Topic: 6 in ifs lift

[Hunterwarren]

I'm planning on ordering a 4 in ifs lift and the bj spacers and I believe that's a max of 6 inches right? What brand do you recommend for the money? And what should I do for rear I need new springs and I'm not gonna use blocks so 4in springs and 2in shackle?

[Snowtoy]

What size tires do you plan on running?  In general you can clear 31's stock, 32's w/a body seam adjustment, 33's w/the BJ spacers and body seam adjustment or 2" body lift and body seam adjustment.  If you are still considering an SAS down the road, buying a new IFS lift would be a waste of money.  I went the Trailmaster 4" IFS lift for my '90 back in '94, nothing else was available, however in '07 when I was building my '91 I went with the a 2" body lift and the BJ spacers.  Having run both of the BL/BJ lift now for several years, I would definitely go with the body lift and spacers over the brackets.

[yotaneck13]

i cleared 38's with cranked tb's 3 inch bl and 2 inch rear shackle's.  on my 90 reg cab.  it puts added stress on your steering components as do the bigger tires. i snapped 3 idler arms 1 while drivn down the road.  not cool so watch how your lifting a ifs rig. id truss the idler arm for sure and go over everything else while your doing the work.

[emsvitil]

I don't think you can use BJ spacers and an IFS lift at the same time.............

[yotaneck13]

its doable the lift drops the lower control arms and uses a extended spindel the spacer would go in the same essentialy droppint the spindel even more

[emsvitil]

Will both together fit in the wheel?

[yotaneck13]

depends on the back spacking and or size of wheel

[Rocksurfer]

We have run a superlift 4inch with billet spacers we made (still kicking myself for not marketing them) and the old Rancho upper a-arms with a 3 inch bodylift at the same time and had no issues at all. In fact that set up allowed for a softer torsion bar setting so that it could travel or articulate better. The main issue to watch for is creating so much travel that the inner shafts get pulled out of the housing. The inner shaft is only held in by a ring on the end of it and can be pulled through.

I'll round up some pics in a minute

[Rocksurfer]

Here's pics of the truck with everything....

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.178215002249799.44334.142698029134830&type=3

[Rocksurfer]

...and another that only had the upper Rancho A-arms and a 2 inch bodylift on the same rock in the same position.  Even though the pics are captured from video you can clearly see a big difference. If you look on the left side the lower arm is actually reversed itself and the right side still hasn't maxed out unlike the black one which is maxed.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.178215002249799.44334.142698029134830&type=3

The fb link goes to the full set of pics

[tyes]

you can clear almost anything if you wanted.. depends on how you want your rig to be use for.. before my sas, i had procomp 4in w/ 3 BL with 38.5x14.5x15, it was a waste of money and never safe to drive offroad.. i mean if u were going over mud or debris...small stuff.. then yes, but over all save for a sas...ifs just sucks hard....and you'll have to carry 2 sets of axles everywhere...

[Rocksurfer]

you can clear almost anything if you wanted.. depends on how you want your rig to be use for.. before my sas, i had procomp 4in w/ 3 BL with 38.5x14.5x15, it was a waste of money and never safe to drive offroad.. i mean if u were going over mud or debris...small stuff.. then yes, but over all save for a sas...ifs just sucks hard....and you'll have to carry 2 sets of axles everywhere...

Your problem was the size of your tires, 35" max for IFS anything more and you will start breaking stuff in the front. Even 35's can be a problem if you get the heavier bias ply tires. In the entire time I owned any of mine I only broke one inner shaft and that was the short side since there is no give at all and the only reason I even broke that one was because I was screwing around and hammering it on a loose hill. I've seen more idler arms break than axles, then #2 would be ball-joints. One thing is that they IFS axles inners or outers (CV's) are a lot easier and quicker to fix. As to what you can do and where you can go with it, my IFS trucks have been everywhere, there is just as much travel in a stock IFS as a stock straight axle and with some added travel from a lift you can hit most trails with lockers f/r. Now my preference, I am driving a 85 4Runner currently.

[SNOW WALKER]

Back in the 90's I had an '89 excab. I had a 3' Bl and it had a 4' trail master kit and I added Rancho Tbars. I was running this combo with 35's since it was new. Daily driven and weekend muded. At 80,000 miles I put on some 38.5 tslsx's and with in a month I killed the idler arm. Bought a new one and got a brace from Downey Offroad. Put onother 10,000 on it and bought the Rancho Downey 11' mega travel kit. It consisted of Rancho upper A arms and some inner slip yolks similar to a driveshaft for the CV. It also had shock mounts and tie rods to handle the angle. It was designed to not lower the the diff and give you 3 inches of ground clearance. I stacked it all with the trail master kit. I never found an alignment guy that could get it to handle right. Big surprise!! After a few months it killed the tie rods. Another big surprise. I spent a lot of cash trying to make the Ifs work. It did have mad ground clearance. Back then there was no Hi steer arms and only the brave did solid axle swaps and most were 3/4 and 1 tons with v8 swaps.
 A guy could make the ifs hold up some 36's but I think that's the limit. I would not use the Ball joint spacers with the lift I don't think the geometry would be right. IMO

[Rocksurfer]

I didn't add any of the items that would have lowered the diff except for the one that moved it down with the lift. All the other junk including the "RED BAR" that comes with the Downey lift all went in the trash. With the spacer that made it so that the suspension could be set up a lot softer on the torsion bars which allowed for easier travel of the suspension and the push back that a torsion bar does. That stupid red bar hung way too low for a rockcrawler, a couple people I know did use it and it hit everything. The only thing I broke other than one inner axle was one upper arm, it colapsed right at the torsion bar cup. Fortunately the company I worked for was sponsored by Downey so I got a new set for free.

The thing about Downey was everything they built was with the attitude of go fast so most all of their setups were along those lines. When you slowed down to crawl stuff you tended to break, as in those replacement half-shafts over the CV's. The Downey/Rancho arms were set up by Rancho and increased travel but didn't really give much lift.

[Snowtoy]

you can clear almost anything if you wanted.. depends on how you want your rig to be use for.. before my sas, i had procomp 4in w/ 3 BL with 38.5x14.5x15, it was a waste of money and never safe to drive offroad.. i mean if u were going over mud or debris...small stuff.. then yes, but over all save for a sas...ifs just sucks hard....and you'll have to carry 2 sets of axles everywhere...

$ for $ an IFS setup will never crawl as well as an SA, but if you have the money or the ability you can make IFS crawl fairly well.
(Not my pics)


The kit used in the pics was designed by West Coast Off Road(out of business for several years now), and had longer Aupper/lower control arms that increased track width by 4", which allowed for 14" of wheel travel over the 5" of stock setup.

Even with the stock setup or an aftermarket lift kit, you can still crawl most trails with little carnage, providing you limit the tire size to 35's, pick the right line, and use the skinny pedal intelligently.

[yotaneck13]

Even with the stock setup or an aftermarket lift kit, you can still crawl most trails  use the skinny pedal alot

fixed that for you

[Rocksurfer]

fixed that for you

Don't knock it until you try it, and if you have and failed you're not doing it right.