Outer Limits 4x4 Board

is there any other way i can lift the front end other than doing the torsion bars? when i first got my rig an had the torsion bars tightened... i went up an inch an a half to two inches.... an i found out yesterday that i can go ANOTHER inch to 2 inches!! so after i do that... any other way i can go higher? or do i have to start doing MAJOR mods in order to do that?

Not easily - your only other options for more lift a solid axle front conversion, or if you want to keep the IFS fab up your own drop brackets to lower the control arms, torsion bar mounts, front diff etc & fab up a ball joint spacer between the upper control arms & ball joints. Check out any of the big US lift kit companies like Superlift, Rancho, Procomp, Skyjacker etc IFS 4wd lifts for an idea of the components involved. For the amount of custom work involved a SAS is a much better way to go for the money.

The upper bumpstops are your limitation as too how far you can wind them up - I had mine shaved down to around 15mm or so, & the bars were wound up so the upper control arms were around 15mm from them. This is as high as you can go before your CV angles will get crazy.
The other thing I was looking at one stage doing was making up a 2" spacer that went between the ball joint & the upper control arm - this would have the effect of lifting the upper control arm back to its original position, giving me more down tracel again as I would have 60mm between the upper bumpstop again - should work - in theory anyway More travel in CV joints though - bad ?? never got a chance to test it

Just go the 2" or so suspension lift & 2" bodylift - can run 31's no worries, any bigger tyre than that & you will kill CV's & front diffs anyway.

Later - Mike H.

ok i honestly am going to sound stupid here but i have no idea what the upper bumpstop is.. or where it is even located.. an how to shave it.. care to explain? an show a possible pic?

OK, another stupid question back at you- how do you know you can go another 1-2" higher, but you don't know where the bumpstops are? The bumpstops are afterall what limits the travel for the front suspension!?!

Have a look in behind your front wheel (next to your front shocks) and you'll see two large blocks of rubber; one at the top or your suspension, and one down low- these are the bumpstops. You'll see where your suspension hits on these to limit up and down travel.

well i was "told" that i could go up some more... so.. go figure.. hey man i'm learning! lol

Best to check them out for yourself. Have a look from the middle of the vehicle- don't try looking underneath from the front.

A wise person once said believe half of what you see and none of what you hear... I believe everything myself!!!!

G'Day PV,

Here's a Bumpstop Pick for you - should help you work out which is which
By the way - if your's look exactly like the one in the pick, then you can't go any higher with the Bumpstops This was mine completely twisted up so that is why the top bumpstop is mashed into the Control Arm.
"Shaving" the Bumpstops is simply cutting them down so there is less rubber - simply undo the 2 bolts holding them on, use a sharp knife or hacksaw blade etc to remove most of the rubber & rebolt them on. Doesn't make a huge difference but every bit helps when it comes to IFS Make sure you leave enough rubber so that they are higher than the bolt heads on either side - around 10-15mm should do it ( 1/2 an inch or so )
ONLY DO THE TOP BUMPSTOPS !!! - NOT THE LOWER ONES !!!!!!!
The Lower ones control the up travel - when you hit a bump really hard they are all that is stopping the Lower Control Arms being driven out thru the bonnet
Hope this helps - Mike H.

I recall that I removed my top ones completely.....didn't have any troubles either
I also had the lower ones shaved +++ and fortunately, didn't break anything

But now......different story !!


SAS

lol ok glad i got that worked out.. thanks guys i'll have to take a peek tomorrow hopefully...

One of the biggest issues here is the fact that the torsion bars connect to the lower control arms of the front suspension.

Any more lift in my front end, and the torsion bars would be sitting on the crossmember...not good!

Toyota IFS has the torsions connecting to the upper control arms hence it's a little bit easier to lift them further...but still costs a bundle to do..

And the way my CV angles are now, wouldn't want that worse either...

I've got around 2.5" (60mm) lift in the front.

Here are a couple of tricks I've read about, heard, conjured up out of thin air for modifying IFS

- Remove the anti-sway bar if lifted. Bit more flex, I didn't notice it on road.

- Drop the diff using custom bracket. Gives you a lot better CV angles and therefore the possibility of larger tyres. You loose clearence under the diff if you don't go bigger tyres tho...

- Ball joint spacers. Think these go in the upper section? Drops ball joint back to stock height, improves travel. Could be a bit dangerous if CV's flex too far.

- Air Shocks. Always wanted to try this one out, but can't find a supplier here in Oz. Overseas the best shocks seem to be Gabriel Hijacker Airshocks.

The idea works so that the shocks are lifting the rig , not the torsion bars. You put air into the shocks, they lift up, a toyota setup I read about ran with 100psi in the shocks and unwound the bars 17 turns! Because they are wound back to stock height. you get back full range of flex.

Next trick is to connect the air on one shock, to the air on the other so that they share the same volume of air. If one shock goes up, the other must go down, instantly your IFS performs like a solid axle!

These shocks are going for something like $US40 ea and $US40 for the air line kit (links the shocks)..

wow murray.. i will have to take that shock idea to the drawing board an see if my friend can work that out... how interesting.. i wonder how it would respond if i had air shocks all around... interesting thought.. i'd like to try that one.

I'd only do it on the front, if you had that front and rear you'd roll over 1st hill you came to unless you had a way of locking the airflow when you didn't want it...

You can get descent flex out of the rear with just springs and okay shocks, it's the front that needs working on

Here are some links on the air shocks...

Cross linked front air shocks
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/air_shocks/

Rear Air shocks with in cab pressure control :
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/4Runner/t ... ir_shocks/
and
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/a/dandeman/se ... hocks.html

Ferwoaza wrote:You can get descent flex out of the rear with just springs and okay shocks, it's the front that needs working on

to prove murrays point
these are stock feroza springs in the rear

Murray, I liked you last signature better.

The upper body tube of the Gabriels is too large to allow the stud into the hole in the IFS front shock towers. I tried this way back when I was running Gabriels in the rear. The upper body tube is huge about three inches in diameter. I don't think that you can mount them upside down either. My ususal inclination is to get out the angle grinder and start whacking stuff. With the amount of metal that I would have had to remove it would have severely weakened the shock tower. Maybe you could weld a plate to the top of the shock tower to move the stud hole to the outside towards the wheels. This would probably not work either as the tyre would probably hit the shock at wheel tuck. You would probably have to whack off the stock towers and install hoops.

I had consulted Mike H. about making some longer droped lower "A" arms. I believe that we decided that for all of the work involved you wouldn't get that much out of it. The front diff is offset with a long and a short half shaft. The short shaft would be put at too much of an angle and break CV joints. If the front diff was centered it would be a different story. Most all of the IFS lift kits that I have seen drop down the diff also. This would involve making a HEAVY duty bracket for the diff/ lower A arms to bolt to...a lot of fabrication but possible. Developing this would cost quite a lot and a lot of down time. My US Rocky is my only daily driver so I gave up on this also. It has been so long since I had the IFS that I don't remember exactly all of the info.

I think that if you want to go with more than about 2 1/2 inches of suspension lift it would be cheaper in the long run to save up for a SAS.

The only other thing was the ball joint spacers. If I remember right this would allow more up travel. My research didn't get that far as the IFS went away.

Mike would be better to comment on all of this as he IS a guru and a fine engineer. I am not even a "bit of a guru" but a hack...that doesn't fit? whack it off Aren't you going to grind that down and make it look good? Na just paint it black

hey kent... what rocky are you driving? an your pos. that it wont fit? jus when i had a great idea to play with.... i'll still take it to my friend an see if we can lay it down on a drawing board... will be a while though... ok.. movin on to next project

The upper bumpstops are your limitation as too how far you can wind them up - I had mine shaved down to around 15mm or so, & the bars were wound up so the upper control arms were around 15mm from them. This is as high as you can go before your CV angles will get crazy.
The other thing I was looking at one stage doing was making up a 2" spacer that went between the ball joint & the upper control arm - this would have the effect of lifting the upper control arm back to its original position, giving me more down tracel again as I would have 60mm between the upper bumpstop again - should work - in theory anyway More travel in CV joints though - bad ?? never got a chance to test it

Hi Mike
Were u going 2 make the spacer up yourself or get someone else 2 make it.
I'm keen on getting a balljoint spacer made up for the feroza
How much would it cost 2 get spacers made up

hey kent... what rocky are you driving? an your pos. that it wont fit?

My US Rocky is a `91 SE. It used to be the full time 4WD model. You are certainly welcome to try them but I am sure that it isn't just a bolt in item. All of the people including myself that were running Gabriels in the rear (back in `98) would have had them on the front also. The shock towers might not need too much trimming I can' remember. At the time I didn't want to take an angle grinder to my beautiful little truck. Now I have has so much stuff torched/ ground off and stuff welded on that it doesn't bother me anymore. Shocks have to tuck back into the tower or the tyres will rub. Gabriels are very large in diameter and it will be a tight fit if you can do it.

RockStomper.com was selling generic shock hoop kits for $125.00. I don't know whether they still sell them or not...That's what I put on the front after the SAS.

Why don't you just buy some and prove me wrong. They are cheap at $25.00 each. You can always take them back. I don't have a part # for the front but the rear is 39105. So you will have to deal with the sales person ( " We are sorry but Gabriel does not make a shock for Daihatsu") or just start opening boxes and measure them.