Budget lift

3) You forgot Overlanding

 

simple, engineers are on a budget, so they do not always design for the "best". As for lift and offroad, there are trails where you need more clearance. parts of Joshua Tree, Pilot Rock etc come to mind.

 

Oh God yes, how can we forget that jewel...

 

we do its called 4H and 4L, or for the mall crawlers, ECT

 

And Instagram...... need the offroading porn.

 

You got that precisely wrong lol. Engineers (except Civil engineers and they don't count) are never on a budget - the people who buy their products are the ones on a budget. Take the Tacoma for example, pretty sure if the prospective customers wanted to spend $100K on their trucks the Toyota engineers would give them their money's worth... that's OK though, people get that concept wrong all the time.

 

Ain't that the truth?

 

I'm in the manufacturing business, for 25+ years, trust me they are on a budget.

 

So am I. Their budget is proportional to the customer's budget. The customer always controls the budget. My original was a tongue in cheek comment directed at the guys who argue over oil change intervals and cold air intakes lol.

 

oil change and cai...yea thats a never ending debate. One that I "exclude" myself from as much as I can.

 

Those guys are "always" smarter than the engineer lol.

 

I ran this set up for about 1 and 1/2 years good setup and my alignment was very close to factory. With added 1/2" and 1/4" spacer and aftermarket UCA's my alignment improved.

 

No disrespect, but this is pure urban legend. A spacer above the strut along with a bump stop extension prevents that from happening. Of course, with no bump stop extension, one COULD break or bend the strut while off-roading. Best advise I can give you is determine the size of tire you want to run first. THAT will determine the means and size of lift you need.

 

I agree to some extent of this. One could run 33" with a spacer lift and be equivalent to the same tire size as one with say a OME lift,however I would not advise the one on the spacer lift to take the same lines as one with the OME lift.There are a lot of variables to take into consideration.It mostly depends on ones function of the vehicle. If your going to offroad and you cant afford a reasonable lift kit than save your money until you can.If you want to stay on pavement and run 285's than a spacer lift will be just fine. Just my .02

 

Topping out is what breaks them, I've seen photos and heard from reputable mechanics. So no it is not a "urban myth"

 

OK, you heard this and you heard that. Got it. I have over 25 years of building 4x4 suspensions (Jeeps, trucks, etc.) so I will explain to you what happens. When you add a spacer to the strut tower and take your truck off-roading, there is the possibility/probability that you will OVER COMPRESS the strut. The longer strut compresses, but there is no bumpstop to prevent over compression. All of that down force then bends the lower strut housing because the stock bumpstop was unable to do its job and prevent said over compression. This is why a simple bumpstop extension spacer prevents the destruction of the strut during full compression. I hope this helps your understanding.

So, yes, an improperly set up spacer lift can end badly, but if you simply extend the bumpstop it will be fine.

 

thank you for contradicting your first post Regardless "how", it will cause damage, that was the point.

topping out, just re-read my post...was thinking too much preload and not spacers.
too much preload-topping out
spacers-as you have pointed out, bottoming out

 

I didn't contradict anything. The "Urban Myth" is that spacer lifts are bad and cause damage to the strut. Damage is only an issue if you don't extend your bump stops properly. Most of the guys running spacer lifts never run their 35k Tacoma's on any type of rough terrain anyway. I wouldn't either. That said, I have seen guys that run stock AND after market strut assemblies bend their struts because running high speeds over rough terrain without the best suspension (read very expensive) components can destroy their suspensions as well. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I just get a little tweaked when people that "heard this, or heard that" pipe in that really have no real world experience to back their claim. I do think we can both agree that a spacer lift is a bad idea if improperly set up or used in hard core off road conditions. By the way, I used to live very close to the Mohave desert at one time. We were rolling Jeeps through Calico Ghost Town, Big Bear, etc. Great area for a Taco.

 

So you're saying a spacer lift with bump stop extensions would be viable for say fire trails and mild off-roading? Asking for a friend .

 

Yes. I wouldn't abuse it though.