Need suspension advice!

I joined a new deer lease in South Texas and it's 12 miles from camp to my deer stand. It takes over an hour to drive back there in my F250. The road is extremely rocky! I'm going to buy a 3rd gen 4runner this weekend and use it as a lease buggy for running back and forth to the stand. I plan to upgrade the suspension but I am clueless about vehicle suspensions. I'm lookin to be able to go down this rocky road at 25mph without bouncing the teeth out of my head. What do I need to do. Thanks!!

 

Road

 

Total Chaos long travel with Kings or Camburg long travel with FoX Shocks.
If you are running 10mph and getting beat up, and you want to run 25 and not get beat up, you are going to need some serious suspension work.
You would be better off getting a Maverick X3 or Polaris Rzr, these machines have serious suspension and will handle rough offroad with ease and not beat you to death and are capable of running just about as fast as you are willing to drive them on rough roads.
The suspension systems on most of the X3 and RZR lines are $6,000+ worth of shocks alone if you had to buy them outright. These machines are well over 20" of suspension travel.

 

I want to be able to cruise down that road at 25mph, need to be able to get to my stand in 30 minutes.

 

I have a Polaris Ranger but I want the 4runner for heat and ac. I can't stand the cold!

When I say I'm getting beat to death now, it's in a F250 3/4 ton that rides like a dump truck.

 

you can run a road like that in west texas at 50mph on an X3
you are going to blow ball joints out on a 4runner and end up with your lower A-arm on the ground if you try to run that road at 25mph

 

Buy the Super ATV soft cab and Polaris or Super ATV heat kit for the ranger, upgrade its shocks and ride out. Probably cheaper than the 4R and maintenance that will most likely come with it.

 

Thanks for the reply, like I said I'm clueless on vehicle suspensions and have never done any true off-roading in my own vehicles. I've rented those machines in Arizona and they are awesome!

 

https://www.chaosfab.com/product/1996-2002-Toyota-4Runner-Long-Travel-Kit-With-Coilovers

And that's just the fronts...
Don't get me wrong there are ways to make the 4runner do it for cheaper but I doubt it will be very comfortable.

 

The 3rd Gen 4Runner has an inverted lower ball joint. This is the weakest of all front suspension systems and arguably the worst Toyota ever used.
The coil over / shock / spring assembly is pushing downward on the lower A-arm
The ball joint is mounted above the A-arm and bolted to the spindle
This puts the weight of the vehicle pulling the ball of the ball joint out of its socket. Basically like hooking your arm to a bulldozer and pulling on it. Eventually the socket wears out and the ball joint pops and the lower A-arm hits the ground with the front tire folding upward and outward normally trashing your fender and the front of the door if you are going at any speed.
Hitting the bumps and rocks like that road shows at speeds is going to severely wear those ball joints out in short order

I dont know if anyone has compiled a list of the failures like the Tundra guys have, the early tundra 2000-2006 shared the same style suspension as the 4R you are talking about. These guys compiled a photo album of what happens when the ball joint pops out of its socket. Running the bad roads you are going to make them wear out extremely fast and likely cause this to happen to you. The front suspension isnt exactly designed to take huge hits repeatedly and have high articulation quickly like what you need running over softball size rocks at speeds.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/first-gen-lower-ball-joint-lbj-failures.141860/

 

It won't matter how much you put into suspension work on a 3rd gen, something else (sheared splines, blown CVs, bent knuckles...) is gonna give before you complete 1/2 lap on that 'trail' doing 25mph. And if nothing miraculously doesn't break certainly your neck will as the runner will buck like a mule in those ruts when you bottom out the stops.

Just go with your Polaris and wear an electric motorcycle suit to keep warm and save on the mod rabbit hole. Or consider a Hovercraft that will let you just float over that rocky road and cut corners through the brush...some do better than 40MPH.

 

The 4R isn't going to do what you want it to do.

You need independent front and rear, with more travel than a 4R has.

Not a bad suggestion on a RZR.

If you're intent on a "car", don't forget to air down the tires. Yes, you're hitting rocks, but getting the air pressure to ~20 psi will absorb a lot of the harshness.