Check out the suspension under a Hummer...The REAL Hummer. IFS. I'll keep my IFS, but I do wish Total Chaos would come out with a IFS kit, with more articulation, stronger CV's, and would allow me to keep my stock fenders.

 

Honestly the Hummer's IFS sucks. Most of the safety mishaps in a hummer are from the IFS causing the front wheel to buckle under the vehical, causing it to roll.

 

I wouldn't say it sucks; most of the safety mishaps in a Hummer are caused by inexperienced drivers with little or no prior off-road wheel time. The Humvee at least proves that durable IFS (and IRS for that matter), with driven wheels, is indeed po$$ible. Who's going to have the first Yota with gear reduction hubs?

 

Whatever happened to Downey's IFS kit they had in development with the Porsche CVs, tubular control arms and massive travel? It looked like they were headed for some really total "Total Chaos" IFS suspension. It used to be on their website as a coming attaction, but I can't find anything about it anymore.

 

IIRC, they had a coil over setup.

i emailed them about saying they need to beef up the lower a-arms since all of the load will now be placed where factory designs didnt have any.

and yeah, i heard much about it in the last year or so...

 

Actually, solid axles with the addition of rear steer is all the rage,


In most cases I found that SA cleared because of the added breakover and the addition of much larger tires.

I don't drag anymore than a SA at the same ride height, nor do I breakdown as much and very rarely get stuck as easily. My 4Runner isn't set-up just to play on rocks, but as an all around trail rig and DD. I also enjoy going high speed across the dezert and on my jobsites, where the fields get quite bumpy, IFS shines in these cases. Considering 90% of my driving is on the street, I do enjoy the advantages of the tighter turning radius, fast cornering and smooth ride. All the effort that is needed to do a SAS is better spent on building a full on buggy. In most cases the SAS'ed rigs, has or will become a truggy or buggy before long, if your hell bent on playing hard on the rocks.

Now you can't compare the 1st and 2nd gen IFS to the 3rd, because those torsion bars really do suck.



Won't happen, CV's at the stock length can't flex anymore than what has already been achieved. You can go long travel and keep your stock fenders, but you'll have to trim them. Stronger CV's have already been made, but then all your doing is moving the weak point to the diff and I'd rather break an axle than ring & pinion gears.

 

Buy a copy of the CO4RJ video. It will blow your mind what lockers and gearing can do. Forget what the front drivetrain is.

Solid axles are cool on the internet. Lockers and gears are cool on the trail.

 

bruce,

noticed i said STOCK or SEMI STOCK...

i just read your fine print...

come on... 35"s... TC's long travel uiniball? if you consider that at most semi stock... lol...

 

Yep I'd call it semi-stock..... it's still IFS, the TC LT was a simple bolt-on kit and 35's are common for SA rigs. Besides the rear suspension is completely stock other than the OME shocks and springs.

I guess I should have put this part of your quote in as well. Using it as your standard, my added witdth is within reason, the cost is much less than a proper SAS job.

 

My IFS is stock and ran Aftershock right behind Bruce. Where were you ???

Cheesey spacers, stock coils and Old Man Emu shocks is hardly exotic.

 

stock IFS, to me: nothing else.

semi stock IFS: shocks, shaved or low-pro bump stops, cranked t-bars (2nd gens)

your IFS: oh please... i stopped counting $$$ after uniball... lol....

your next step up is SCORE trophy truck IFS design where they make the diff as centered between the framerails (and as small as possible too) and then make the arms and drive axles as long as possible.

 

I have stock ball joints. Cornbred spacers a whoping $110, Revtek spacers a whopping $35.00 and genuine Toyota stock coils.

Old Man Emu shocks $200 for 2.

ATS arms to clear the 35's but could have been done with shaved stock arms.


The $145.00 lift.

 

See you at the next Tin Bender Jambo on Aftershock.

 

i got about 100 feet last year into aftershock when i figured my 32"s and and a mild crank on the tbars was just asking for trouble...

 

I did aftershock in my 4Runner on 265/75-16 BFG at's the first time I was there, but I did have sliders, 4.88's, 4.7 Marlin crawl box, lockers front and rear. The last Jambo I did Sledge Hammer as well, next year????

 

Actually Vernon ran it with 4.88's, Elipsters ball joint spacers, front and rear ARB's and Marlins 4.7 gear.

On 285/75/16's = 32's

 

Your gonna get a bigger dent. Not me.

 

It is deffinetly becasue of talking to people online. They tell you what is good and not good. Some dude came on the other day with an 04 Tundra and the first reply for mods was do a SAS. Thats rediculous!

I think that the key, which a lot of people have done, is trial and error. If all these IFS mods dont work, than do a solid axle. Don't just chop your front end off just because someone said to.

And if you know you are going to do it when u buy the truck, consiter buying a pre-85, i'll cost you a lot less.

Just my $.02,
Alex

 

I was thinking about doing this mod myself. Is there a good writeup on this anywhere? LOL

 

It is unfair to say IFS sucks....amybe for extreme rockcrawlintg....I'll give it that...

but as drivers we need to know are limits. I have built an IFS rig that will exceed my expectations of a rig.

Is everyone with a 4x4 planning to be a competition rockcrawler? After enduring prerunners making fun of my front axles and rockcrawlers making fun of IFS, I decided nothing is worth believing until you have experienced it first hand.