Advice for front shocks for my goals

What's your advice? I have a stock TRD off-road.

Want to lift 1 inch or 2 inch max.
Want to keep OEM rims, do +1 tire size or +2 if it looks better for the lift amount.
Do not want to make the on-road ride worse than stock. I like the smooth ride of the stock setup
I want to improve the jarring effects of potholes and railroad tracks and poorly maintain roads. I feel that navigating todays crappy roads is like trail driving. Off-road use is secondary to the goal.

What shocks?
Toyota TRD lift
Eibach
King
Bilstein
Fox (I'm thinking overpriced and overkill)
Other

Should I get them with springs or use mine?
Should I get replacement control arm?

Timo23Toyota

 

what’s your budget?

 

Tons of info https://www.tacomaworld.com/forums/suspension.18/

First we need to know your budget and tire size.

 

Not counting the tires and I was thinking 1500 or so. But it's more about the quality. I'd pay whatever if I knew it was exactly what I needed

Timo23Toyota

 

for that problem you would see the best results with beefed up shackle hangers like archive garage hammer hangers. after i installed them the whole back end of the truck felt united with the front, ridding of the jarring feeling hitting bumps. none of those other upgrades with make you see results like the hangers mod do, actually most of them will make it even worse. for example, people really think they will have a better ride installing bilstien 5100 on the 3-4 notch with stock spring, one or two size up tires where they dont realize what the load rating is, and then to top it off install control arms that have stiffer bushings in them...all making for an even worse ride than stock. theyll never admit its worse because of how much money they wasted and how much little research they did. mods or expensive parts DOES NOT always equal better ride. if your main gaol is to have a more comfortable ride while offroading maybe once a month heres my quick suggestion:

1. archive garage hammer hangers
2. bilstien 5100 with stock spring set on bottom notch, no lift
3. same tire size with better tread or one size above but keep the load rating lower, more plys = stiffer tires.
4. replace front bumpstops to something like sumosprings. they will really help out with bottoming out and soak up a lot more bumps than you think they will. extra bonus is body roll will be reduced dramatically. and maybe even change rear bumstops as you will be there with the hangers anyway.

hope this helps and really clears up your perspective on making a ride more comfortable on the road.

 

this is good advice, but if you want to avoid lifting the rear too much you can go with the BAMF hangers and not get the extra 1” of lift in the rear just mentioning

 

I’ve been very happy with my Bilstein 5100’s in terms of off road performance, I didn’t notice much of a difference with the road manners though. Switched to the 5100’s from the stock Hitachi’s.

 

do they lift up the rear using stock leaf springs? i was under the intention that they do not raise the rear but i used deaver springs and never bothered to measure if they lift because of the shackles. @ARCHIVE

 

i think archive hangers yield an additional inch due to the design. BAMFs are a little different, both are stellar products (image not my truck)

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bamf-hd-shackle-hangers.496200/#post-15373285

 

Might be worth driving without a sway bar too once everything is installed and settled to see how it feels

 

Bilstein 6112 up front, 5160 in the rear. Bang for the buck cannot be beat and you can buy them built from wheelers. Skip the UCAs, throw some “super bump” bump stops on and call it good.

Rear I would recommend Deaver springs and a ubolt flip with bump stop from archive garage if budget allows in addition to the 5160s.

 

Bilstein 5100's are bigger and better than the oem Off Road Bilstein's, and eliminate the brake dive. You can set it @ 1" or 2"

 

I agree with the hammer hangers being biggest upgrade for the rear end jarring. This is a fairly intense upgrade labor wise. I’ve done my whole front and rear suspension 8112/8100 jba UCAs replaced inner outer tie rods. Rear leaf pack icon rxts. None of that came close to as intense labor wise as installing the hammer hangers. That said they’re probably the biggest upgrade and most noticeable with ride quality

 

you can say that again! the brutal effort of the install truly shined in the results, felt like a different truck. the one other mod I can think of that even comes close is a tune, moreover for my little 4 cylinder, no idea on the V6. these two mods completely change the driviability of the truck as a whole for daily use.

 

Cool thanks for the info. I never thought its more about bump stops, hangers, and springs then it is about shock quality and size

Timo23Toyota

 

Another vote for 6112 and 5160. Pretty much the best bang for your buck.

 

people saying 5100s but they give a much firmer ride (which alot of us like). but it sounds like for what op wants a fox 2.0 would be best. they are the softest valved between 5100s and eibachs.

also bump stops should not affect daily driving at all. and definitely shouldn't affect body roll. if that is the case then they are way to long.

 

If I could ONLY upgrade one component or set of components in suspension and it was for daily driving and ride quality it would be hammer hangers. This is just my personal experience and opinion. It’s definitely not as flashy or cool as some other upgrades which also can help ride quality but to me it was most noticeable. Very labor intensive but not hard to understand how to do it if you follow the instructions from Archive garage. An angle grinder with good cutoff wheels and a lot of good quality metal drill bits are super helpful with the labor. It took me a good 10 hours of labor alone to install these so make sure you’ve got a full weekend free

 

Swapping from 256-70-17 to 265-75-16 tires, both SL-rated, makes for a more cushy ride thanks to taller sidwalls.