OME medium springs too stiff for day to day driving

H

HunterG

New member
Hi, I have a '13 trail with KDSS. Great rig without a doubt. Swapped out the stock suspension for OME and medium springs two years ago. Well two years later, I'm two years older and undoubtedly more grumpy and need a softer ride.

Ran the setup with P rated winter tires and 10 ply A/T's both Toyo. The suspension didn't really work well with the P rated tires. It was just felt out of sync if you know what I mean. Could feel the tire being compliant before the suspension on compression and rebound. 10 plys sort this out but the ride is just too hard. That said the handling of the vehicle with stiffer springs and larger anti-sway bars fitted to KDSS trucks is much improved. The front end dive on braking is gone. How Toyota let the truck out of the factory with that I don't know, a real flaw in the vehicle dynamics.

Off-road the thing is a beast and the hard suspension allows one to travel quickly. So this is a real on-road problem. Would different tires solve it, something with a sidewall stiffness in between? Or is it a matter of soft springs and corresponding softer shocks?
 
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This has more to do with how much weight you're carrying. Things such as an aftermarket rear bumper (metal=weight), extra fuel and gas, etc can overtax stock coils. Pretty sure those mediums are designed for extra weight, so if you're unloaded it'll ride stiff.

Other things to consider is overall lift height you want, and how much sagging you're willing to live with when loaded down. Doesn't really have anything to do with tires.

Progressive or dual-rate coils such as those Dobinsons are producing are nice cause they have both soft and firm sections, ideally yielding a softer ride without sacrificing too much load carrying capacity.

There's tons of info on here if you read up, but it may be good to give a vendor a call on the phone to talk through options. Metaltech and Wheeler's have always steered me right but there's lots of good shops out there. Long story short I think you're going to be in the market for new rear coils. Hope that helps.
 
How much pressure are you running in the tires? You should be at about 30psi or so with 10 ply tires. Unless you like visiting your dentist often for new fillings!! :yo:


Tire pressure is kind of part of your suspension, and controls a lot of what you feel inside the vehicle. I've seen so many shops put E-load tires at 40-60 psi because they think they're being installed on a 1-ton full size truck, which actually need the higher pressure. We saw a Jeep here last week with 45psi in 37's, and the guy was amazed once we lowered it down.
 
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That is something I will try today, lowering tire pressure and experiment with it. I have always run these at 42psig. I thought these heavier tires needed more pressure to prevent overheating. Then again a 4Runner is pretty light compared to a laden 1 ton. One thing I do know is mileage goes way off, like up to 20L/100km whenever a tire or two runs down to say 38. Definetly look into this at 35psig and monitor mileage.
 
Dobinsons Mike said:
How much pressure are you running in the tires? You should be at about 30psi or so with 10 ply tires. Unless you like visiting your dentist often for new fillings!! :yo:


Tire pressure is kind of part of your suspension, and controls a lot of what you feel inside the vehicle. I've seen so many shops put E-load tires at 40-60 psi because they think they're being installed on a 1-ton full size truck, which actually need the higher pressure. We saw a Jeep here last week with 45psi in 37's, and the guy was amazed once we lowered it down.
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can you explain how you got to 30psi? i'm running my 275/70/17 bfg ko2s at 40-42psi because doing interpolation with load inflation tables comes out to about 43psi to keep the same load rating as the stock tires
 
Dobinsons Mike said:
How much pressure are you running in the tires? You should be at about 30psi or so with 10 ply tires. Unless you like visiting your dentist often for new fillings!! :yo:


Tire pressure is kind of part of your suspension, and controls a lot of what you feel inside the vehicle. I've seen so many shops put E-load tires at 40-60 psi because they think they're being installed on a 1-ton full size truck, which actually need the higher pressure. We saw a Jeep here last week with 45psi in 37's, and the guy was amazed once we lowered it down.
Click to expand...

Ok, yea. I think I assumed that the OP had played around with pressure first. Definitely the easiest thing to check first before messing around with anything else. Good call.
 
It's not just the springs...

OME nitrocharger ride pretty stiff. This can be both good and bad depending on your preference and load.
 
uplusd said:
Yes I've read all the threads, but 30psi seems to be way too low for a LT E-rated tire.
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I agree... I've read anywhere from 38-45 PSI for E-rated tires such as the 275/70/17 KO2's which a lot of people run. Im not sure where 30 psi comes from either. I know ply and load rating is different but I'm just assuming his 10 ply tires are E-rated?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
 
You can find load charts which will show what psi you need to be at for a given weight. For an empty 4Runner on E rated tires, its generally around 40 - 42 psi. 30 is way too low. Every time my dealer would deflate my tires, I would end up getting around 15 mpg for a tank, until I realized they deflated them to stock pressures (about 32 psi). Do some searching and you will find the charts. I am too lazy atm. After a few beers this may change.
 
using the load tables is the correct thing to do but day to day you are probably not driving at your max GVW. Before you lower your pressure though weigh your vehicle with max day to day (fuel, whatever you carry) add enough to that for passengers and a factor of safety and you can use that weight in the tables as long as you can remember to inflate your tires to get your GVWR before loading up the vehicle
 
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