10/31/2023 0 Comments Ilift suspensionThe actual wheel travel remains the same. When you lift your IFS vehicle by preloading the coil more, or installing longer or stiffer coils, you are only changing your ride height. I already touched on this a little bit earlier, but I want to elaborate a bit more. This leads to the second myth that I have seen around: that lifting your vehicle equals better performance. In my personal opinion, it's not the best way to lift a Toyota. All while giving you no additional clearance at the belly of your truck, because all of the brackets have been extended down. Although they will give you additional room for larger tires throughout the full range of travel, they will not give you better performance, and will raise your center of gravity unnecessarily high (lower is better). I'm not going to talk about drop bracket lifts here, because in my opinion, they are not useful for overlanding. All that is usually required for proper clearance would be a mild cab mount chop, moving the pinch weld some, and a bit of plastic trimming, depending on the specific wheel/tire combo you go with. ![]() They give more clearance, more off road comfort and traction, all without needing to do any major cutting in the wheel well, and without an excessive impact to on-road performance and economy. I find that, for the Tacoma and 4Runner, a 33", or 285/70R17 is the best compromise for most people. There is no way around this, whatever else you've read on the internet. I mean hammering, cutting, grinding, and welding to make more space in your wheel wells to clear tires when your suspension is at full bump and your steering is at full lock. No matter what size lift you have, to properly clear bigger tires is going to require modifications. If that's not you, then by all means, a lift and bigger tires will work fine on your way to the mall. We are a performance oriented “off-road” shop, so I like to assume that our customers actually use their vehicles to get off-road. With a suspension lift, you might clear bigger tires at ride height but that is only useful if you rarely leave the pavement. This means that whether you are on stock suspension or a high end suspension setup, when you bottom out or turn your wheels, you will rub in all the same spots with bigger tires, regardless of how much lift you have. Regardless of where you sit within your 8” of travel at ride height, at full extension or full compression, your wheel will still end up in the exact same position as it would have with your stock suspension. Here you can see that for the same amount of wheel travel, a larger tire will not clear the wheel well when the suspension is compressed, despite clearing at ride height. ![]() Now, out of your 8” of total travel, you have 6” of up travel, but only 2” of down travel. That's a great ride height for good suspension performance over bumpy terrain with equal parts up and down travel. Say you install a suspension lift that lifts your vehicle 2 inches. At your stock ride height, you are sitting close to the middle, giving you 4” of up travel, and 4” of down travel. I can explain it this way lets say your vehicle has 8” of IFS travel. Excluding drop bracket lifts, a suspension lift will not give you any additional clearance for tires. The biggest misconception I've seen is that a suspension lift is a requisite to putting bigger tires on a vehicle with Independent Front Suspension. Although we mostly work on Toyota's, these myths apply to all A-arm style IFS vehicles. Having run our shop for a few years now, along with the time I've spent reading on forums online and being a part of the wheeling community, I have realized that there are a few big myths floating around regarding lifting an IFS vehicle Especially when it comes to fitting larger tires. Independent Front Suspension is the most common kind of suspension that we see coming through our shop. We are Toyota specialists, so we see a lot of both Tacomas and 4Runners.
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