Advice on needed upgrades/fixes bad angles?

Hello I’m looking for some opinions on needed upgrades to improve ride quality. I just put on everything recently and should of waited to upgrade everything before the tires lol

 

Oh wow! Those CV joint angles look fairly severe. Imagine what that will look like when out four wheeling with articulation. If you haven't done a differential drop, you might want to look into that.

 

Yea I noticed. But it goes from school, work and back home mainly haha.I do have a little sway sometimes at interstate speeds which is mainly why I posted this

 

Hopefully others will chime in here, but with those angles, I would think those CV drive shafts will wear out faster.

 

What on earth that thing called with Pro Comp stamped? Is that how the angled will be with that? Looks like garbage.

 

That’s a cross member. Not sure what your trying to say.

 

Thanks will look into that

 

Now why do we have to be nasty with people's stuff - if you can't offer a constructive comment just say nothing at all..

 

Sorry, couldn't control my mouth (in this case hands) seeing something really bad took it personal thinking what if a shop did that to my 4Runner been scared that would destroy mine.

Admins please delete my response if possible.

Again apologies to OP.

 

Assuming this is a 4 or 6 inch lift?

 

6 inch pro comp lift kit

 

I would think a drop bracket lift would have come with a differential drop?

@ethxn. is this an adjustable lift? If so, do you have the height maxed out?

What issues are you experiencing? Just a rough ride? Or, are there other issues?

I just saw the comment about sway. Does this kit lower the mounting points for the sway bars?

 

Yea no diff drop with the lift kit unfortunately, and the lift kit isn’t adjustable. I have loaded 6 inch shocks.

Another issue I’m having is a vibrating sound coming from the front end. Sort of sounds like it’s coming from around the front left wheel. Might be somewhere else in that vicinity. I can feel the vibration in the peddle and/or steering wheel and hear usually when I go 50mph+. But it’s not a constant vibration. You can feel and hear theres intervals between the vibration and it fluctuates with the speed of the vehicle. I have 1.50” wheel spacers to mention but I don’t think it’s a wheel spacer. Without them the tire would slightly rub on the spindle.

The kit did come with lower mounting points for the sway bar you can see in one of my pictures.

 

I bet the reason for your poor ride quality is the springs and shocks... I bet the shocks are dampened to be stiff to help reduce body roll and Im going to say the springs are a much higher rate than stock. Both of these together is a recipe for loosening your fillings.

But hey, you wanted to go big... Mission accomplished! But your rise in height compromised your ride quality. Unless you want to drop tons of cash building a full-on desert runner with long travel marshmallow suspension, you are either stuck with it, or need to do some research and find better components...

 

The vibration you are describing sounds like a needle bearing. Try seeing if you notice it around 30 mph. If so, while going in a straight line, engage four-wheel drive and see if the noise stops. It is a known issue, however due to your lift they may or may not warranty it.

 

i don’t hear it at 30. It might be there slightly but it would be hard to hear over the tires It gets a little louder as you reach higher mph.

 

It’s definitely stiffer than stock but it doesn’t necessarily ride bad. I just have to make small steering corrections at speeds from 70+

I was actually looking at a total chaos upper and lower control arm kit. Is that something that would drastically improve ride quality?
And your saying upgrading my shocks and springs would improve the swaying at high speeds?

Does my sway bar look right?

 

What lift kit did you buy? By the looks of it, it’s a drop bracket kit. Good advice on those will be hard to come by. Most lifted folks on this forum tend run between 1 to 3 inches of lift in order to reduce all of the problems that come up with higher lifts.

Once you go beyond 3 inches of height, you will need to worry about problems with CV angles, driveline angles on diffs and transfer case, down travel limitations, correctly sized bump stops, panhard angle/length to recenter rear axle laterally, drag bar length to recenter rear axle front to back, extended brake lines. Some of these problems have off the shelf solutions, but others might require some engineering, or have no good solutions (like pinion angles).

It looks like your lift kit included sway bar relocation spacers, but something looks off about the angles. Probably because they arent lowered enough.

Hopefully your bracket lift kit is removable, in case it’s too expensive to make it right. But to tell you the truth, 6 inches of lift is asking a lot from an independent suspension, even if you throw more money at it. Even for a solid axle, you would still have to throw a lot of money at it.

Even once you deal everything, you still have a a big bracket hanging below the frame that is putting all sorts of new forces on the frame.

 

That’s a drop bracket lift. The drop bracket is the diff drop to get the higher ride height from the kit. The OEM crossmember is cut out so it’s basically permanent. Looks like you have a spacer on top of the drop bracket lift which is causing your bad angles. You had this installed or you did the install? You can get custom Kings made for this type of lift but they aren’t cheap.

Generally drop bracket lifts are no good because you put more leverage on the mounts plus hacking away at the frame for the install.

 

I can imagine your pain and fusturation. First off, you need a diff drop and extended sway bar links. Hope your UCA is able to able to give enough adjustments. I would also look into your drivelines, with that much lift, I have no doubt there are more angle and stress on it. That can also cause vibrations. With that much of a lift, literally almost all the suspension components need to be upgraded to level out all the other geometry. GL.

 

You keep saying "ride quality." Be more specific. Is it a stiff ride? Does the car not steer or track straight? Does is wonder at speed (you say you have to make small corrections at 70+)? Do you feel like its going to roll over in a corner?

Replacing UCAs and LCAs "may" help with some things but I dont see them helping "ride quality." it seems like this one suspension set-up is costing you more money and more of a headache than it may be worth... But thats just me.

 

All the nuances that come with a subframe drop bracket like that aside, I think step one for me would be to remove what looks like the strut spacer on top of the coil. That should drop you what looks like 2" (1" spacer = 2" lift) and should help with CV axle angle. There will be other things to look into making sure are correct that have been mentioned below.

Everyone saying diff drop though, these brackets

Yeah everyone who keeps saying diff drop needs to understand this. They're not super common in the Toyota world, but in the IFS pick-up world (or Hawaii) they're used...

 

Was just about to say this. That crossmember IS the diff drop.

I honestly don't think bracket lifts are as terrible as people make them out to be, it just depends on your use case and performance goals. They're not the best for center ground clearance, however I do like that they make an effort to keep factory suspension geometry. When I first got into off-roading and reading four-wheeler magazines, IFS full size trucks were starting to become the norm. All the best kits for them at the time were the drop bracket kits, to lift any other way was kind of frowned upon.

I would agree that the spacers definitely need to come out, that could be the main source of the issues right there. And 6 in is a lot of lift on one of these, I wouldn't be surprised if it handled weird.

Personally, I would love to see a 4-in drop bracket kit that only dropped the diff like 2 in. So you'd still gain 2 in of ground clearance, and have the same CV angles as if you just did a 2-in lift the regular way.

 

I buddy went 6 inch on his Tacoma and seriously wheeled it. The drop bracket bent back damaging the mounts. He had to get it fixed and reinforced. The cut OEM crossmember was thrown out so he couldn't reverse the install. I've seen one guy weld up the piece he saved to ditch the system but he did the install himself in the first place. They're only good for trucks that don't move but even still, too much lift doesn't look good.

 

Good catch on the front coilover spacer!! Although the OP hasnt mentioned the kit he bought, I wonder if those spacers were added on top of what the kit accounted for. It might explain why the swaybar looks so contorted, despite a pretty big swaybar mount relocation spacer.

That’s what I would be afraid of. I doubt truck frames are simple mild steel, but I bet those brackets are. They new frame geometry results in those brackets being asked to hold more forces, with weaker materials.

They might have started with bracket kits in the old days, but I bet as people learned more, and as trucks got more and more expensive, the risk to the vehicle wasn't worth it. Performance notwithstanding.

Now that you mention that the bracket also serves a a diff drop, I remember a guy that posted about a bunch of noises his new Limited was making. He had a bracket lift, and all indicactions suggested the front driveshaft-to-transfer case angle was too severe and causing the noise (and the rear diff pinion angle as well).

I guess a bracket lift is fine for somebody who is looking to personalize a vehicle, does it accepting that it’s being “un-engineered” accepts the noises, reliability problems, and reduced usefulness that will come. Customizing is fine, even if it’s not to my taste.

Heck, how many “custom” Harley’s are out there, which are basically useless as transportation? And how much money is spent customizing them? I’d never ride one of those uncomfortable death traps, but it doesnt stop people from building them, or selling them…. And I’ll admit, some are very cool, even approaching art.

It just sucks if somebody does it expecting it will make the vehicle perform better.

 

OP

Second this, what exact issues are OP experiencing?

The only obvious issue I see from the pictures is that the camber/caster adjusters look wack. Something I learned recently is that Toyota has a spec for what notch those should be at front and back for stock height, with nothing bent they should be at the same notch on each side. If OP is experiencing drivability concerns definitely recommend having the alignment checked.

 

It “wonders” like you said at high speeds. I will have to make steering wheel corrections to keep in a straight line. Like I need two hands on the wheel to pass someone at 75 lol. It bounces pretty good too on these atrociously beat up roads and highways down here. I will be upgrading my shocks from these rough country shocks pretty soon.

Steering wiggles left and right a little bit too when I take my hands off the steering wheel. Isn’t very strong it won’t do it with my hand on the steering wheel.

 

Check tire pressures. Too much will make it want to wander.

 

Sounds like you may need to adjust your alignment, mainly toe and caster. More caster will help a lot with straight line stability. Try to get about 4 degrees out of it.

The bouncing you speak of... Is it a rough bounce like its bottoming out or like a boat in the water?

 

Another good catch. Although it’s tough to tell if the bracket might incorporate some level of alignment correction with the new LCA mounts.

General question, Regarding bracket lifts requiring cutting out crossmembers…is that always the case? It seems this one might be bolt on since I still see both front and rear crossmembers.

There are a couple of tab mounts at the rear of the bracket. I wonder if those are there to mount additional bracing to strengthen front/rear flexing?