IFS down travel?

[89FourRunner]

I am getting about 1.5" of down travel (when lifting the truck off the ground). Everything up front is stock. Is that about normal?

That seems pretty limited to me.

Is that typical or do I have some sort of issue?

 

[KidVermicious]

Are your torsion bars cranked? Any lift you get from cranking your torsion bars comes directly from your down travel.

 

[89FourRunner]

I dont think they are cranked, I actually restored the front end after a collision, and used my FSM to fix a lean (by adjusting bars) and ensure they were pretty close to stock. At one point I had them cranked something like half an inch, but now i think its stock.

I am 13 and 3/4th inches from the top of a 15" rim to the middle bottom of the front fender.

From what I understand thats near stock?

I thought these front ends had like half a foot of down travel stock?

 

[airdreams1]

Im no expert by any means But Id guess the 6" is close to total travel... LOL The IFS doesn't flex much at all, thats why everyone does SAS on them.

 

[89FourRunner]

That may be true! I never really paid it much attention.

Shocks are correct length right? Mine extend to 13.85" fully extended.

 

[airdreams1]

cant tell you that for sure. mine are not stock length any more. I bought them longer so I could lift it in the near future.

 

[snivilous]

You have a droop stop. If you are contacting that then you are at full droop and can't do anything more. They definitely don't have 6" of droop, like the above guy said there's around 6" of travel total.

 

[89FourRunner]

Fair enough -

It's not a problem then.

I just want everything stock - and it seems it is in fact stock.

Thanks for the quick info!

 

[89FourRunner]

I forgot to ask so I'll bring this thread back to life:

What about low profile upper control arm bump stops? Does anyone have experience with them? They take 5 minutes to switch out, and I'd imagine they would create more travel.

Anyone know if they exceed the stock cv joints limitations?

For $10 for a set from energy suspension, if people run them I would like to know.

 

[theking11863]

I wouldn't know but [MENTION=112004]lofreqjeff[/MENTION] might :shrug:

 

[KidVermicious]

Anyone know if they exceed the stock cv joints limitations?

Hard to say. There's not a hard line where you can say this much travel is perfectly fine but .5 inches more will definitely bust the CV - you can break a CV on a totally stock truck or go years with a crazy angle, depending on how you drive and what situations you put the truck in. Trimming the stock stops or putting low profile stops on there is definitely a common mod though - yes, you increase the risk of breaking a CV, but not by much.

 

[lofreqjeff]

I forgot to ask so I'll bring this thread back to life:

What about low profile upper control arm bump stops? Does anyone have experience with them? They take 5 minutes to switch out, and I'd imagine they would create more travel.

Anyone know if they exceed the stock cv joints limitations?

For $10 for a set from energy suspension, if people run them I would like to know.

I wouldn't know but [MENTION=112004]lofreqjeff[/MENTION] might :shrug:

Hard to say. There's not a hard line where you can say this much travel is perfectly fine but .5 inches more will definitely bust the CV - you can break a CV on a totally stock truck or go years with a crazy angle, depending on how you drive and what situations you put the truck in. Trimming the stock stops or putting low profile stops on there is definitely a common mod though - yes, you increase the risk of breaking a CV, but not by much.

I used upper and lower low profile bump stops for years with stock CV's and 1.5" BJ spacers. I tore a few CV boots, but never actually broke a CV. Something l learned real quick that even a little bit of increased travel will have the potential to tear a CV boot. I did a 1" diff drop and haven't torn a boot since. I relaxed the T-Bars when I added the BJ spacers to only net about 3/4" lift over stock, but definitely increased travel. Its been so many years I couldn't begin to tell you how much travel I had over stock. Right after the BJ spacers, I did add some extended brake lines just to be safe, but they were totally unnecessary at that time for the way my rig was set up.

But its like [MENTION=49649]KidVermicious[/MENTION] said - it really depends on how you use your rig.

When I put on the Blazeland Long Travel a few years ago, the low pro bump stops were way too short and the shocks were fully extending/compressiong before hitting them. I tried a bunch of different setups before I decided to go with these Energy Suspension bump stops: Energy Suspension 9.9101 - Bump Stops - 99101. Energy Suspension ENE-9.9101G then cut them down to length to get the overall setting I was looking for.

 

[89FourRunner]

Hard to say. There's not a hard line where you can say this much travel is perfectly fine but .5 inches more will definitely bust the CV - you can break a CV on a totally stock truck or go years with a crazy angle, depending on how you drive and what situations you put the truck in. Trimming the stock stops or putting low profile stops on there is definitely a common mod though - yes, you increase the risk of breaking a CV, but not by much.

Thanks, this is something I may do down the line with some bjs.

I checked my service manual again - and followed the method for adjusting torsion bars, and the ride height they provide in the book and found that I had in fact not returned the truck to its factory height - it was indeed half an inch higher than it should have been. Once I got everything back to the correct height as per the FSM, i got about 2" of down travel. Before I brought it back down, the truck was contacting the upper control arm bump stops after only half an inch (but not compressing them). Now, obviously the upper arms don't touch the stop until 1" of down travel - and compresses the stop to a total of 2" of down travel. Still a small amount of travel, but I was surprised to find the truck rode much better on a small half inch adjustment. Of course I then said "oh yeah, I remember how this used to feel".

I am going to be an IFS pro by the time I am done fiddling with this old thing. Lol....

 

[89FourRunner]

I used upper and lower low profile bump stops for years with stock CV's and 1.5" BJ spacers. I tore a few CV boots, but never actually broke a CV. Something l learned real quick that even a little bit of increased travel will have the potential to tear a CV boot. I did a 1" diff drop and haven't torn a boot since. I relaxed the T-Bars when I added the BJ spacers to only net about 3/4" lift over stock, but definitely increased travel. Its been so many years I couldn't begin to tell you how much travel I had over stock. Right after the BJ spacers, I did add some extended brake lines just to be safe, but they were totally unnecessary at that time for the way my rig was set up.

But its like [MENTION=49649]KidVermicious[/MENTION] said - it really depends on how you use your rig.

When I put on the Blazeland Long Travel a few years ago, the low pro bump stops were way too short and the shocks were fully extending/compressiong before hitting them. I tried a bunch of different setups before I decided to go with these Energy Suspension bump stops: Energy Suspension 9.9101 - Bump Stops - 99101. Energy Suspension ENE-9.9101G then cut them down to length to get the overall setting I was looking for.

Thanks for the information - I would most likely go a similar route when I am ready - relaxed T-bars on BJS, with the low profile stops. I am more interested in down travel rather than static ride height. I am not interested in rock crawling and I find the moderate wheeling I do to reveal the suspension travel issue rather quickly.

Thanks again.