Dirt Designs 05+ Taco 4WD RACE kit

Yeah that all makes sense. And if you need more than 21" of travel you probably need more cage too

 

Any idea what price for the link kit is going to be? Is this going to be available as a kit to ship or only to come and have installed in your shop?

 

$4k for trailing arms, upper link, track bar, all axle mounts, axle truss, all frame mounts, all heims, bushings, hardware. It does require a fab shop to install + build a bedcage. Things you need to supply are shocks, wheel spacers, and bedsides. Also factory gas filler needs to be moved.


The silver taco is almost done. Front kit is on with bypasses and engine crossover. We got the bumper all tacked together and it should be all welded up tuesday. Then its paint time and assembly.

 

Gotcha, I am good to do the fab part, just don’t live anywhere near you so I would need to have the kit shipped and do the fabrication here.

Nice work for sure. Hopefully I can find a way to swing this in the future.

 

Badass work!

 

Curious as to why you didn't use a Watts linkage instead of a panhard.

 

That would probably be too many parts and a pain to get configured right. I have only seen it on road cars.

 

Yep more parts, quite a bit more money to build the parts, and would be difficult to make the pivot point strong enough for the offroading most of these guys will see. An added crap on the list is that the pivot would need to be ~14" diameter to handle the travel requirements and that means the watts link would hang ~3-4" below the diff at ride height which I know everyone would drag off the truck in the desert or rock crawling. In the end the axle sway left/right isnt that noticeable (if at all), its simple, and strong.

 

I have always wanted to link my rig, but I think that I would have to have a "short course" style link setup with the shocks on the axle (I do a lot of wheeling here in utah). I am afraid that a conventional 3 or 4 link setup with shocks on the links would catch too many rocks.

I could be over thinking this problem however. lol

 

If you use the same pivot locations, you would gain 2" of ground clearance on the links in the middle. Its a good amount of clearance difference in a few situations but most likely you could find a way up/down the rocks anyways. A couple bigger advantages with the conventional link setup is that this type of trailing arm is much harder to bend. We've had a few jeep guys come in with with bent 2" x 0.25" wall DOM links that bent from rocks but I havent seen a bent trailing arm except for on an ultra 4 cause those guys can break just about anything. The other advantage of the conventional link setup is the shocks work better at high speed because they are not working 1:1 with wheel travel. Having the shocks move slower is a smoother ride when going through whoops at high speed.

 

This is badass @dirt designs !

Really interested in how you guys decide to treat that upper link frame mount. If all goes well (and I'm sure it will), I may be making a trip up to your shop in a little bit.

Looks awesome, subbed for more pics and info.

 

Well that took longer then expected. Everything was painted and we started assembling but the bedsides ended up ~3weeks late. Then we decided to move the factory spare holder around to fit a 35 under the bed and that led to a new rear bumper haha. Anywho, the silver taco just left the shop today. Hes going to wrap the truck, and we'll get some more pics. The tan taco is all torn down at powdercoat and we will be assembling it next week.

 

Amazing work! Why is the upper link at the axle towards the passenger side and not centered?

 

It' a panhard bar. The way that type of link system (3 link) works is that you need a link or "panhard bar" to prevent side to side movement.

 

Negative, the upper link.

 

Stock gas tank and drive line carrier bearing are in the way in the middle, nowhere to put it.

 

Ahh, right. I see now.

 

Nice Work. From the pics, it looks like the frame is not plated from the cab back? Is there a particular reason why this wasn't done?

 

Time, money, and theres no real load in the back on the silver taco anymore. All the suspension loads are now right behind the cab. Only thing thats really loading the frame in the back is the weight of the bed, spare tire, and panhard. We'll see how long it holds up. Its a buddy's truck so any issues we can look into and fix as needed. If he drives hard like normal he'll be needing a cage more then just frame boxing haha