toyotec makes a great product!

Stock shocks aren't designed for longer coils (lift). It'll prob ride like crap (i could be wrong). Just save up a little longer and do the swap once and be done with it.

If you're just daily driving, get the cheaper 5100's.

I was kind of the same way, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money but I knew that I had to take a loss and spend more than I wanted to. I ended up going for rough country which I know doesn’t have the best name around here but the kit was relatively easy. I will say, there instructions are pointless. They ask to remove a lot of unnecessary parts to remove your shocks but you just need to drop the lower control arm and it slides right out. I think I spent about 350$? It was a 3 inch lift and level kit from there website. Definitely makes my cars stance better, Although I’m not sure about performance. I do more racing than off-roading but I can say that I have jumped a few sand dunes am(prolly caught 4 or 5 feet of air” and my shocks still haven’t blown out.

Do you know how 5100’s with stock springs perform? I had considered that as well. Ultimately, I want to get an affordable lift that performs decent on the road and isn’t going to start causing me problems. I would like to go as high as I can without having to replace my upper control arms. I was thinking about maybe installing the 5100’s in the front at the .85” setting for now just to level it out and then maybe the toytec lift springs later. I wasn’t sure if that would necessitate new UCA’s though.

Most people around these forums say when you get to a 2.5 inch lift is when you'd want the UCA's.

I ended up deciding on Bilstein 5100's all the way around. 2.5 in the front, and a 1.5 daystar spacer in the rear. Ordered them today. Will hopefully install them in the next week or two.

...or you could run the Eibach Pro Shocks all 4 corners ($460), keep the factory springs in the front and run the Eibach 1" rear springs ($200) and set the front shocks at 1.6 for a perfectly leveled ride that feels great! Doesn't look weird with stock tires either in my opinion. First photo is all stock before install.

Attached Images

     

Here is the before and after for my finished product. [IMG]0340FF75-A5FA-4A3A-9853-0C80D9E6AF05 by Tyler Power, on Flickr[/IMG]
And after:
[IMG]Untitled by Tyler Power, on Flickr[/IMG]

I decided to go with Bilstein 5100 shocks in all 4 corners. I set the fronts to the highest perch for 2.5" of lift with the stock coils. I used daystar 1.5" spacers in the rear. Those are the stock tires in the picture. Here are my before and after measurements from ground to fender:

Before:
FD: 34.5" FP: 35"
RD: 36-1/8" RP: 36-7/8"

After:
FD: 38" FP: 38"
RD: 38" RD: 38"

We did the install ourselves, and it is completely doable. If anyone has any questions about it let me know.