Bilstein 5100's AGAIN...

Alright, here is a somewhat brief rundown summary of what ended up happening with my situation and my rig.

About 6 months ago I went to a meet locally and was talking to one of the guys who ended up doing a leveling on his truck. Sounded legit enough but then I went to go start looking into options and what I could do with my own only to find out a vast and almost disgusting selection of options.

Long story short, I ended up raising the front way too high thinking that the lift was all in the shocks when I did my suspension on all corners. When I read the aftermarket shocks advertisement it said "Up to 1" of lift" I could see how that could deceive some of the new guys to the lifting scene. So I had the bro lean going on for about a week and the incorrect rear shocks which were piggybacks sent out to me by ORW. I wanted Remote Reservoirs. PLUS the piggybacks were mounted upside down where all the hard parts were mounted at the bottom of the tire. Stupid move by Fox if you ask me. I studied all the possible configurations and measurements with what I was working with because I noticed the only thing available for the rear was piggybacks, which I was not okay with.

Anyways, I am kinda rambling, so getting back to the point, I ended up getting a F85 (meant for 98-2004 Tundra and Tacoma) Deaver's 3 Leaf 1.5 AAL's sent out to me by ORW (BTW, they were not easy nor fun to retrofit because the 4 Leaf TSB springs have a rivet which needs grinding off, so the AAL portion, at least in my instance was not and is not for the faint of heart/average joe with hand tools), and after a little battle with them I had, a new set of Remote Reservoir smooth body 2.0 Fox shocks originally intended to fit a 96-2004 Tacoma (Fox doesn't tell you they will fit on a 2nd Gen with a little TLC to the shocks!). I ran a different and extended, nearly 5" tall bump stop off of a GM full size Silverado and mounted that to the frame and an All Pro U-bolt flip kit which adds some extra height due to the thickness of the flip plate.

So now after running my fully redone setup in the rear I am running on 7 leafs instead of the TSB 4 leafs at a full 2.25" tall from top to bottom of the pack, and an absolutely stout 2.0 Fox shock setup (5/8" shaft) and a bump stop which rival's and/or BEATS the wheelers super bumps in many and every aspect. Many of the hardcore wheelers out there in the dunes use them and swear up and down by them, hell they use them to absorb blows from jumping. That's good enough for me!

I made a thread about it some time ago if you want to look at it. It has more info then what I am posting here with more accurate measurements and mostly everything is explained in detail and part numbers are given:

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/289215-fox-2-0-deavers-1-5-aal-gm-bump-stops.html

As far as the BFG A/T KO's go. They are AMAZING! Have gotten me through anything I have thrown at it, but they are actually called "Wardens" and I got them at a fraction of what you normally will find them for brand new, especially at the size I got them in 265/75/16. I do gotta put out there they are a different name because they are retreaded tires manufactured by a company called "Treadwright" Here is their website Treadwright.com

10,000 miles into them and tons of different terrain they have rolled through and they look about as new as the day I put them on myself. I absolutely love them and am going to go back to these guys for a second pair when these are done. Which I don't see happening any time soon!

Moral of the story is, did I have fun sourcing all of this stuff in the short amount of time available to do this (which was about a week or week and a half)? HELL NO! It sucked! Doing all the work also sucked just as bad too even with power tools due to the fact there was custom fitting going on and I only had X amount of hours to complete the work so I could get on back home. Would I do it all over again though? You bet your ass I would. Wheeling this beast when it was stock vs. what it is now is like night and day difference and it was worth all of the money and sweat I put into making it work!

 

Thanks for all the info...

 

Lol, at least it ain't a BroDozer!

 

It's a lot of overwhelming info I know. If you want to do it right though and plan on offroading, the thing is you have to almost become a subject matter expert on this stuff. The last thing you want is suspension failure due to cheaping out on the lift.

 

Definitely a lot of shite to learn here...


To be honest I like the look / ride / feel of the Tacoma the way it is,this all started because I have to get rid of the crappy stock tires that came with the truck. I don't do any Off roading with the truck and most of my time is spent on 100Km/Hr + highways.


It went from " I need new tires" to " if you level out the front end you can bump the tire size up a little" to " if your going to level the front with Bilsteins you might as well replace the rear shocks too" and now my head hurts and I need a beer .


Once the shocks come in im going to set the fronts at 1.75", replace the rears and put a new set of tires on it and see how I like it from there...maybe down the road get a little more creative !

 

I have the Sport with 5100's at 1.75 with the rear tsb which should be the same as the 4 leaf on the newer sports and I have to say that the ride is still pretty close to the same as stock. May be just a touch stiffer but handles better imo. Less body roll and just feels tighter. I like it. Of course your choice of tires will have a lot to do with it too.

Also I've read on here that you can go up a tire size w/o lift/leveling and I've heard it will scub also. But even with the lift at 1.75, from my understanding you can still only run the same larger size of 265/75/16 or the 17" equivalent. (I forgot the size)

 

I added the 1" block after the cap was on, so the 1" block raised it 3/4". I guess the weight of the cap lowered it 1/4"

 

I guess overall I should most Importantly ask, what are you trying to accomplish? Simply running larger tires?

 

Minor wheeling. My Taco is a company vehicle so I won't be doing anything too crazy. Why does that matter in regards to the spacer?

 

Spacer lift was only intended for on road usage for the trucks that want to accomplish the look of a lift but don't want to invest in building the suspension system to run a lift the proper way.

The thing is that if you run a spacer and you off-road it, as light as it might be, you are still subjecting the suspension to forces beyond what they were originally built to, because of that block.

 

I don't have the actual measurements, but it didn't actually measure higher in the front. I had about a 1/2" difference from side to side. It's just the angles of the truck that make it look nose high. I have the 1" block one the rear, which gives it just a slight rake. I've recently been considering doing 1.5" in the rear. The 1" is just shy of what I would like.

 

A 1" solid block isn't going to hurt anything. Obviously if you get a huge block and do crazy shit things will happen.

 

Any additional lift that is not evenly distributed amongst the leaf spring is bound to cause issues if being used off-road.

 

My goal is just levelling the truck and squeezing as big of a tire on the stock 17" rims that i can right now.

my stock tire is 265/65/17 ---> 30.563 " and i was hoping that after i level out the truck i could get a little bigger rubber on it...

Like i said before 90 % of my driving is on 100Km/Hr highways, the only dirt this truck sees is the road to the cottage...

Any thoughts:

265/70/17 ----> 31.6"

275/70/17 ----> 32.15"

 

Why do you want a larger tire size if you aren't going to be wheeling? You realize that your current tire diameter of 31.61" is somewhat of an envy to all other single/access/ and even double cab owners who are not happy with their current size. Hell an upgrade to them is to a 265 tire! Bigger is not always better. Realize not only that, but on top of that if you go up to a larger size you are going to throw the Speedo out of calibration. The last thing I'm sure you'd want is to get pulled over because of the fact your Speedo was off by a MPH or something.

 

I did the 265/70/17,

 

Go 31.6" call it a day. It's pretty damned close to 32" which for this size truck is plenty enough. Not to mention that if you go any larger you may have to start cutting plastic off.

My mistake when I wrote my last message to you. I thought you had a 31+ inch tire already and wanted to go EVEN larger.

 

May want to check out the 255 tire thread. Not that I know much about them but worth considering.

 

Ya I saw that with tire speed that at a high speed your speedo will be off by almost 9 mph.

 

I just wanted a little bigger rubber, i don't want to level it out then have it look funny with what looks like little tires...