This is overdue but I cleaned her today and crawled under for some pics so here goes...

Her name is Suzie, but I have called her much worse. She's an 05 Limited, 4.7 V8. Original Suspension was Rear Adjustable Suspension (RAS) with XREAS.

Current Suspension:

For the rear - Long travel Trail Gear leaf springs with bilstein 5100s. For the front, 6" Pro Comp adjustable coilovers designed for an FJ. Alot of work was done to make it all fit.

Here's the rear:

Bilstein 5100s upper bracket

Lower mount, Naked axle on the leafs, abs and brake lines (left side)

Right side

Magnaflowcat back, tweaked to fit above the leaf spring

The leaf (left side)



New brake lines

35x12.5.R20 Nitto Trail grappler on Iron Eagle wheels

Here's the front...















Tomoro I plan to make the order to get my front Domello Bumper, ARB lockers/Compressor and Trail Gear sliders. May also get a seperate onboard air system just for tires and tools. Then off to the mountains to get her dirty again! More pics to come when I get time...

Wow. Very impressive!! What kind of exhaust are you running? I like the dual welded tips.

Its a magnaflow exhaust, shortened by a few inches as it supposed to come out where the shackle is mounted to the frame.

Great stuff!

Nice custom work on the rear leaf swap, it looks very clean to be custom tabbed.

I'm surprised you didn't just go ahead and SAS the front with all that extra work

It was a thought, and I will get there enventually. Its a long term project and as it is now there are no drive or steering extensions. Once I am fully preped for the SAS it will happen then I'll be sittin on 37s.

More parts start arriving next week and the week after

Just a couple pics as I have been asked how the original RAS chassis mounts look.

Here's the right side looking straight up at it



Again, the right side to show the depth of it



And the left side

Thanks for those pics, really helps!! Do you happen to have any pics of the lower mounts?

Truck is looking great btw. How do you like those tires (on and off road)?

Sorry, lower mounts are in the garbage, but its prety much a small plate raised off the axle an inch or so with one half inch hole in the center for the airbag to lock into, its visible on the right side of your T4R if you crawl under. Left side is covered with sway bar mountings and so on. The gap between the axle and the mount is where the pin fits after its locked in place.

As for the tires - Fantastic offroad, onroad they are ok, a little noisy, and not the best in the rain but I`m overall very happy with them.

Looks super rad dude. I respected your rig and set-up since the first time I saw it. I know alot of blood sweat and cash has to go into doing something like that. good luck with the SAS if you're planning on it. It'd be sweet to see it on 37s

We took the dog for a run today...




After a little more trimming yesterday, no more rubbing at all

Thanks for the info. I've been considering those, but really want something with better on road characteristics. I was about to buy them until a recent thread made me start wondering if they were right for me. From reading your post, I now know they aren't what I need.

Out of curiosity, why a leaf spring set up rather than converting your RAS to a standard coil spring and shock set-up?

Great job on the swap and it looks mean, must be fun to drive out on the dirt!

Super sweet looking rig! Great job!

Thats a big question that took me months to decide... Basically comes down to the RAS chassis mount and the fact I had no clue what it looked like until I had everything ripped out. So I played it safe and went with leafs. Also I have a confort level with them from my old Ford 250.

I spoke with alot of knowledgable people before doing this lift, I prepped for over a year with ideas. Knowing what I know now, it could have been done without the leafs by fabricating new coil mounts, both upper and lower. Either way it would be a huge job. I have no regrets, this thing is awsome offroad... and I try not to drive too much onroad with it unless I'm heading to the dirt.

At first I was not happy with this RAS crap because of how dificult it would be to lift, but now I'm glad I had it or I would have ended up with the same lift as everybody else. I just wanted to lift my fuel tank up off the ground!