Custom Slide-In Camper Suspension Mod Thoughts

Long time reader but first time poster here! I'm traveling full time in my custom slide-in truck camper made by Elusive Trailer Company. I'm the second owner so not 100% sure on the weight of the camper, but my wet weight estimate is around 1000lb. I rolled across a truck scale fully loaded with my dog, clothing, gear, and camper and came in around 5750.

My 2014 access cab 2.7L 5MT Tacoma hauls the camper pretty well. I need 4th with a headwind or a big hill on the highway, but it pulls around town and on back roads no problem. Currently, my entire suspension is stock and probably in need of a refresh anyway after 130k miles. I'm planning on Deaver U402 Stage 3 for the rear leaf packs and Bilstein 5100s in the front and rear. I'm going to retain my factory coils now since I don't have any aftermarket bumpers or extra weight specifically mounted on the front. I think this should help carry the weight much smoother and give me about a 2" lift all the way around.

I'm upgrading my tires to a load range E KO2, as well, but sticking with 245/75/16. I'm a little worried of looking goofy with the lift, but I don't want to re-gear the truck right now and with all the weight in the bed and the fact that I'm not going to be crawling any crazy trails with my house on wheels, I think I'll be okay.

Planning on knocking all of this out over the next few weeks in the Columbia Gorge area in Oregon before heading south for the winter. Appreciate any thoughts on suspension components or shops in the area to help with the work.

 

I love that thing. Bravo. Not sure if Hellwig makes a sway bar for that thing (or forget that idea). Not sure but good luck! This is awesome!

 

Thanks, Steve - I'm stoked on the camper. It feels massive inside and has made being out in the mountains for a week below freezing a lot more enjoyable. Now I just need to get the rig up to snuff to make driving around fun, too!

 

Hey @xmountaingoatx, I found this thread while searching for anything I could find on Elusive slide-ins. We actually have a lot in common, apparently — my wife and I bought ours at about the same time and we also live in NW Oregon (Happy Valley).

Our slide-in is a 'short' variant, I think yours is full height but I have to bend over, it looks like this one (just a photo I found). I'm kicking myself for not saving an ad I saw for this exact product a couple of months ago because that ad is now gone and I can't seem to find any real specs on this thing. I'm pretty sure I recall that ours is 1100 lbs, so yours must be at least that much, but your Taco should have a ~1300 carrying capacity and I gather that you're doing fine hauling it around. We just got a 2017 TRD Off-Road a few days ago, really excited about it, though we won't be putting our camper on the truck until the weather starts to warm up a bit.

 

What a small world! I've since hit the road and am currently down in SoCal, but will definitely be back in the PNW in the coming months. Did you purchase yours directly from Elusive or was it a private sale? There was a guy named Charlie selling one in Portland around the same time I bought mine down in Bend. I checked out Charlie's before making the drive and can say that the full standing height is amazing - I'm 6' and can stand up fully without hitting my head.

I haul mine around with my 4 cylinder okay. I can hold 65mph no problem on the highway, but need 4th if there's any headwind and if there's a big hill, I'm in 3rd doing 50mph lol. I had the truck long before the camper and wanted to give it a go. Your 6 cylinder will probably make your driving a little less work.

Not sure if you've thought about a suspension set up, but I was due for a refresh anyway with factory shocks and rusty leaf springs from the east coast. I went with Deaver Stage III U402 leafs and Bilstein 5100s all the way around. The front is still factory coils and the Bilsteins are set on the tallest notch. I think I have a true 2" lift all the way around, even with the camper loaded. If you're just using yours on the weekend, you'd probably be fine with airbags and some good tires. I run BF Goodrich KO2s in E range and have been happy with their performance.

Here's a shot from 1200 mile trip from Hood River down to the desert from a few weeks back.

 

Beautiful pic! I'm guessing you're like us and like to explore public lands camp spots, we've been doing that for a few years with our Eurovan that the camper/truck rig is about to replace. Lots to unpack here, and I'm adding a couple of other topics...

- We did, in fact, buy Charlie's camper! Cool kid, we were both jealous of his lifestyle. This is our first slide-in camper and it's kind of an experiment, but it was such an entry-level price and it's such a light camper that we felt like it was worth jumping on to see how we feel about this kind of adventure travel. I'm also 6' tall, so if the height feels like too much of an issue then we'll probably make the upgrade to a taller or expanding slide-in.

- It's cool to confirm that a 4-cylinder Tacoma will do the trick. My research confirmed as much (in fact, I think yours has about the same payload capacity as a V6!), and there were a couple of really nice 4C Tacos that we considered, but GPT didn't have me confident in crossing high-elevation passes with the camper at highway speeds, so we confined our search to the 6C models. Your experience has me feel a bit more confident about someday buying a somewhat heavier slide-in.

- Speaking of weight, the TRD Off-Road does have some beefed-up suspension already, including 2-chamber Bilsteins, though I know very little about it. I'm aware that some slide-in owners like the airbag additions, I figure we'll just see how we do this year and upgrade to something like that if it feels needed. Pretty sure our truck (which looks a lot like yours!) was also lifted by the previous owner, here's a profile pic from the day we bought it.

- Elusive as a company seems... elusive. I'm not sure what the deal is with their slide-in "line," but it kind of seems like they don't make them anymore or even want to mention that they ever did — no mention of them on the website or their Facebook posts. I tried emailing them to ask a question about awnings but didn't get a response. I should probably just try calling at some point, but there's no rush. At any rate, here's a photo of our camper (the tarp is just to reduce wear & tear on the roof/solar).

- BUT that does lead to the question of whether you have an awning or know anything about adding one. I realized while looking into them that mounting an awning is going to be challenging since we'll have to mount it super high up if we want to avoid the window, and that means that it's damn near impossible to manipulate by hand, which means we kind of need a fancy version that "scrolls" out. Here again, no rush, we've spent a lot on this project and won't be adding that until at least Black Friday.

Okay, enough blathering!

 

That's a great looking Tacoma - please tell me it is MT! Still cool, if not, but would make me love it even more lol. I agree with you on your suspension decision. Just run it and then see what needs to change as you go. With my stock suspension, I was on the bump stops riding around so that wasn't fun. I also pretty much keep the camper in full time as I'm spending a year living out of the truck so I wanted something purpose-built to carry the weight. The ride is a little stiff without the camper, but the truck rides smooth as butter over bumps and crawls up some pretty wild stuff nice and easy with the Deaver/Bilstein combo.

Charlie's a cool guy indeed - what a small world! He said that you all had just put down a deposit the day I drove over to see it (otherwise I would have bought it)!

As for Elusive, I'll PM you the details. I reached out, too, when I first bought the camper to see if there was a serial number for insurance purposes. My car insurance ended up covering it without a VIN, but I never heard back and I thought that was really strange. Long story short, I wouldn't expect that you'll be hearing back from the company...

My 4 banger gets the job done, but I would definitely prefer a 6 cylinder. I manage about 15 mpg when I drive around 55 or 60 and have the right wind, but I definitely have to pay attention and often am running around 3k rpms or more to keep up to speed. I wasn't in a position to trade out the truck for something else, so I figured I'd make it work as best I can. So far, so good - just have more time to enjoy the view!

No idea on how to mount an awning... Honestly, mine is even taller than yours. I typically just hang out inside if the weather isn't great or just chill in the shadow since it is SO tall lol. I know the sides have big cutouts in them to reduce weight so you have to be careful about where you sink anchors. That said, fairly tall popup campers/shells like OVRLND or the FWC Project M often have awnings on them so I'd look into what folks mount on those as they usually deploy them when their top is popped (which would be taller than your set up.

 

Sadly, our Taco is an AT, MT would have been my first choice as well, but you can't have everything. I'll rope you in if we take a few trips and feel like our suspension could use further beefing up.

And that's funny re: the serial number — we had a moment of pause when we discovered that there was no title, and technically the state of Oregon expects you to title this sort of thing. But after pondering on that we decided we weren't likely to get in trouble and would just play dumb if we were called on it. But I don't think the topic of insurance even came up! I'll have to add that to our list to look into, hopefully State Farm will cover it without either of those details.

Yeah, we'll worry about an awning later, it's pretty invaluable with a Eurovan Weekender, but with this guy we can be inside more. When we do, we're figuring we'll just go to Re-Rack and let them figure out the safest way to mount it.

 

Sounds like a plan - happy to help answer any questions I can. I'm really putting my set up through the paces so glad to share any lessons I learn along the way.

My insurance ended up offering comprehensive coverage without any issues. I just told them there was no serial number or VIN and that it is entirely contained in my vehicle and they were fine with agreeing to a stated replacement value. I do think it is wise, though - would really suck to get hit by someone or have a tree fall on your camper and not have any coverage.