Build The DirtStyle Runna (1st gen 4Runner on tons)

Oh dang.........now that you said it I see the difference in the coil overs.

I can relate as the current 4runner buggy I'm going through is FULL of stuff like your coilovers. :barf: Sometimes you just got to let it eat and have fun on the trail.....but that's hard to do on the ole interweb. LOL
 
Yeah it’s tough for sure, my eye catches **** like that so quickly. First I’m just gonna get this engine cage out of the way. Then I’ll see how much time I still have left after that. I still have to pull diff covers and check the gears no matter what and I’ve got a slow leaking brake line I want to fix too. I think after Top Gun in November I’m going to take a hard look at boat siding the truck, I just need to figure out how much out of the doors I can chop and still have glass windows. I think that will be super useful in Johnson Valley when we’re out there for KOH, there’s tons of trails with rocker dragging boulders.
 
Got curious and decided to see exactly what kind of travel I really have. Lolz.
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5” of shock shaft still showing, bump almost maxed out and driver upper link baaaarely clearing the sump of the oil pan. If I could move that driver upper link over like 2 inches I could probably get another 2” up but then I run into frame/truss issues. Moral of the story here I think is 16” shocks are way too much and I’ll be way better off with 14s in the front.
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The other nice thing is that my 14” Kings are 2.5s not wimpy 2.0s like these Foxes so that should be an improvement too.
 
tribal4krawler said:
econdly, I really need an engine cage. As you can see in the last picture literally all that holds the front clip together is two pieces of angle iron welded to the front bulkhead/whatever you call that. What im thinking is basically make a square around the radiator, go straight back to the shock towers, and then somehow attach to the firewall with a plate (eventually I want to have it all tie together to interior cage but that’s gonna be a much bigger project). I’ve got both 1 5/8 and 1 3/4 wall DOM, what do y’all think I should use?
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are the plates cracking at the firewall or any of the material where it attaches to the core support?
 
mobil1syn said:
are the plates cracking at the firewall or any of the material where it attaches to the core support?
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You’re talking about the current angle iron? No. The driver side angle iron is bent from the previous owner but other than that it seems fine. Just wouldn’t hold up to a boulder hit I don’t think. Good to know on the shocks, I really only have ever run Kings anyway. They must be FOAs or swayaways then?
 
any marking on the bumps?

also i bet you use more of the shock at articulation, those bumps are mounted WAY inboard. odd theres the truss extension for a bump outside the frame. you always raise the motor an inch and keep the suspension the way it is.

remake the front bumper and run a hoop under/along the fender to the slider with a single support tube mid span to the coil over mount. without the cage/cab being rigid and one you run the risk of destroying the body and lots of noises.

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You should be able to spread those top links a few inches without much issue unless the links are really short.

Any way to get those bump stops outside the frame?
 
thanks for the pic inspiration mobil1syn that was one of my ideas as well but I’m concerned that my bending skills are probably pretty out of date to try and be that accurate but it sure would be super ideal. That way I also could just leave the janky angle iron to mount the fenders to and run wires and stuff. Good point on the bumps being so far inboarded, I’ll try articulating the axle when I get home and see what it does. I could cut the limit strap mounts off and mount the bumps outboard but I’d really just rather wait to do that until I’m ready to front half the truck and just build the bumps into the tube. I did realize there’s a full set of 16” fox 2.5s at the race shop off my codrivers old buggy. I might see if I could grab a set and see if thatd be a better “plug and play” solution. I pulled the drivetrain out of my JK 4500 race at and took it up to the shop (traded it for the sticky 40s). It was slightly sketch.
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Looked while I was at the race shop, I still have a ton of 2” .120 and looks like 2 joints of 1.75 so should be GTG. I just wish I had some .095 wall. Everything’s .120 or .250 for race car ****.
 
Check the angles on those links. My uppers in the buggy are further apart than that. TBH we moved them outward to get room around my 3rz at full stuff. Although my lowers are triangulated as well.
 
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You’re right mobil1syn because these bumps are so inboarded the suspension literally pivots around the bump at full bump. Insane. It does somehow work, but goes against everything I’m used to. I’d have to use a fork lift but I wouldn’t be surprised if I could come close to maxing out the shock. I know it can because there’s marks on the oil pan where the link has kissed the top of the pan but I’m leaning towards not changing a damn thing. Other than maybe better shocks. In the long run I think a front half and a more normal double triangulated 4 link will be less drama but I’ll be damned if this thing doesn’t actually work the way whoever designed it.
 
Whoa, I never realized they are actually inside the frame rail. Mine are inboard the shock some but damn that's a lot! It does work as a fulcrum with them inboarded.

I'd bet those were a after thought when they realized the uppers were gonna make sweet love to that oil pan.
 
tribal4krawler said:
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You’re right mobil1syn because these bumps are so inboarded the suspension literally pivots around the bump at full bump. Insane. It does somehow work, but goes against everything I’m used to. I’d have to use a fork lift but I wouldn’t be surprised if I could come close to maxing out the shock. I know it can because there’s marks on the oil pan where the link has kissed the top of the pan but I’m leaning towards not changing a damn thing. Other than maybe better shocks. In the long run I think a front half and a more normal double triangulated 4 link will be less drama but I’ll be damned if this thing doesn’t actually work the way whoever designed it.
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94toytruck said:
Whoa, I never realized they are actually inside the frame rail. Mine are inboard the shock some but damn that's a lot! It does work as a fulcrum with them inboarded.

I'd bet those were a after thought when they realized the uppers were gonna make sweet love to that oil pan.
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It looks like they were actually outboard of the frame at one point where that bracket has been cut off and has welds still remaining. It would have bumped on the bits welded onto the truss like mobil1syn mentioned.
 
Squeaky Clean said:
It looks like they were actually outboard of the frame at one point where that bracket has been cut off and has welds still remaining. It would have bumped on the bits welded onto the truss like mobil1syn mentioned.
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Actually the cut off bracket is where the track bar mount used to be when it was 3 linked. There’s a C notch on the passenger side that lines up and also remnants of a track bar mount on the axle. I also wonder if maybe the bumps were added when it still had Toyota axles under it, I feel like the shorter width would have made more sense and also the coilovers probably would have been straighter instead of /\
 
tribal4krawler said:
Actually the cut off bracket is where the track bar mount used to be when it was 3 linked. There’s a C notch on the passenger side that lines up and also remnants of a track bar mount on the axle. I also wonder if maybe the bumps were added when it still had Toyota axles under it, I feel like the shorter width would have made more sense and also the coilovers probably would have been straighter instead of /\
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Now that you mention a trackbar, it does look more like parallel flat plate tabs and not a bump can. That was basically the same location that I added bump stops on a 2nd Gen 4Runner with a front axle swap and leaf springs. Just outboard of the frame with bump pads on top of the leaf spring u-bolts.

When a vehicle has had multiple versions of modifications it can get convoluted. I wonder if they had packaging issues with the coil over and frame clearance thus track bar delete and inboarded bumps. The axle pads could have been leftover from a previous install on a different vehicle?
 
Yeah very likely. One of my friends commented that it looked like the original build was well thought out and executed and its been a series of janky “upgrades” and fixes by subsequent owners which I think is very accurate.
 
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Threw my 14s on. I think the spring rate is way too high. They’re 14” 400/450s. I can’t raise the preload nut any higher on the shock as it hits the intake on the 22re on the passenger side lol. Not to mention it also has like 2” of gap between the spring and the preload nut at full droop (I know, should have a 16” lower spring). I have 150 psi in the shocks, just seems way too stiff and a lot taller than before but I might try and drive it around the yard a bit and see if it settles down any. I’m tempted to try some 200/250s that I found locally, he had 14” 200/250s as well as some 12”/200s. I don’t know if that’s what I should do or something else. I don’t have any way to weigh the truck. In my mind the 200/250s could work as they’d “squish” more.
 
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Are those 2.5" or 2.0 COs? I have a ton of 2.0 springs if you wanna give em a try. They are just collecting dust on my shelf. They are yours if you want em
 
Yea that’s what I thought. The guy with the coils wants 300 bucks which seems kinda high, but they’re 250/200. Should I go for em. I’ll end up with 4x extra 12” 200s
 
Sooo… what if I used a turbo S upper tender spring. I’d just crank the preload nut all the way down until it made contact at full droop. And just used one 14” 400lb spring. Would it work the same as a dual rate 200-250? It’s not like I’m gonna be mobbing through the desert.. thoughts 😂😂😂 just staying on the cheap ass ****box theme of things I have laying around my garage. I’ll still probably grab those 200/250s
 
A single 400lb spring is 400lb, a tender spring is typically just like 25lbs max and just to keep coils from rattling mostly.

200/250 is 111lbs till it hits the dual rate stop then it jumps to 250.
 
94toytruck said:
A single 400lb spring is 400lb, a tender spring is typically just like 25lbs max and just to keep coils from rattling mostly.

200/250 is 111lbs till it hits the dual rate stop then it jumps to 250.
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Yeah I just thought about that a little longer. Wouldn’t work. I was thinking for some reason the rates multiplied but I do remember now they’re divided. I’ll go get them 200/250s tomorrow. 😂
 
tribal4krawler said:
Sooo… what if I used a turbo S upper tender spring. I’d just crank the preload nut all the way down until it made contact at full droop. And just used one 14” 400lb spring. Would it work the same as a dual rate 200-250? It’s not like I’m gonna be mobbing through the desert.. thoughts 😂😂😂 just staying on the cheap ass ****box theme of things I have laying around my garage. I’ll still probably grab those 200/250s
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I bet UTV springs would be about perfect for you. Look on FBMP for take off springs from stock machines. The SxS people sell stock parts cheap and you could probably get a pile of them for a few hundred bucks. Just make sure the SxS they come off has 2.5" shocks and you should be GTG.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
I bet UTV springs would be about perfect for you. Look on FBMP for take off springs from stock machines. The SxS people sell stock parts cheap and you could probably get a pile of them for a few hundred bucks. Just make sure the SxS they come off has 2.5" shocks and you should be GTG.
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I do have some UTV springs off my Polaris cars but I don’t know what the spring rate is. They’ve never divulged what the stock rates are. What really sucks is I’m pretty sure I’ve got some 3” king 14” 250 springs somewhere in my garage from my OG Yamaha but I can’t find em. I’m sure they’re buried under some **** 😂😂
 
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