Maintain factory rake

Hey y’all!
I recently had a lift kit installed and asked to keep the factory rake or close thereto.
After picking it up I measured from the center of the wheels to the fender. Rear was 24.25 and front was right around 20.75-21”.
Took it back and re-iterated that I was hoping to have the front higher, more like a factory rake, which I believe is an inch. picked it back up and the front is now at 22” with the rear at the same 24.25.

What am I missing?
I have the Ironman kit with UCAs and thought I should have no problem getting at least 23” up front.

 

Did the coil overs come pre-assembled?

 

I had a shop install. But I don’t think they did as my factory take off front shocks and springs are separated without the top plate.

 

Which kit? The white coilovers or the black?

 

It’s the foam cell pro. Green springs and black shocks.
https://ironman4x4america.com/toyota-tacoma-2005-foam-cell-pro-suspension-kit-stage-2/

 

The black ones have a threaded body for ride height adjustment. The white ones look like they have set perches, which would give you a set 2" If you have the black ones, they just need to add preload to the springs and should be able to get you up to 3" according to the site. If you have the white coilovers, they should give you 2" when installed correctly. In that case, I would look at the tophat on wrong or spring upside down.

 

Ok, so they just need to adjust it by raising the threaded spring perch.

 

Which is what I thought. Just not sure why they didn’t. Thought maybe I misunderstood the abilities of the kit.
right now I’m looking like it’s an inch over stock. thanks for responding.

 

Sure. If there isn't an estimate on the instructions, then they might be going in blind on the preload settings. They should have understood the second time though.

 

This was my request the second time around:
“My hope is to try to get the truck closer to the factory rake, which I believe was a 1” rake. With the amount of lift the rear produced, I’m not sure that is totally doable, but I think it can come up about 1.75”-2” in the front.
Ultimately I’m relying on your guys expertise and experience. But if doable, without sacrificing ride comfort and poor CV angles, that is what I had in mind.“
I picked it up after they closed and it was an inch higher.
Have to give them a call and find out why.

 

I have the same kit and the fronts definitely have a lot of adjustment. Keep in-mind that new springs will all settle and drop a bit after a few months. The rear leafs usually a bit more than the front coils in my experience.
You might wanna wait and see before making the final adjustments to the fronts.....

 

Do you think the rears will settle more than an inch? The rear sits over 2” higher than the front. And the rear has over 100lbs+ in it

 

Probably, depends on which IM leafs you chose, how much weight you normally carry and how much driving/action your suspension sees.
I bought the IM Constant Load leafs and those things were super beefy compared to stock so they’d probably take a really long time to sag without being loaded up with weight all the time. You might wanna throw a bunch of weight in the back of yours to accelerate the sagging.....

 

You guys mind leaving a quick review on the foam cell pro's? Curious about them, saw they're quite popular with other overlanding platforms but still quite hesitant to really consider them with the minimal reviews for tacomas other than real generic "a bit stiffer than oem but ride well" comments.

 

What size tires you running with the lift?

 

I’ve got just over 1,000 miles so still early to really form an opinion. going down the freeway, it is more springy than the factory off road suspension. It’s also more planted and the nose dive and body roll is noticeably improved.
Over washboard roads I noticed a huge improvement over factory. The best I can explain it is; before I cringed over every Little Rock, pot hole and it was unpleasant driving wash board roads. Now I enjoy it. That’s with E rated tires at 38psi.
Hope that helps.

 

Stock tires on ~2”/1.75” lift, they don’t look too small either IMO (hate that when they do). I’ll upgrade to some larger skinnies once I burn through these.
Ironman said their leafs give 2-3” of lift and that was too much for me so I used AAL’s + airbags on the back of my truck. I sold the IM Constant Load leafs that came with my kit to a guy with a camper.
I’m basing my previous comments on a ton of past experience with new leaf packs, re-arching leafs and AAL’s on tow trucks for the company I used to own.

 

Not many miles on mine since I installed the kit but so far so good. I’ll leave a better review after a few hundred more miles, some trailer towing and some light off-roading...

 

Yeah the rear definitely sits high. Which is what I was hoping for. I’ll load the bed back up. Had sand bags in it for the first couple weeks but took them out to go camping.
My end goal was to keep the rake, which I thought meant I’d have about a 2” rear lift from factory and 2” front lift over factory. Want to go up to a 265/70/18 next spring or summer.