Scottz

Thanks, I'll get the photo's of my rear suspension at full droop for you sometime tonite.

JESSE_at_TLT

Nice fab work on those lower links. How are you planning to mount the coil-overs? 1:1, I assume? Are you going to bring them up into the cab or angle them to keep them under the floorboards? I wonder if you adapt something like this to your rear suspension. Sean and I built that setup for our '89 4Runner a while ago and it's worked out pretty well.

Scottz

Heres what I have planed on, is to put them at an angle so I can get more travel with less stroke on the shock which will be a couple of Racerunners or Kings 2.5s 12" travel.
Since I have 1-1/2" body lift and now plenty of space I would like to keep them under the floor. With this set-up I hope to get 14"-15" of travel.

Scottz

The angle that 89 '4runner is about the same I was planing on doing other then I'll point them inward. my lower mount will probroly look alot like that one on the 89'. (Nice work by the way). Does that 89' 4Runner have a body lift?

JESSE_at_TLT

No, that 4Runner doesn't have a body lift. I would strongly urge you to angle the shocks back instead of inward at the top, especially since it seems like you drive your truck at high speeds off-road as often as low speeds. The shocks will be much more effective at dampening side-to-side loads...

deathrunner

Hey Jesse,

What angle do the shocks rest at on that 4runner at ride height?

I'm doing simialr and want to keep them as vertical as possible. I think we're going to chop out the whole spare tire carrier crossmember so we will have lots of room to play with.

JESSE_at_TLT

I don't remember the angle at ride-height off the top of my head, but they're at almost exactly 45-degrees on full compression, which is where it really matters. We used a 12" shock to get about 13" of wheel-travel and I wouldn't want to use a longer shock or lay them over any more. Oh, and you won't need to remove the spare tire carrier either.

You might consider using short-bodied Bilstein 7100 shocks instead of 2.5" remote reservoir RaceRunner shocks (shortest eye-to-eye 2.5" shock) if you want to improve the ground clearance or squeeze a little more travel out of this type of setup. Personally, I'd gladly trade a few inches of wheel travel for better dampening. What type of leaf-springs are you using? If you're looking for more than 13-14" of wheel-travel, you're going to need to use a set of leafsprings longer than a Tacoma pack (57.5") and then you're going to need to bring the shocks up through the floor or build a complicated cantilever system.

I sent the blueprints for these shock mounts over to Brian at Front Range and he's planning on adding them to his product line. These parts are easy enough for anyone to make/copy, but a kit for 84-95.5" trucks will be available soon and should eliminate the guesswork and save some time.

deathrunner

I'm using the 62" leafs that deavr makes for the Tundra overaxle application. Last I checked tehy were cycling 15-151/2" Still making soem changes though. 15" is plenty for what I do.

JESSE_at_TLT

Sounds like a good setup. What are you using for shackles? To get 15" of travel I'd be looking to run at least a 14" shock on a slight angle or running 16" shocks more upright.

deathrunner

Sorry to Hijak...last post about my lame truck.

I'm running the 12" under the bed. A little more raked than your runner, but the valving is super stiff anyway. Gonna have to revalve them. My mounts are higher up on the axle tube as well for clearance.

Scottz

Yeah I was going to do that until I noticed it would not allow room for a fuel tank to go there so I decided not to, And don't shocks just float along with the axle controling only the damping and rebond of the spring rate cycling up and down. I don't now but I noticed some race cars and trucks with them inward just like my stock factory shocks where mounted so I think I will be alright but thanks for the info and I'll reseach it more before I do it.

Scottz

Droop pic's you ordered are in.

RaceTaco

You won't have to worry about mounting your shocks inward, I would agree with "Jesse at TLT" if you had leaf springs, but you don't so you shouldn't have any problems with it at all. And if you got a body lift and put the shocks close to where stock shock went but with more room to extend them closer to the floor they will fit fine, do to the body lift giving the added floor hieght (12"shocks only).
I see you did the 3-link set-up you posted about doing this 7 months ago. Great job!!! https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f31/remove-pan-rod-bar-4runner-42368/ Funny how it looks like the set up I emailed the pictures of to you. I've done 2 more of these since then and never had any problem with them and as far as the side loading on your verticle hiem you will never have a problem with it that heim has a shear load of 125,000 or more so I don't think your 4Runner could break it. You would most likly break an axle or wheel before you could stress one of those bad boy's, and your right most race trucks run them Vert. Great thead by the way and I like the way you explain everything.

JESSE_at_TLT

Oh, you're planning to relocate your stock gas tank? Well, that's even better because then you can angle your shocks forward. Shocks are most effective when they are perpendicular to the force that is acting on them and you want to mount them as close as possible to each wheel. When you angle the upper shock mounts in towards the center of the vehicle, they aren't able to dampen side-to-side loads very well (high-speed handling and side-hils, etc.).

Does that help?

Keggo

Would it be possible to make one of these to sell? I'd gladly buy a "kit" from you, as I don't have my own tools and whatnot. The 3 link sounds like it's a great improvement over the panhard bar!

Scottz

Yeah, as of now I have done 3 of these kits and we just installed one on my buddy's 4Runner. Keep in mine that there is welding reqiured to mount the upper diff link. I just got done putting in an Aux Fuel tank that didn't fit with the Panhard bar in there but plenty of room now. PM me and I'll give you a price.

Tofer

possibly intrested in the kit if the price is right.. aprox. how much are we looking at?

Keggo

I too would be interested in buying this kit. I'll be running FJ80 coils.

ravencr

My question would be how much more did this kit extend the travel, excluding the shocks?

When you installed this it sounds like you did the shocks and upper link at the same time. Doing this resulted in only one thing: your new shocks are now(hopefully) the new limiting factor to travel.

I would have been more interested in finding out what the stock links allowed in travel without shocks. And, then compare that to the new system without shocks. This would have really told me how much the stock arms were really limiting the travel.

I understand that there's some other inherent benefits to not running the panhard bar, but my main reason to attempting this mod would have been more travel, which in most cases isn't limited by the links, but rather by the location and length of your shocks.

Chris

Scottz

Yep, that's partly true, I have had the shocks on for a year or so and got 11" of travel with stock links. When I installed the upper 3link it increased to 13" and when I did the lower links and everything being desighned 1" longer it increased to 14" with shocks deconnected. Anymore then this is almost impossible. As of now I run at 12" do to the limits of 12" shocks mounted 1:1. when I change to Coilovers I will get the full 14" with 12" travel shocks mounted at an angle.
I have to disagree about the shocks being the only limiting factor although they are a large part of it, when I started this project it was clear that if I was going to increase the travel I would have to get rid of the panhard bar and all the stock rubber mounted links, they start to bind up at 11" of travel and it was clear to me that the rubber inside the links would start to rip apart since they don't pivot and twist instead, and once the panhard bar swings everthing to the right it would make my drive shaft rub my gas tank and left tire rub the frame which also limited it.
Another factor is the coil spring, My Downey HDs start to drop out of the spring buckets at 12" and yeah I could put a spring spacer in there so it would give me alittle more drop, but in doing so I would have to limit the up travel so I don't bind the coil under bottoming which then wouldn't be any gain in travel.

So in short I had 11" with stock links and 12" travel shocks , and with 3link I got 14" with it being limited to 12" as of now but not for long!!!.

3link got 3" travel gain over stock and alot of other possibiltes are now out there, like my recently installed Aux Gas Tank.

Heres NEW PIC's