2.5 inch spacer front vibes 40ish mph

Whatever dude I’m speaking from what’s on my truck right now. Ive done plenty of research on here. Just giving my advice here. For you to suggest 600 dollar control arms for a spacer lift. That’s a joke right there. IMO. HE COULD DO 5100’s or 6112’s and eibach kit with no control arms and be fine at 2”. Or maybe he would need arms.
I guess I know nothing

 

I second that!!

 

Is the spacer itself 2.5"? It looks pretty tall.

 

Yes, the spacer itself is 2.5”.

 

then why isn’t your company an approved vendor here? GM engineer or not, You’re coming off pretty strong with the sales pitch. That’s all he’s saying.

End of the day, UCAs are not required for a leveling kit. UCAs correct caster, which may affect handling, but doesn't create a vibration. OP needs a needle bearing fix, not UCAs.

 

That's a problem. That doesn't equal 2.5" of lift at the wheel. It's more because of the suspension geometry, maybe near twice as much. That's why the alignment techs couldn't do anything with your caster. You're maxed out. And you'll have very little down travel. Fine for the mall, but not so much for the off roading.

 

Needle bearing.
Didn’t read. But 100% of the problem 100% of the time.

top reason why I haven’t added any lift yet. Stubborn in me angry that Toyota would let this happen.

 

Travel is limited. I understand that. What I was originally trying to figure out is why I’m having the subtle vibration after the lift even though I dropped the diff mounts. I refer you to the pics again, the CV shaft is not over contorted

 

@BLKYota - A crude drawing, but it helps illustrate your issue.

 

Right, but the vibration has already been addressed (needle bearing). That's not your only problem with a 2.5" spacer. You'll never get good caster numbers without doing one of two things: reducing the amount of lift to below (I think) 2" or getting aftermarket UCAs to correct the caster issue. Bottom line is you have too much lift. You'd likely have better results with a 1" spacer.

 

Ok. So, I will address the needle bearing, meaning I will ECGS that shit. Although, I would like to see a stock 3rd gen pic such as the one I posted to see how the pith of mine compares.

Also, what’s thoughts on a UCA designed for this situation.

 

Due to the motion ratio of the front suspension geometry, your 2.5” spacer lift on the shock translates to much more than that at the wheel. Probably closer to 4-4.5” at the wheel, which lines up with the caster numbers you got from your alignment. Did you measure your fender heights before and after to confirm how much actual lift you got?

the cv angles shown don’t look like they would cause an issue so I doubt it’s the needle bearing.

However, the zero degrees of caster is likely an issue. Positive caster provides straight line stability at speed by loading the suspension and control arm bushings in a consistent manner. When your caster is at or near zero, the bushing deflection depending on the road surface and loading conditions can cause the caster to switch between being slightly positive to slightly negative. That changes the loading on the control arms and bushings. If that caster positive/negative switching occurs at a frequency that lines up with the natural frequency of the suspension bushings, you can get resonance that can be felt as vibration. That’s why speeding up or slowing down fixes the issue, because you’re no longer exciting the suspension at a frequency that causes that resonance.

Although switching to 4wd is mentioned as a good test for the needle bearing, I don’t think it rules out the caster issue either. If it is indeed due to the caster, switching on 4wd can induce enough torque/drag to load the suspension and eliminate the oscillation.

just my .02

 

There are plenty of pics of stock 3rd gens to look at. Go measure the distant from the center of your wheel to the fender.

I have the JBA "high caster" UCAs ($449.95). They gave me about 4° of caster. My center-of-wheel-to-fender measurement is a about 22-5/8" on the driver's side. I think stock is 20". Someone can verify that.

 

I learned something today. Thank you, sir.

 

So... 6112’s on the front and 5160’s in the rear would be my best bet. Also notice the 6112’s have a special note for the clips to compensate the taco lean.

 

Thanks for the info and explanations. I will try to figure a time/way to get the ECGS fix for my vibe. But after discussions with all of you fine folks, I am also likely going to upgrade my UCA. Anyone have knowledge/experience with these:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ScFzo378gDg

 

i dont know who the guy who thinks everything is a bearing issue but dude im not selling him crap. i have never linked a part, told him to buy from me, nothing im telling him what i know and have DONE as an professional engineer. if you can drive through the issue its a UCA caster issue plain and simple. if it were a bearing it would be a constant vibration regardless of speed and worsen with speed. i would like to see your education and what you do for a living to even qualify you to understand how this works. your a keyboard warrior and your fix will not help him. we see this every time we lift a tacoma over 1.5in up front. you loose caster in your every day ride height like his near 0, this makes a mini death wobble that can be felt in the steering wheel at ~43mph.

as for your comment on approved vendor i was given the we have too many. but if you want my resume and my shops. we built the sema gladiator for magnuson. do 20 to 30 trucks a week out of our brick and mortar shop and i personally dont need to sell him anything. i just want to see he gets the fix he is looking for. the UCAs are NOT REQUIRED but without them you are going to see a steering wheel shake. its completely drive-able but ti can be very annoying.

in the future please keep to a professional level of conversation and avoid the ad hominem attacks

 

if they claim to correct the geometry issues they should work