wife rides in truck, now wants new susp

The backstory:

My wife and I took our 4 month old son on a 1600 mile roadtrip from So Cal to Oregon and back. Stock leafs were frowning bigtime from all our crap and the stock coil overs didn't do much in the way of smoothing things out. My son would wake up pretty often from the gawd awful bumpy ride. CFO gave me the green light...says "you should spend some $ to make the ride smoother".

On the hunt for new leafs, front coil overs, and rear shocks. Going to leave the stock A-arms and tires. I'd like to put sliders on at some point and the truck rides with the shell exclusively now. Springs have to be able to support the added shell weight full time and be able to support the weight of all our crap on future trips without sacrificing ride quality on the highway. I'm looking at a max of 3" lift. I'd like to try an OME setup, but users say the springs are weak without the AAL. What would you buy?

First 2 pics are loaded down, 3rd pic is unloaded.

 

3" lift with stock size tires would look kinda silly. You can always use adjustable coil overs, keep the factory ride height then adjust so you can run larger tires down the road. For the rear I just replace the leaf springs or if the arch is still there unloaded add some airbags for the extra weight.

 

3" is the absolute max I would want with the shell off. Really more interested in something closer to 1" - 2", like you said, 3" with stock tires would like goofy.

 

Are those 265/70/16's?

 

This is a good option. 881 coils should give you around 1.75"-2" in the front. The rear should match with the weight of the shell. You can add the OME AAL later if you want to have a bit more load capacity in the back. If you end up with the OME leafs, look into axle relocation plates. Sme need them, some don't, I did.

http://www.sky-manufacturing.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=TOY-ARP-001

 

I don't think any of that stuff will make the ride smoother though.. probably make it worse

 

Not necessarily. Practically same truck as yours and I use to sport 3" OME setup with stock wheels till I got my h3s on. If you're looking for a smoother ride I'm gonna go ahead and tell you these get pretty bumpy. I have 883 coils up front and aal in the back

 

883s are too stiff without additional weight up front (bumper, winch).

 

^ This! I have 883's in the front of my extended cab. When first installed all I had on the front was an ARB bumper. Once I added my 10k Warn winch and Skid Row skid plates, it started to ride perfect. Don't do 883's unless you have some serious added weight in the front.

 

That is not necessarily true. I have a complete OME set up with 883's in the front and Dakar leaf springs in the back. This picture is with 31x10.5 tires which are equivalent to stock size.


And this picture is the day after I installed the lift. I had no winch or skid plates on at the time of this picture.


I was worried that the tires would be too small too, but I am happy with the way it turned out. I might go with 32's in the future, but don't really want to spend the money to regear and go with 33's.

 

This^^

 

I think the all important question is how much do you want to spend?

How many miles are on the current suspension?

 

FWIW, when I had Toyota do the rear leaf TSB on my truck, they told me the ride was going to be much stiffer and drive terrible unloaded. I honestly couldn't tell a difference.

 

yes

 

good to know. I like how your truck sits.

 

Overall the ride quality isn't too bad. but when I'm loaded down and hit a big bump or pothole the stock suspension does nothing to absorb.

 

Look at 4WD's post. Find his thread. Do what he says to do in it.

 

I'm fine with spending some $. 1500 - 2k? I don't do any hard wheeling but I do get on some rough dirt roads. Mostly hwy driving though. 135k on stock suspension. have some used 5125s in back which turned out to be noticeably better than stock rears when unloaded.

 

Haha, thanks Brady you know how it is, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink....

good luck OP....