Originally Posted by jrandom

Well if you go drive a "stock" truck trd pro, or similar whatever and tell me you don't notice the difference, weight wise

There is good weight to have and there is bad weight to have. This is bad weight if you don't balance out the load front to back.

Is that the only forward weight you have?

I have a hidden winch mount 40 lbs, a 110lbs of 12.5 superwinch talon with 100' 3/8 rope, and a 80lb odyssey 31m, all the weight is cantilevered over the front, not directly over the wheels, which would be way better. It is poor weight distribution. Add another 200lbs more for 400+lbs? There is also a real good chance you'll eventually start seeing tearing in your front fender wells. If you don't have weight in the back to even out and balance the load you are putting all the work on the front end, that isn't safe either. The suspension components themselves I am sure are designed with latitude, being more over engineered rather than under, really who knows, that is just speculation.

The trucks stock weight distribution is pretty dang good, feels pretty even. I noticed when I added the battery. Again after, I added the winch just before I upgraded the suspension (it was delayed in shipping) my front end had sunk over almost 2 inches from the added weight, it was pretty funny looking not to mention hell on the tires, only drove it once that way. I put fox 2.5's and 600 lbs springs and to be honest I could use a little more.

I do a lot of canyon driving the driving characteristics notability changed. Corners that previously were fine, were now firing off traction control at the same speeds. That weights wants to carry straight.

The crumple zone, is great, AFAIK the airbag system measures deceleration so they should go off regardless of the bumper you have.

I am sure someone else could have explained this better.