what's the shortcomings you have right now with leaves that wouldn't be solved by a good set of tuned shocks? Remember that springs carry weight, shocks control motion.

-Packaging is your main concern in reasoning to go 3-link, but your willing to obliterate your bed to have 16" shocks that will be higher than the bed rail but also moving a fuel tank is too much work?

-You also say you want to go front SAS down the line, but you're building a link rear around 16" coilovers at IFS ride height. Roll axis' will change quite a bit when you raise ride height down the line and possibly mean a bunch of rework.

You do you though.

 

How much travel do you have in the rear now?
Looks like a lot.
Are you measuring between the center of the hub and the fender?

 

Possibly. I'd need to do some measuring for the 4WU kit. I'll let you know though. I figured with 2.5x16s I'd need to do some sort of frame modifications.

Too your points, I can definitely see where most would think that what I'm doing is basically just for the hell of it.

Right now, the go fast stuff is just tough to do, especially since I'm basically riding on bump stops everywhere I go. Plus the plan originally was to link the rear end when I did the long travel in the front, but shock lead times killed that idea.

Packaging comes down to just making that 4th link to fit. There's a lot more work involved with making a fuel cell or retrofitting an F150 gas tank to spare location than building a bed cage and having the coilovers fit a little bit above the bed line. A 3 link setup will net me most of the benefit of link suspension setup in the rear.

SAS down the road would entail a complete rebuild of the truck. Likely SAS would mean retire the truck from daily driving and just building it as a dedicated trail rig. If I had it my way, coilovers and bypasses all the way around, 3 link front, 4 link rear, engine/cab/bed cage work. It's a stupid amount of work, but I enjoy that sort of work on the truck.

I know straight up and down it like 10.5 inches of travel. I don't know articulated numbers. The cut on the fenders make it look like a lot, but I get nowhere near the fender at full bump articulated.

 

If your on the bumps, rework what you have now to get the shocks higher and give yourself more bump travel. What is the primary benefit you feel like a 3 gives you compared to what you have now?

I also think you're wildly optimistic about building bed cage being easier than an F150 tank swap. F150 tank swaps are stupid simple.

But hey if you enjoy the process, by all means go for the process. I'd rather pull my fingernails out one by one rather than redo my 3 link

 

Where does the F150 tank go?

 

Ha! I can definitely sympathize with that last part. Electrical/plumbing is where I draw the line for myself.

Biggest downfall right now is how negative my leaf springs get already when I'm bumped out. That was as high as I was willing to go.


PXL_20220919_224131993.PORTRAIT by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

If I had to keep it leaf sprung, the only way to get more would be a SUA setup, which if I'm spending that sort of money on leafs, I'd rather just spend a little more to link it.

Only reason I say the F150 tank would be a little harder right now is because I'd want to swap in a OEM fuel pump assembly into it.

Fits in the factory spare tire location

 

I agree with snowy. Keep the leaf springs and go spend a day with a shock tuner. With the wheelbase of these trucks your not going much when you link the rear and an off the shelf coilover isn’t going to perform any better than your current off the shelf shock.

I get doing builds in phases but after doing my latest sas, having a final goal and just saving and doing everything once is way cheaper and less work then setting everything up for ifs then completely reworking the entire truck for a sas. At this point, I’d say your better off finding a Tacoma that was in a minor fender for cheap and starting over and then having best of both worlds with an ifs taco and sas Tacoma. You’d be able to reuse somethings if you kept yours but 40s and tons make everything you currently have the weak points.

 

[QUOTE="
PXL_20220919_224131993.PORTRAIT by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Fits in the factory spare tire location[/QUOTE]

Ah, okay, that's what I was thinking.

That's where my aux tank is. Yeah, it was pretty easy.

 

No doubt a day with a shock tuner would do wonders for the truck. I have a better understanding on coilovers and links compared to leaf springs, so it's just a personal choice to change the truck over to links in the rear. I'll definitely be getting the truck tuned once I figure out spring rates and make sure I'm happy with that.

As for whenever this truck goes over to a SFA, I'm not really thinking that far ahead right now. I'm know it's going to be more work to basically cut everything off and start from a clean slate again, and you're 100% right with saying it's cheaper to buy everything and do it all at once; I'm just building the truck as I see fit for my current use case.

 

IMO, it should be flush with the bed side if OP plan on running 16s. But lower CO mount location will also affect placement.

 

If it were my truck I wouldn't want it coming into the bed at all, but that's difficult to do when you're shooting for large travel numbers

 

You could run a cantilever setup like some SUV builds run to keep the rear seat room.

 

Another option is keeping it under the bed with 4wu under bed mount. One main issue is, ride height and spring rating. If it's 12, it's doable but with 14 or 16, you're compromising.