Long Travel BS Thread

For us who have done frame bracing and no cage work. Are you saying we have made it more unsafe by bracing the frame without cage work? I'm just trying to understand because I just don't have the knowledge that some of you guys have on this subject. What would be the best option cage wise short of going a full blown cage work like your truck? I'm coming from (Mid Travel) slow rock crawling to wanting to go more desert fast pace (JD 2.25 LT). I originally thought about cage work but like someone mentioned it doesn't seem to be a common mod for daily drivers. More of a race truck mod. I'm all for safety.

 

Part exo. Roof, windshield, and a-pillar are all going outside the cab. Will come through the roof straight down at the b-pillar and have all the internal parts behind and beside the seats branch from there, of course going through the floor as well. That keeps all of the head bangers outside the cab.

 

But I've come to love the creaking of my frame every time I'm flexed over some rocks...

 

It really all comes down to this. Know your ability, your trucks ability, and know the terrain your in and you’ll always be fine. Exceed any of those and someone or something may pay the price.
Stiffening up your truck definitely changes the dynamics of how it behaves in an accident and the forces you will feel taking away the crumple zones whether it’s dangerous or not is up to you and the risk we all take off-roading these trucks. I think the biggest issue may be in our litigious society and getting sued if you have an accident where they can prove in court that since your vehicle is so reinforced that it caused the death or major injuries to people in the other vehicle.
But anyways. I’m still gonna do what I want. You do you is what I say.

 

3rd gen cabs are identical to 2nd gen. I can’t see the TE cage not working

The stiffer you make your frame, whether that be pivots, bypass hoops, bumpers, sliders etc the more you take away from the frames ability to absorb the impact. That energy is going somewhere, like it or not. And the next weak link is the cab.

Considering a dc and ac are only held on the frame with 4 bolts into thin metal that likes to crack under heavy use as is. There is legitimate concern as to what exactly the cab would do in a bad impact.

 

Well said! I don't think most people take the time to think about their abilities or their vehicles abilities and far to many times I've seen people not knowing the terrain end up in OH SHIT!! situations.

 

I am with @Airdog on the performance side though.

Hands down, the cage did more than any of the money spent on long travel. So much so, that if I were to start all over knowing what I know now. I would have had a very basic cage with mid travel. It’s really hard to understand just how much the truck transforms with a cage until you actually experience it.

 

Sounds like I should have researched a bit better on cage work. What does a basic cage consist of?

 

https://tedesigns.com/collections/tacoma

This gives you a pretty good idea. There's a lot of sacrifices that aren't well mentioned here depending on the specific design that you go for. Potential loss of back seats, intrusion into the cab (unless you do an ext-cage), into the door, loss of usable space in the bed, etc. You can account for most of these but you're increasing design work and thus cost.

 

Outriggers. A,B,C pillars. A simple run into the bed is ideal and some roof structure/harness bar.

Thing is, you can always add to a cage down the road if it’s built with that in mind.

If I were doing one for someone that might want to add on, I would do stub outs for an engine cage right off the bat so that was ready to splice into and run.

 

That is so far from a basic cage it’s not even funny. That is a race spec cage. At least compare apples to apples.

 

To be fair, I was trying to be apples to apples. Your pitch this far has been "it's not even that hard or expensive, just grab a TE cage for less than your suspension" which is a far cry from "just have someone build something custom".

In the interests of being thorough though this post has the best collection of build threads with cages referenced on TW that I've seen. Far from exhaustive but lots of variety in builds. Anthony's supercharged build has always been beautiful to me and his cage isn't particularly intrusive.

 

You could just buy the TE cage and not install lots of it as well. Which would be a cheaper option over custom.

Or, a custom cage that retains most interior is probably going to run in the 10-12 range out the door.

That 10-12 would yield more than you could ever imagine for benefits.

 

Is that an installed price? I have a 3rdgen and it doesn't look like TE has 3rdgen kits yet.

 

That would be my ballpark for a simple basic cage.

But I don’t have to charge 120$ an hour to survive here, either.

 

Yup...there are a few pieces I left out with the TEdesign cage. But they were all the 1.5 inch tubes (Blue tubes in the renderings). All the 2 inch and 1.75 were installed

 

They havent even released the 2nd gen Dbl Cab cage yet. But its close from what ive heard. Only Tacoma cage so far is the 2nd gen Access cab.

 

Realistically though. The cabs are identical. The only real difference is some door aesthetics on the exterior. So I can’t see their 2nd gen cage not working in a 3rd. Probably just not labeled as such because nobody has done it yet.

 

This dude is good and very reasonable. Send him a DM of what you want so you have an idea of what you are dealing with here in SoCal. https://www.instagram.com/metalheadsfab/

 

Currently saving and waiting for TE’s double cab