Ironman 4x4 Foam Cell Pro

How’s the ride after?

 

Rides a lot better, it is still an IM FCP suspension so stiff. But over railroad tracks at speed and dips in the highway it’s a lot better now that it isn’t completely maxed out. All the angles look better on the suspension components as well, they don’t look as stressed. I’ll get new measurements tomorrow.

 

Nice, looks great!

 

thanks dude, I really appreciate your advice it turned out perfect and was totally worth the hassle and extra alignment

 

No I need to just haven’t had time I e been slammed at work because it’s the end of the fiscal year and lots of grant reporting and fiscal reports. I haven’t been able to jump on here much or anything. End of year is always a push hash tag nonprofit life lol

 

Ive been lazy and need to order the hose clamps for it. I want the rolled and thinner clamps.
That sounds like you’re pretty busy.

 

Like @nvmorrow said, I would bring the front down a .25 inch at the shocks that would lower .50 inch at the fender. Should get you level or slightly lower up front. Plus would give a better ride and less strain.

 

Alright, looking into getting the front coils compressed. The shop I talked to was very concerned about putting extra load onto those springs by compressing them even further.

Could anyone with a performance and/or adjusted front strut do me a solid and measure the amount of threads you have at the bottom, beneath the 2nd collar? I just want to confirm I’m somewhere in the ballpark of what others have..

I show 2 3/4 driver, 2 5/8 passenger

Also, ironman offered to give a partial refund to cover this cost. Good on them.

 

First pic is the driver side, second is passenger. Then a bad pic showing hub to fender of 23”. At least you can get an idea for angle of the UCA.

 

Heres what I got-
passengers side blurry 2 and about 3/8


Drivers 2.5

 

lifesaver @nwmorrow, thank you!!

I reckon I need to decide between 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch adjustment on the collar.

1/2 would drop me the full inch and put the total lift at around 3.5”, while a 3/8 adjustment to the collar would put me closer to level with the rear. I’m inclined to think the strain on the CV axle is more important than how things look to the naked eye and going for a 1/2 inch drop to the collar.

Also, if anything sounds funky in my request regarding the shop’s concerns over “compressing the spring further,” I think this was a mistake on their part while talking over the phone and not seeing it in person.

Still, it should seem like a relatively common concept when it comes to coil adjustments, but I’m the novice here.

Lastly, I would like to say that I worked alongside ironman on this issue and they provided a partial refund to cover the cost of the strut adjustment. Good peeps, but it still leaves the issue of folks getting more lift than they anticipated, seemingly across the board. I don’t like wasting time removing things and taking it to a shop to undo-redo what was already done, but this is what I signed up for when going at it myself.

Cheers for the help gang, will update in some days time.

 

Also, thanks @Devir7 Figured you’d be in here shortly!

Adjusting mine 1/2” would put the threaded distance less than yours, but I’m still up higher, probably due to some weight discrepancy between mine and yours topside.

 

Lol, I spend too much time here... sounds like it. Mine seemed to be about an 1” lower than other ORs and I was never really sure why. Here’s my before measurements and what I set the coils to.

 

I'm about a week out from starting install on these, but I'm a bit concerned about the amount of lift you guys are reporting.

From the pics, it seems like there is plenty of room to bring the collars down, and maybe reduce the front lift?

I'm trying for maybe 1.5 to 2in lift in front, have the performance coils. Is a lower lift like that doable with these, without adding a bumper and a winch?

 

Your best bet might be to call IM and ask. Depending if you ordered the 2.5 or the 3” you can set them at the height you want. You’ll need to do some math to figure it out but if your looking for 2”, probably set it to 7&3/4 or 8” spring seat height to bolt hole. That is if you have the foam cell pros.

 

I’m baffled by all the different before and after #s. It’s like trying to determine what does and does not cause someone to pick up the covids. Quite simply, just too many variables.

I did have a brief back n forth with Mitch from ironman regarding their quoted lift heights...

mandog: Is it possible to get your comments on this issue of actual lift height post-install? I know there’s a lot of limiting factors for how to determine this beforehand, but I’m involved in a forum topic discussing your suspension installs on tacomas and I’d say about a quarter of it 55 pages is pertaining to folks who got way more height than they bargained for.

Ironman: a lot of people do not take into account that our springs are designed to sit at 2.5 to 3 in with the additional payload specified for the spring. So if you do not have a winch bumper or winch, it may sit higher than 2.5 to 3 in. same goes for the rear leaf springs. they will be over sprung without the proper amount of weight in the rear

mandog: Thanks for taking the time to explain that. It’s the logical explanation, but I guess from a customer standpoint we are not getting what we expect and having to do a lot of strenuous mods to compensate.

Ironman: I understand. Each vehicle is setup differently, and everyone have different expectations, so it can be difficult to get the coilovers dialed in perfectly for each customer

mandog: When you are pre-assembling these struts, what goes into the consideration of how to set them? Is it a pre-determined collar height? It should really be a short q&a with the customer, but I realize that’s unrealistic and also most aren’t able to accurately determine their axle weights.

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The last comment was never responded to, but I think if folks are concerned they should pick up the phone after they order (or before) and give as much detail to their rigs as possible so they can set the heights accordingly.

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Thanks for all that have stuck their nose in here and put forth a lot of really helpful info.

@ShawZ ’s spring height post #1010 on pg 51, and
@rhmedjr ’s following post regarding weight and ride heights (#1011)
@roy326 and @FCL30 ’s discussion on page 15 for spring heights is good intel as well

A lot of others have also put in a ton of info here: @FashTaco @oakcity @Devir7 @You Suck I Suck More @nwmorrow @Superhulk LB @Toywoodsguy82 .. I’m sure I missed some

@dabbinuguay I’ll do my best to put what’s been learned about this topic, but its really all over the place. Good luck with it and stay alert. Plenty of good responses in here.

* Adjusting to what I put before, it looks like for the rear leafs we have 2.5” lift on the performance leafs and +4” lift for the constant without any leaf removals. Once a 5th and 3rd leaf have been removed from the constant, the bundle is back to being a performance.

Front coils, I’m still learning that one, but reckon those spec sheets might be the best place to get started. Still would love to see a spreadsheet with after measurements from everyone!

/me dreams big

 

somewhere here there is a spreadsheet but I’ve had trouble finding it. I’m pretty happy with where mine is at this point. Of course that might change once I can get bigger tires, I might lower slightly.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ironman-4x4-foam-cell-pro.427407/page-15#post-23858745

 

Thanks for all the info you ( and others) have contributed here. Glad I found this thread BEFORE doing the install.
Probably should have read it BEFORE the purchase, but likely wouldn't have changed my decisions.

I'll document as best I can and report back on my findings, for science. Gotta find a weigh station this week to get some axle weight numbers.

 

Totally doable, I went performance coils and performance springs. I also have a DCSB but the Sport instead of the offroad. They supposedly set it up for me to have 2” of lift in the front. I wish I would have measured the original setup. I’ll get some new measurements for you of where I’m at now because it yielded me right about 2” with a half inch rake (rear high). After it was all said and done I’m really happy with it. I’m still running a 265/70/17 and it looks good. We test fit a 285/70/17 and it clears as well I don’t have mudflaps tho. I’ll probably settle on a 275/70/17 so I can have a 6 ply load C tire opposed to a 285 10 ply load E. The rear springs seem as tho they might settle a touch (1/4-1/2”) I’ll report new numbers soon. I’m almost to 1000 miles on this lift.