1st gen 4runner torsion bars. Opinions on these

[10ac]

i found a pair of these new. rancho rs619. are these good for replacing my old stock torsion bars? reason to replace is im assuming they may sag/weaken as well over time. the rancho ones are a lift style torsion bar from what i read but thinking i could loosen them so they dont lift quite as high.
so what do you think of these for replacements? i can get them for 125 new shipped.

 

[fourwd1]

What are your other choices?

 

[KidVermicious]

i found a pair of these new. rancho rs619. are these good for replacing my old stock torsion bars? reason to replace is im assuming they may sag/weaken as well over time. the rancho ones are a lift style torsion bar from what i read but thinking i could loosen them so they dont lift quite as high.
so what do you think of these for replacements? i can get them for 125 new shipped.

Why do you need them?

Here's the thing with torsion bars that the companies that make them don't tell you - bigger bars don't give you more lift. All bigger bars can do is take more preload to support more weight, and if you add the preload to support more weight than you need then the result is a suspension lift. That lift comes at the expense of ride quality, and despite what manufacturers will claim no set of torsion bars will ride better than any other at any height/weight setting - they're all made of the same spring steel, they all do the same job in exactly the same way - some just have more weight capacity than others. If you're buying torsion bars to improve your ride or lift the truck, you're wasting your money.

Torsion bars do indeed relax over time as they fatigue. If your truck is a little down at the nose, you can return it to stock ride height (and stock ride stiffness) with a few cranks of the torsion bar adjusters. Unless you already have them cranked super high to get lift, they would have to be severely fatigued to keep you from being able to return the truck to level trim.

 

[fourwd1]

That's not quite true, t-bars have a spring rate just like coils and leafs do.
A proper t-bar will let you adjust for lift and still maintain a decent ride.
Old Man Emu is probably the only suspension manufacturer that does that, and you pay more for it.
But that's why their kits are so popular.

Rancho is definitely not one of those.

 

[KidVermicious]

That's not quite true, t-bars have a spring rate just like coils and leafs do.
A proper t-bar will let you adjust for lift and still maintain a decent ride.
Old Man Emu is probably the only suspension manufacturer that does that, and you pay more for it.
But that's why their kits are so popular.

That's not my understanding at all. Leaf springs and coil springs have height as a characteristic, and you can build a leaf pack or a coil spring to sit at a certain height and still vary the load rate. A torsion spring setup doesn't store energy in compression the way a leaf spring or coil spring does, so the innate spring rate of the torsion bar doesn't determine ride height. Preload on a torsion bar determines load rate and ride height at the same time, and in a linear relationship, exactly like using a spring spacer to preload a coil spring.

If you assume a front end overloaded with a V8 and ARB bumper and heavy winch, the OME bar might ride better than stock bars because its thicker cross section allows you to set it to ride height with less preload. But on an otherwise stock vehicle with little to no extra weight on the front, the OME torsion bar set to a given height won't ride any better than a stock torsion bar at the same height. It might even ride worse.

 

[10ac]

Well i dont know much about torsion bars. I saw them for a great price and i assumed the stock torsions are so old it wouldnt hurt to add a set of new ones. The rancho when i researched shows up to 2" lift. But if yall are saying im better with my old stocks, then thats what ill keep.

My plan is i already purchased ball joint spacers. The kit says its a 2.5" lift. The spacer is 1.5" thick which i read that its not a 1:1 lift. My plan is to put the spacer in and turn the torsion bar adjustment down a little. I would like to only acheive about 1.5" most over what i have.

Is the ball joint spacer i have too thick? Should i have them machined down to 1"? So then i will get 2" of liift then adjust torsions from that point. I have access to have Machine work done easily.

 

[HiLuxer]

I run OME torsion bars to accommodate the ARB bull bar and a winch. They're larger and stiffer for sure. My take is; if you don't have extra weight up front, the stock bars should be fine. But if you can upgrade them at the decent price, I'd do it. Besides OME and Rancho, Sway-A-Way and Downey used to manufacture them as well (26mm in diameter compared to 22mm stock).

If you're planing on lifting the truck and can get them for the said price, I'd go for it so you can compare to yourself. Make sure to get a pair of matching shocks too though.

 

[KidVermicious]

The guys you bought the ball joint spacer from lied to you. Most of them do. They advertise their spacers as a "2.5 inch lift kit", and then somewhere deep in the fine print they say you have to get the other 1 inch from cranking up the torsion bars. The 1.5 inch spacers you have will give you exactly 1.5 inches of lift. You can go higher or lower by adjusting the torsion bar preload, just be aware that your suspension characteristics will change if you adjust too much in either direction.

If your stock bars are able to maintain the truck at level trim with whatever weight you've got on the front end, then they're doing their job and they're not too old. If you get to the point where the front is sagging and you can't bring it back to level, then you'll know it's time for new bars, and if you have a lot of weight on the front then maybe you should consider heavy duty bars. But you don't need to get new bars just because, and you definitely don't need to get heavy duty bars just to lift the truck - that's not what they're designed to do, no matter what the seller's ad copy says.