RE: Four Wheel & Off Road - sell your solid axle

[whiteman]

I am picking up a 86 4runner on sunday 3/27 and am trying to decide how i want to lift it.  I have three different friends who have solid axles avalible and my cousins shop has all the parts and I just need to learn how to use them so a SAS is very doable with some money saved but I have this other idea in the back of my cranium just bothering me . After reading the May 2005 issue of petersons off road I am thinking about building an IFS system that will work good on trails and rock crawling.  I the think the only thing that will hold a person back is the cost in materials fro hiem joints and the cv axles and the cost of using coil overs because torsion bars are retarded.  But to get started when I pick up my runner I want to toss the torsion bar and take the front coil springs off my bronco II and install them onto the upper a-arms of the runner. Do you think this will give me any mor travel if not it will at least look cool.  Then I saw this nissan at  http://www.fly-n-hi.com/FST/nissanpathfinder.htm   I want to build somthing like this but the A-arm's will have to be longer to get more travel.   I will try to post pics if I ever follow thru with my small talk. Thanks for reading.    

[Uncle Jesse]

http://www.chaosfab.com/toycadbal.html

good luck and start saving your money.

[scheid6996]

well wut do u want to do with the truck? mud? sand? rock? jump? race? trails?

[mr4x42u]

well wut do u want to do with the truck? mud? sand? rock? jump? race? trails?

yea,,thats for sure where i would start..whats it used for the most..

with ifs come more money and more broken parts..even though with the chaos kit you could up grade to tundra cv's but I'm not sure where they stand strength wise in the rocks..could still be a set back..

[Willy Mammoth]

Keep it simple, go with SAS and don't look back. If you have the time and the know how and the equipment needed to put a IFS together you may still have problems to deal with.

[94toytruck]

the best thing i did was cut out my ifs. i ran hightravel arms for a year in that time i went through a ton of ft end parts. in the end i bent the lower control arm mounts on the frame and twisted the diff mount brackets. the control arms mounts was braced and the ft end was never locked. i ran my truck quite hard though through rocks but it only had 33s. i used to carry extra TREs,idler arms and pitman arms, both ft stubs and one axle. i never broke a axle but i was unlocked in ft.

tunda cvs BTW are the same just have a longer center shaft. as far as i know the inner and outer joints are the same.

BTW search for rockstompers ifs rig. he went through all kinda stuff trying to build a ifs setup that would hold up. custom arms, 9inch ft diff, porsche CVS. from what know he gave up cause he was tearing upper arm mounts off the frame.

not trying to discourage you here. just kinda stating that it has been tried before. ifs is good for mild wheeling but anything serious over time will destoy it.

[mr4x42u]

ifs has its place,,but the rocks and good hard trails is not one of them..

[kyle_22r]

i'd like to build some kind of toyota with a ford style i-beam setup for jumping.  only problem is that the moses lake dunes are almost 4 hours away

[wood]

Walker Evans tried the IFS thing and that man put the money into it. His IFS was as strong as a Dana 60 and had really good fex for an IFS. BUT he has since gone back to solid axles. He said the IFS just didn't work as well as the solid axles in the rocks. I agree with him. If you are in the rocks, go solid. If you are into fast desert stuff, go IFS. With the ammount of money you would invest into building up an awesome IFS up front you could buy a pair of dana 60's and run 44's.

Just my 

[scheid6996]

i'd like to build some kind of toyota with a ford style i-beam setup for jumping. only problem is that the moses lake dunes are almost 4 hours away

MOSSES LAKE is the !  i love it there! 

[alwayzbroken]

No matter how much flex you build into a ifs suspension, it will still break gears and cvs. There is only so much you can do with a 7.5" ring gear. IFS is worthless. Those long travel kits don't work well for anything else but baja. Save your money.

[Huhwhye]

Read the fine print.  Most of those big travel IFS kits don't run 4wd.  The kits that have big travel and keep 4wd are really pricey.  They install those kits and remove the front drive and run across the desert at 90mph.  If you keep the 4wd you have to limit the travel or you'll break stuff.

I looked at that stuff to, since big rocks is only part of what I do with the truck.  But it doesn't make sense, money wise and in function.