5th Generation 4Runner Suspension Options Thread

Thanks. I want to get kings but it’s a 16week wait :-(

 

Just my opinion, i think its worth the wait. I only wanted to do it once.

 

I’m a little different than most, or maybe just old and set in my ways, i like the aggressive tires on 4 wheelers, i also like the E load because they can take a licken, and keep on ticken. The Falkens are very good in off road conditions and rain, i do not now how they do in the snow, but they kick butt in the dirt and rocks. Now on the highway they hum a little, but it does not get real loud, and i have never had a problem with balancing. I also ran this tire on my 2002 Runner and liked them as well on it.

 

They look great! I can live with a little hum for traction and durability.. Looking for MT's for my next set.

Agreed with @SlvrSlug ; wait and get what you want. I've never heard a complaint about Kings.

 

If you want to raise it 1.5” In front, you get adjustable height shocks and put it on that setting. Nothing needed in the rear. The truck will look level with maybe a bit of rake.

if you want to go 2” you will need to do something in back, or have reverse rake. I don’t believe there are 1” coils available, but with 1.5” coils In back you will have some rake, but less than stock. You could also a 1” spacer in back if you want even less rake, or don’t want to mess with the stock coils.

 

You're right. The Pros are 1" higher in the front than a stock SR5 or OR. The rear end is stock height using the exact same coils as the other 4Runners. The rear coils are not stiffer than the other models (although the front coils are softer); however, the Pros have different shocks (Fox)......... which adds a controlled firmness to the ride over the stock Tokico shocks.

Fox shocks were added to the Pro in 2019. Before that, the Pro's used Bilstein. They were both the same height. Consensus seems to be the Fox shocks are an improvement over the Bilsteins.

I think most people lift their 4runners in a similar ratio to the Pro (1:0, 2:1, 3:2). This still gives you 3/4" of rake in the back to play with.

 

Slvrslug, what are your tire specs?

 

They are the Falken Wildpeak M/T in 285/70/17 load E

 

I love my rig. Kings all the way around, Toyo AT III’s, MR702’s, SPC UCA’s for now...

 

If you don’t want a bigger lift and want to reuse your stock components and tire size falken is the best tire I have used in a truck and get the ARB BP51 system I run it extremely versatile ride adjustment I ran it with my stock uca but now have jba

 

This thread is going great. Really appreciate everyone's input!

So with all of this talk about inches, what about spring rate? I believe one would want to replace springs in pairs so that the new spring rates were appropriate. Obviously, putting a super stiff spring on the front of the truck while leaving the soft OE spring on the rear would cause some unwanted driving characteristics... Of course, calculating how much spring rate is needed with X lift and X additional pounds added to the truck does become difficult.. But it almost seems like no one around here even thinks about spring rates, other than if they add a ton of armor, etc?

So when you guys are buying a setup from, well as an example let's use Kings, and it comes with 4 shocks and 2 springs... why doesn't Kings offer a rear spring that goes well with their fronts? I see that SlvrSlug went with a different brand for rear springs.. so I'm just wondering why.

 

So you're saying that for 1.5" of front lift, I do not need new front springs?

Is achieving lift in the front with only a new shock accomplished by the fact that the new shock has a higher bottom sitting point for the spring? So I suppose a small spacer up front essentially does the same thing by raising up the spring? (Of course it wouldn't be as ideal as a spacer would effectively shorten the usable travel of a shock whereas a new shock would travel further up.)

Please correct me if I'm wrong here! Thanks

 

Hi Guys. I have a 2014 Limited that has a Toytec Spacer (Lift & Level) kit on it. My X-RAES shocks are all leaking and I want to replace with quality aftermarket shocks. Can anyone recommend? Mostly highway driving, very limited offroad. I am told the Bilstein 5100 series are good but not certain of the fit since I have the spacers. Any recommendations appreciated. Thank you!

 

Welcome.

 

The 4Runner comes with quite a bit of rake on the SR5 and Off Road models- (The Pro has less rake because of the Fox suspension.) Because of this rake The front is roughly 1.75” higher than the rear. This means that you can add this much to the front before you get reverse rake, or having the front higher than the rear, without doing any adding anything to the rear.

If you want to take it off-road, and lift the front 1.5” (which will give you a level or “Pro” look), you probably want to upgrade the front suspension and add coil overs, which are typically adjustable shocks with a spring or coil designed to be compatible. At the same time you can add rear shocks that match the front. In the rear the shocks are separate from the coils (and not adjustable), so unless you want to keep the rake like it is stock, you can keep the rear coils. The rear stock coils are perfectly fine for most cases, especially if you aren’t adding additional weight in back.

If you aren’t taking it off road, you could replace just the front shocks to lift it up or use spacers. I haven’t done it this way, but if you want to go this route I’m sure you can get some good suggestions here.

Edit: If you want to go with 285’s you probably want more than a 1.5” lift, so in that case I’d plan on replacing the rear coils to get the extra height, so be smarter than me and do it once!

 

If you have a pro suspension bilstein already you can add the fj cruiser front bilstein springs which come in at 14 inches about a 1 1/5 higher then standard and go with 1 1/5 day star rear insulators which gives you about a 3/4 inch lift rear it will give you a slight rake and about an inch higher all the way around then standard
J

 

And do it, when you have the final weight of your car. Or at least close to it. If change suspension first, and then add all the weight of bumpers, racks, tent, drawers, whatever – you'll be completely off with your suspension. Do the heavy items first, THEN get it looked at by a suspension specialist.

 

Bilstein has an 8k series for our rig too.

 

Our front stock suspension comes with struts (shock inside coil). Our rear suspension has coils separated from the shocks.

Some companies like Bilstein and Eibach sell struts that allow you to use your stock coil and adjust the coil height using different settings on that strut. Basically the perch that the spring sits on can be moved up to provide more lift. Other suspension systems like coilovers allow you to turn an adjuster to change the coil height for lift. So it is the coils providing the lift, but with various lift height setting on the strut or coilover. There's also the option of a good ol' fashioned lift coil paired with a longer shock.

The rear doesn't have that option. You would need lift coils or coil spacers to increase lift height in the back.

 

Front are rear spring rates are quite different because of the weight distribution of our vehicles. Our stock front coils are somewhere around 580 or 590lb coils whereas the rear are somewhere around 200lbs, I think.

There are plenty of people who change to heavier springs to accommodate weight that they've added to the truck. A lot of companies have heavier spring rate options.

The ratio that you use front to back is determined by the weight you add and where you add it. If you add a bumper and winch to the front, you'll want to focus on front coil spring rate. If you do a lot of towing or put heavy cargo in the rear, you'll want to increase spring rate in the rear. If you weight is pretty evenly distributed with skids, sliders, roof rack, ect..... then heavier coils front and rear are appropriate.

 

Hey guys any other brands I should look into / add to the list?

 

Heh, as I was pondering all this last night I figured this out on my own.. you caught me before I edited my original post! I'm not used to different shocks changing the right height by an appreciable difference so had some trouble apparently wrapping my head around that. Long week lol...

So, does anyone made an adjustable coil for the rear? That's a thing over in the car world, not sure if it's too weak, or otherwise ill-advised, in the truck world? It's basically just a spring with an adjustable spacer built in, if that makes sense. A threaded collar which sits inside the spring moves a spacer closer or further as it's turned, effectively changing the overall length of the spring (but not its compression length, of course). If no one makes that, maybe they should get on it lol. Then again, guys with trucks don't seem nearly as obsessed with dialing in the perfect height as stanced cars, which makes sense. We were dealing with millimetres over there.

 

What would be interesting in my personal opinion, is a section of "what lift do I need/want if I want to / don't want to change rake on model X". That could account for the different front on the TRD Pro, will give people a starting point for leveling and so on.

The other thing of note is to add information around "I've added weight, what are my options to get to stock rake again". Not saying that this should include specific recommendations, just things like "if you added a lot of weight in the rear, these are your options ..."

I don't know whether you want to invest this much work though, but it feels inefficient that everybody has to go through the soul searching and finding by themselves.

 

@Crikeymike has answered many of those questions in his post here:

https://www.4runners.com/threads/dobinsons-5th-gen-4runner-suspension-options.13289/

He's a US Dobinsons distributor out of Florida and the source of my equipment.

 

All good

Yes, Eibach makes an adjustable rear coil set-up for our trucks.

 

Look what I got this morning. I’m guessing the rear springs you got are one of these OME ?

which one ?


https://www.bilsteinlifts.com/shop/...-rear-2-5-3-lift-medium-coils-2010-fj4runner/

https://www.bilsteinlifts.com/shop/...5-3-inch-lift-heavy-coils-for-2010-fj4runner/

 

Well, it looks like it's the rear suspension situation that is holding me up. Seems like there are plenty of options for the front which can take you from +0" all the way up to +3" and beyond. However, it doesn't look like there are many options for those of us that want to *barely* lift the rear.

So far I've only found three options.. does anyone know of others?

- Coil Spring Spacer
- Wheeler's Off-Road T13 Coil Spring (~1.5")
- Dobinsons C59-599 Coil Spring (advertised as 1" but seems to also be about 1.5")

I'm looking for a true 0.5-1" rear lift, and would love to not use spacers. Extra travel would be great, though I realize that I'm wanting to change it so little, the practical differences may be moot.

Eventually I may move to something more advanced such as Kings all around, that is once I have more skill to go with them, along with some larger tires. I imagine I'll enjoy a ~1.5" rear lift with those, coupled with around a 2-2.75" front lift. I have a feeling that with a larger amount of lift, I could (hopefully) achieve a "softer" ride over the bumps, sort of like a Baja truck or whatever. It only seems logical that a much softer ride could only be achieved with a large amount of lift. I'm not quite there yet, though, and am happy to start small as I learn.

Right now I am rocking 275's and really am going for the smallest lift possible. I have a little bit of rub (front fender liner and mud flap) that I'm hoping the lift solves. Also, a little more room when off-roading wouldn't hurt, plus hey who here doesn't like modding our trucks especially for function? The wiser part of me says don't bother at all, and to save then go big, but I'll probably be on these tires for at least two years and there is just no way I won't touch the suspension for that long. Yes yes, I wish I had gone straight for 285's, but hindsight is 20/20, and I am a truck noob here. I also just probably wouldn't feel comfortable, personally, with 285's on my "TRD Pro" wheels, despite the fact that many others run that setup without issue.

So, with all that said, I am leaning toward simply picking up a set of shocks and sticking with the OE springs all around. Thoughts?

I see both the Eibach "Pro Truck Sport" shock and the Bilstein 5100's, and 5160's, as popular shock options. These both would allow me to ever-so-slightly lift the front of the truck with the stock springs, keeping some forward rake which I want. Is this correct? Are there any other shocks I should look into? I'm not sure if the Dobinsons are adjustable or not. They also appear to be a bit more expensive.. but perhaps it's worth it? But I keep seeing the Eibach and Bilstein talked about the most.. seems like the newer Eibach gets better reviews?

Thanks!

 

Sounds like this and sack of sand in the trunk is your best option ... ;-)

 

I thought one series of Toytec shocks was built by Elka shocks not Eibach.

 

This is a 1" lift spring and you'll actually get the advertised 1" of lift from it.

https://eibach.com/us/2000/E30-82-071-01-02-TOYOTA-4Runner-pro-lift-kit