Lift Issues

I have an 01' Crew 4wd Tacoma. It is really my sons and I drove it for the first time in a while today. It has a Toytec 3" Bilstein lift and rides terrible!!!!!! Adjustable 5100s in the front and 5100 in the rear w/ add a leaf. This thing is all over the place and hard to keep in the road! My 01' 4wd 4Runner has exact same lift and rides smooth and is easy to control. Any suggestions? I am scared to let my kid drive it long distances now! He will be off to college soon and I'm sure he'll want to take it because it looks badass but.... Horrible to drive and he's not one to leisurely drive if you know what i mean!

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld
May be time to replace control arm bushings and ball joints at the very least.

 

The above poster touched on some key points - maintenance (or lack thereof) can attribute to the poor handling of your son's truck.

Excessive wear and tear even, seeing as how you've got one vehicle with bad manners (younger driver) versus another vehicle with better manners (older driver).

Another thing is, you can't compare the 4Runner or the Tacoma; the 4Runner has a 4 link rear with panhard bar and coils versus the leaf pack on a Tacoma. This makes the 4Runner altogether a completely different driving vehicle. Let's not forget the added sound dampening that adds to the more 'plush' ride.

Also, 3" is pretty damn high for a lift on any IFS vehicle. At 3" you've given up a lot of droop and the shocks can't work to dampen road conditions.

 

What spring rates are you using? I find that most people with 3" lifts bought heavy duty front and rear springs meant for more weight, but are running them with no extra weight on the truck and then complain that it rides like trash.

My 882's before I added weight were really harsh and gave me about a 3" lift, but I knew that would happen because I planned ahead. Now with full armor my truck is now about a 2" lift and rides pretty damn comfortable.

 

Should be pretty easy to diagnose. When was it last aligned? How's the front tires? Are they wearing normally?
If you're unable to check the front suspension components yourself I'd recommend you take to a reputable alignment shop and ask them to check it out for you.

As mentioned above heavy springs will make if feel like your driving a brick. If you have nothing heavy out front ie: steel bumper with a winch, then 600lb springs are sufficient. To many people use heavy springs to achieve lift instead of lighter springs & raising the perch clip.

 

How old are the front and rear 5100s? They have a roughly ~50k life. Most people drive on them a lot longer than that because they aren't physically broken so they must be "good".

At 3" of lift the front has every little "down travel" as it's all used up in the preload (lift)- coupled with what has already been mentioned about worn bushings and coil spring rates, 3" of lift is just hard on these trucks in general.

A few years back (lets say 7), my rear suspension had gotten pretty bad, to the point where I'd say the truck was trying to kill me on the highway. But I had a custom shock relocation, Single leaf AAL + shackle lift. I yanked that stuff off, put on a nice 3 leaf aal, and went back to the stock shock location (cause I didn't have any money at the time) with new 5100s, and rebuilt my front King coilovers. Solved the ride issues, and restored the highway drivability of the truck.

 

You may want to check your tire pressure settings and adjust accordingly.

If the perches on your front shocks are at the highest setting, it could be preloading your springs and causing the harsh ride.

And lastly, replacing the single AAL on rear axle with a full leaf pack or 3 leaf AAL would likely improve ride quality as well.

 

Good point. Tire pressure is often overlooked.

 

Have you tried adding an even higher lift, while also not maintaining nor upgrading the majority of the suspension?

I’d bet it just needs some bigger tires and a cold air intake.