Ironman 4x4 Foam Cell Pro + airbags + BS - A sorta review - AMA

This one is a bit of an odd suspension, and I spent months and months deciding what I wanted to do. I first had a 2016 Trail Premium that we bought new and really loved. It's moved on to a good friend of mine who's going to continue building it and adventuring with it.

This go round I knew I wanted something a little nicer than the Bilstein 5100's, which performed very well. However, on a trip to Big Bend we ended up running down a road called River Road East, and my wife and I discovered we had a love of mild baja-style driving. Determined to build something durable, heavy duty, and higher comfort than the Billies, I wanted to find something really unique and cool.

I have ridden in a bunch of suspensions. OEM, Icons, Kings, ADS (really good and I think based on Kings), OME Nitros and OME BP-51s, Spacer lifts, Fox 2.0 on the TRD Pro 2020s, Rough Country (yikes), Eibach, Toytec BOSS (not the Aluma series), and an acutal Total Chaos Trophy Truck, so I've got an idea of what I wanted.

Naturally I settled on Radflo because I didn't have any experience with them LOL :/

I had my heart set, and then I ran across a random comment about Ironman 4x4 and Dobinsons, two of which I haven't heard about before and haven't ridden in. I'll save you the long winded post, I opted for Ironman 4x4 Foam Cell Pro. I liked the idea of Foam vs nitrogen, as I've helped rebuild a King shock before and when we were done, well....we weren't done. We had to take it to a shop to fill it with Nitrogen. The Foam Cells don't have pressure, and you could rebuild in your driveway and not have to have your vehicle in disrepair for a while. Intriguing.

I'll save you the install. It's typical. I went with the Stage 3 with Comfort springs. I have stock rear, no bumpers, extra weight, and just a SSO hybrid front bumper, sliders, and TRD Pro skid. I still got 2.5" front and rear, I was expecting less, but it's right at 2" total rake and I'm happy with that.

Love the green. These shocks are the heaviest I've ever held, holy moly. And beefy too. That lime green tho

Picture Dump:

 

So boring technical stuff.

Stage 3 included:
UCAs - No grease zerks, but use OEM toyota ball joint. Kinda like the simplicity. Zinc coated, hopefully will hold up nice and the silver is a good backdrop to the lime coils.
Front Strut - Comfort (I like how you can adjust with jamb nut vs split collar....not sure what that means? Look it up).
Rear shocks
Rear springs - Comfort
Front swaybar relocates (moves em forward a touch, not down...so they don't hit the coils).
Rear adjustable swaybar link extensions (1" longer than stock at minimum). Uses jamb nut.
Panhard Bar (adjustable). Not too hard to dial it in, uses jamb nut.
NO STICKER. SERIOUSLY NO STICKER. -1 star

About my airbags:
I noticed the rear coils have a larger diameter and the bags don't swell up as easily in there. I can still move them around in the coils at 15PSI. I plan on trying more tomorrow to see if I can get them to stick at around 25PSI. I think 30 is the Max. I kinda don't need them, as the trailer I have only squatted the rear 1/2", and another 250lbs did another 1/2", still keeping me at 1" of rake. I imagine loaded for a trip I'd be close to level, but the airbags will touch, acting like an air bumpstop.

Bump Stops:
I did the ones I found on Trail4Runner and think they are called Dynabumps. Kinda pricey, but high quality and easy to install. I do not recommend installing without a lift, as they are much longer and I certainly felt them when I installed them in my excitement before my lift came in. I like that they are progressive, like a Timbren spring, instead of a hard stop. Those + airbags + stiffer coils make for a really smooth towing experience.

My shock shin guards didn't fit. The mounts on the Ironman are so damn beefy they wouldn't fit. I am giving them to my friend who bought my 4Runner so they can live on and see adventure!

 

Finally, impressions:

I'll keep this one short cause you'd really just have to had ridden a bunch of these suspensions to know what I mean.

On smooth roads it's firmer like Bilsteins, less body roll, less nose dive, confident at high speeds.
Hit a small bump, its smoother than Billies, more like Fox.
Hit a medium bump it's surprising smooth, like a King.
Hit a hard bump, it's almost as smooth like a digressively valved Icon.

It likes the mediums the most. It leans toward plush on road light hits and smooths out a LOT on mediums. On hard hits you're getting into the durabumps and they do a nice job of progressively maxing you out.

The rebound valving is strong enough to fight the preload of the rear coils. In the 2016 4Runner, the Billies were overpowered by a stronger rear coil and would slam down off a curb or ledge. These plant the tire quickly without maxxing the shock.

The compression valving is medium and takes the initial bump well, progressively adding more until you are up in your bumpstops (front bumps are also progressive but much shorter).

So the best way to describe is like a mix of Fox to Icon, not as soft as Fox, not as aggressive as Icons. For a daily + trail it's great. For hard core racing, probably still pretty good. The 2.8" bodies of these things can probably take a beating before heating (haha rhymed it like a champ!)

 

Nice review/BS and pictures!

Interesting that you mentioned Big Bend and River Road East, as I'm definitely planning on hitting that same road when it cools off a bit.

 

We of course did Black Gap road too, and it was great. But the Baja down RRE was a complete blast! I really want to go back there soon.

 

Black Gap looks fun but more technical, and River Road East looks a bit more fun with more places to pull off and see(looking at Mariscal Canyon). "Baja" is more my style than crawling, but I'm sure I'll end up doing ALL the 4x4 roads at Big Bend eventually. It's only four hours from me.

 

Not sure how much you've offroaded but let's use a scale of 1 - 5. 1 being a dirt road. 5 being 40" tires and you'll be winching and taking damage.

Black gap was a 1.5 out of 5. It's slightly technical, but nothing that even a stock 4Runner couldn't dominate. It's also scenic because you'll drive up on ridges and have great overlooks.

River Road was just good old cruising down a dirt road, 4H not really even needed unless you got into some soft sand. Do watch out if you pull over, some the non-road isn't hardpack and could get you in trouble.

 

Gotcha! Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely be cautious. This is actually my first 4x4 vehicle, so still pretty new to offroading. I've ridden with friends who knew how to wheel, so I've picked up a few things over the years but there's nothing like some real driver seat experience. The roads at Big Bend seem like a good place to start, especially if you're rating Black Gap at a 1.5 out of 5, and it looks like the "toughest" trail in the park from what I've read. Lol

 

Yea, it probably is the toughest, but compared to an offroad park, it's pretty mild. In fact, the majority of trails in Colorado are like that too, because most of it is white knuckle driving on the edge of stuff, not technical hard stuff.