Fall Camp & Ride (Oct. 20-22, 2017)

Good to know . But the area we hit didn't *look* off limits? I've got videos of it on my phone. I'll have to post and maybe someone will know where we were.

It's a shame.. I prefer sand/hill climbing to mud pits any day lol

 

I am going to probably make a day trip to Citrus a couple of weeks before the Fall Camp-n-Ride to check things out and finalize a couple of event challenges. I want to see how things are right before we hit it up.

 

Definitely are since they are off the official trail

 

There's only one legal trail that goes up a sand hill and I'm not even sure that one is actually legal. I've seen it posted as closed a couple years ago, although it was hard to tell due to where the sign was, but that last couple of years it seems like it's open on one end (no signs and the bollards they had closing it off are gone in the middle), but where it comes out on Trail 11 is kinda unclear if it's open or not.

The only other sand hills are where the above trail comes out on trail 11, small ones, maybe 6-10' high, and they are off the trail so they count as being off-limits. There are bigger ones down off trail 9. They are definitely off limits.

 

I'd be interested to know the conditions beforehand. Got a db lift so I know I have limitations but the trucks a daily before a weekend warrior. Either was she's gonna get used. Who knows, maybe I'll win best mall crawler if that's a thing LOL

 

I don't see why you'd have limitations. @Sholden223 is running a DB and he does just fine. He's really impressed me before with that thing, following me and Todd (and Frank, IIRC) up a steep slippery hill in spite of the fact that he was open/open.

 

From what I remembered it was a fairly wide area through the middle, seemed like part of a regular trail. Super soft white sand and some reddish. Tons of hills left and right between 5'-15' maybe. So I guess there's a good chance we're talking about the same area. If so that's a bummer.

I believe Ryan (don't know his name on here; stormtrooper something?) was leading the not-so-hardcore group through it

 

My main limitation is that I'm a recent college graduate with shallow pockets lol. Last time it was $250 to get a trailer to haul the truck back to Gainesville. Also, they made huge improvements to the db lifts from first gen to second get, they don't seem to hang as low. I lost a little bit of clearance going from my 3" OME to the 6" Fabtech. But I'm also a novice when it comes to stuff other than mud holes. It'll be a learning experience. I'm on 33"s, v6. 5 speed, and a 12k lb winch. Open diffs. I'm looking forward to it!

 

Pretty much a fallacy. You didn't lose any clearance. You're rear diff is still the lowest thing on the truck and you probably gained clearance on your break-over angle and trans cross member. So if the DB hangs a little lower than the stock frontend, big deal...now you have room to run bigger tires and THAT is what gives you more ground clearance. If you think about it, with a solid front axle, which is pretty much what everyone wants, you can put 12" of lift on it, but you're not gaining any ground clearance under the axles until you go up in tire height.

My only beef with a DB on a 1st Gen, is that the one I have experience with seemed overly stiff and didn't flex well, but it had Fabtech coilovers on it. Spencer's flexes pretty good, but he's not running Fabtech coilovers.

There's 2 reasons I wouldn't run a DB myself. The biggest one is I'm breaking shit on that mickey mouse IFS frontend left and right and I'm only running 33s. If I got a DB lift, it would only be so I could clear 35s and if the IFS won't hold up to 33s, it for sure couldn't handle 35s. The other reason is the cost. I'd rather just take that money and put it towards an SAS. For what a DB costs installed, that's a good portion of what an SAS would cost...I could at least buy the axle and probably a leaf spring SAS kit if I went the cheap route. Then I'd end up with a much more durable setup that articulates a lot better.

Edit: also, I'm unsure how much abuse a DB would be capable of dealing with when bashing it on rocks, so that's be something to factor in as well.

 

Don't loose clearance! Keep it tight

 

Thank you, Grammar patrol! Been bustin' my hump cleaning Toyotas. I'm wiped tired and in a moderate amount of pain, so I'm glad you caught that typo for me.

 

lol I know......2016 I didnt record anything for some reason and it was all just photos, i think I did...I just have to look around and see where it's at

 

I know I'm notorious for having CRS, but I'm pretty sure you mentioned that you didn't take many photos because you were shooting video instead, kinda the reverse of 2016, haha.

 

ill be honest lol.....I dont even know where my gopro went haha, searching on my PC I didnt find anything...might still be on the gopro...not sure though. Ill try to find it tomorrow lol

 

Ultimately SAS is the goal. Only reason I'm running the Fabtech is because my spindle was destroyed at the last camp and ride I went to and a new oem one was around $500 from what I could see at the time. Also needed my truck back on the road asap and didn't have the time to wait and do a SAS. Ended up buying a used Fabtech for about $800 shipped. It honestly doesn't seem too stiff to me, but I was coming from 883 OME coils. However the up travel is significantly reduced due to the angle of the LCA's and how close the rubber bump stops sit to the DB. Either way, plan is to get a newer daily in a few years and then SAS this one. This setup was just to get me through college after I got t-boned in my 07 Acura TLS and totaled it out. I wanted to run 35s but knew better than to do that on an IFS with over 300k miles lol.

 

Can't go this year, going to the Toyota round up instead.

 

I am technically running Fabtech coilovers but it's their newer line of shocks called "Dirt Logic". I don't think they had them for the first gen DB. Their Dirt Logic shocks were developed by Fabtech for each specific vehicle on their DB lifts so my shocks were built and tuned for a Tacoma on a Fabtech 6" DB lift.

 

K, I thought you were running something different. It flexes pretty good though. All I know is that on Rick's old first gen, I jacked up one side from the LCA, put a jack stand under the frame and let the jack down and the LCA didn't move. It had no droop to speak of and very little up-travel going by how close the bump stops were to the bump stop pads.

Yours, I wasn't paying attention to how much it drooped when we had it jacked up to swap your front diff, but I've seen it flex going though that washout on Trail 14. It rides fairly decent on the trail too, IIRC, from when I rode with you that Saturday night at the first Camp & Ride.

If I had a 2nd or 3rd Gen, I don't think I'd shy away from a DB lift to clear 35s and if the front end held up to them with a locker decently, I might even see how it handled 37s ('cause if you can clear 35s with 3" of lift and cutting some sheet metal, you should be able to clear 37s with 6" of lift and trimming some sheet metal). Again, though, the only thing I'd be dubious about is how well it'd hold up to the abuse of bashing it on rocks.

 

Just as an update, @Scoobarooo and his 2wd are splitting my camp site with me, so you can take me off the share list

 

Im new please dont bite me for the noob questions haha. But can we just show up on the saturday of the event? All of this is completely new to me as far as organizing and all this group stuff.