Hilux 4x4 Forum

Hi

I need some advise and please be aware that these ideas are restricted by a tight budget -

In a weeks time the truck is going in for a 40mm body lift - nothing fancy here just to improve entry/departure angles, I am staying with my 31's.

I am also thinking of turning up the torsion bars, in the name of a suspension lift. Will this work and how does it affect normal driving? Will longer shox also help maybe? If so which ones?

At the rear I'm keeping the standard leafs and going the longer shackles route, hopefully Mikem will have. What length should I consider? Bear in mind that an overall increase of 30mm on the suspension for now will be fine for me. Do I stay with standard shox here or put something else longer? If so what?

Will appreciate your thoughts/suggestions.

I heard there's a place that closed down lately, during the Bosvark event, and shox are going for next to nothing. is this true?

A simpler solution would be to fit 32" tyres and be done with it. All drivetrain angles stay in OE specs.

Turning up your torsion bars decreases ride comfort on-road and wheel travel off-road (less downward travel because of bump stops). I went the torsion bar route and ended up jumping over most obstacles i.s.o. driving over them.

I doubt you will outflex the rear shocks with the standard leafs, you can try removing a load leaf or two, makes quite a difference.

Thanx Jano, are 32's a common and readily available size? Are you also implying that there'll be no diff ratio change with 32's?

Not as common as 31's for sure, but also not expensive. R1930 per tyre fitted for Maxxis Bighorn M/T (tyretraders.co.za)
No ratio change is necessary.

32's + 1" lift on the torsion bars and you will have a very capable rig.

cool thanx, will advise later which way the cookie crumbles.

Any more opinions/suggestions on this guys?

32" can be a female dog to get your hands on - Speak to Okkie van Wyk(ovw on forum) and he has 32's but told me 31's are the better option.

You can have the rear leaves re-tempered, but it MAY loose its spring some time in the future. Shackles are a nice, cheap option, but don't over do it - don't know what is max but rather play safe.

Front is a bit more tricky - got mine's torsions set but not very high and the ride is quite harsh, so much that during the last month of the mrs pregancy should did not really want to get in the Hilux! BUT it most likely is not the torsions that's the problem, might be the Camil shocks.

In any case, speak to Darryl at Mikem Suspentions, he is way better qualified on this subject than most of us.

If you want quality at a very reasonable price, buy MIKEM leaf springs! Well made (with a long history in the suspension business!) and quality to match! Ride quality (even without load) is good. I promise you I did not regret fitting them to my IFS! If you search, you will find many more satisfied MIKEM customers on THIS site!

Thabogrobler wrote:32" can be a female dog to get your hands on - Speak to Okkie van Wyk(ovw on forum) and he has 32's but told me 31's are the better option.

Agreed, and if you plan to leave the Republic, you will have to have them flown in if you need a spare.

Thabo, Theunis and Thys thank you for your input - to be honest I'm not crazy either about 32's. I'll speak to Darryl and should probably start saving already, eish!

I'm another satisfied Mikem Customer

Ok guys

Decided that I'll go the ball joint spacer and longer shackles route, for now, so the question is: if the spacers are raising the front suspension by about 38mm, will the standard shock still be usable? I'm guessing the wheel travel is now longer?

Regards.

What do you want to space in the front? I think your problem is the back Tumelo. Start with the shackles in the back 1st, your back is already lower than the front, remember if you make the shackles 40mm longer you only get 20mm lift.

Louis the bakkie stands level, I have checked physically,
I'm spacing the ball joints at the front end.

Tumelo,

I installed miekm rear springs about 3 weeks ago ,man what adifference I have old man emu shocks all road and std torsion bars that are just turned up slightly. I measured the front droop last weekend and its within the spec that darryl from mikem recommends. my truck aslo now runs level or slightly down hill when empty. ball joint spacers will probably require a longer shock as the distance betwween top and bottom mountings will increase

Thanx Rob

Thumelo,

I had the full Mikem suspension with Bilstein shocks on my KZTE and was VERY impressed.

Apart from 'lifting' the vehicle about 60mm, the ride comfort and off-road performance was magnificent. Travelling mainly on gravel roads coming back from Atlantis last year was especially nice due and gave me much peace of mind.

Having fitted a similar Mikem/Bilstein to my new Hilux and comparing it to my previous Vigo (fitted with OME), I can only say that apart from it being more cost effective, it performs much better than the OME as well (in my opinion of course).

Hope I now totally confused you....

Hey Tjokkie, good to hear from you, you've been very quiet. You're not gonna confuse me, , when fianace allows I will fit Mikem,

Hi Tumelo, Mikem's extended shackle is 50mm longer than the normal and should give you about 25mm lift.
see
http://www.4x4direct.co.za/shop/

Remember that Darrell will give you 15% discount if you just tell him you are a club member and give him your forum username.

Cool Pieter and thanx

My rear springs cost R5400 and darryl didnt charge for fitment ,he also quoted me R2000 for both torsion bars including fitment, OME torsion bars are alrady about R4000 excluding fitment

I received the spacers. Got quite a shock, had to pay 30% import duties and $45 courier fee.

So the final price is R1,200 (which includes a whopping R100 profit for myself)

There are only 3 sets available

See
http://www.4x4direct.co.za/shop/index.p ... cts_id=234

Got the spacers last week already and installed on one side for now, will update soon but so far very impressed to say the least.

Father Christmas must just bring those Coopers and shox

Donkey wrote:Got the spacers last week already and installed on one side for now, will update soon but so far very impressed to say the least.

Father Christmas must just bring those Coopers and shox

Cool Mine is also in and very impressed.I have a bit more travel now.I still need to get the alignment properly done.The TWT shop struggeld a bit

Nice Donkey, you must tell father Christmas you also need anti-swaybar Disconnects and a front difflock, then your lorrie is unstopable

pietpetoors wrote:Nice Donkey, you must tell father Christmas you also need anti-swaybar Disconnects and a front difflock, then your lorrie is unstopable

You are EVIL :evil: How am i going to explain this to SWAMBO

You see now Pieter? Dis nou die ding met jou, hoe gaan ek begin spaar my maat? Hmmm?

pietpetoors wrote:Nice Donkey, you must tell father Christmas you also need anti-swaybar Disconnects and a front difflock, then your lorrie is unstopable

You'll have to school me on the anti-swaybar disconnects Pieter, this is Greek to me,

Donkey wrote:

pietpetoors wrote:Nice Donkey, you must tell father Christmas you also need anti-swaybar Disconnects and a front difflock, then your lorrie is unstopable

You'll have to school me on the anti-swaybar disconnects Pieter, this is Greek to me,

Me too

The swaybar helps to stabalize the vehicle when driving on the road, prevents it from swaying.
But off-road the swaybar limits the downward travel of the control arms.

I do not have a nice picture of the effect, but I see in this month's SA4x4 they explain it very nicely with pictures of a JEEP

The info about these is at
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks ... connectsV3

A few images.

Thanx Johan for the pics, but what do these help with?

This is what I came up with.Hope it makes sense

You'll find all the answers here........

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/SwayBar.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

cool will read soon as time allows

Last night I got the other side done and please see pics below.

Front driver side - 52.5 cm (before)
Front driver side - 58.5 cm (after) - 6 cm gain

Front passenger side - 54.5 cm (before)
Front passenger side - 60 cm (after) - 5.5 cm gain

Measurements taken from below the wheel arch to the centre of the free-wheel locking hub

Next up of course will be alignment and then the longer shackles at the rear,

Will keep you guys updated on the progress.

pietpetoors wrote:The swaybar helps to stabalize the vehicle when driving on the road, prevents it from swaying.
But off-road the swaybar limits the downward travel of the control arms.

I do not have a nice picture of the effect, but I see in this month's SA4x4 they explain it very nicely with pictures of a JEEP

The info about these is at
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks ... connectsV3

I read up and it makes sense, how many do you have in stock? It'll have to wait till month end though Pieter.

nice one. What type of shocks is that?

I know that many "experts" will disagree with me, but I recon it is safe to remove the sway bar connects altogether. Before I did the solid axle conversion on my 2.7, I fitted a full Iron Man suspension (torsion bars, leaf springs,shocks and shackles) as well as 32" Coopers. But still the articulation wasn't to my liking. I did a test and removed both sway bar connects. Maybe the 32" tyres and new shocks had something to do with it but I didn't notice any swaying or drifting even at high speed. I even did my own version of the so called "moose test" as well as high speed dirt road testing and the bakkie never felt unsafe. But is it worth the effort? I would say no. I did Babilonstoring trail with the connects removed and in my opinion the gain in articulation was minimal. I still had to use diff lock on one obstacle where the SFA's went without.

george wrote:nice one. What type of shocks is that?

Let's not go there George came with the bakkie and they must go also.

Nice Tumelo
I have two sets of those disconnects in stock but I doubt that they will go very fast.

Tumelo I would first do the rear shackles if I were you. You need to adjust the hight of the vehicle before you can do the alignment. If you do the alignment now you will have to do it again after you changed the rear shackles. Change the shackles, the adjust the front torsion bars so the nose is slightly lower than the rear (about 10mm) and then go for alignment.

Do me a favor and measure the height from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch. Always use the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch, it is more accurate than guessing where the center of the hub is.

Martin, yes, there are different opinions about that. Some guys told me you wont feel the difference and others say that the vehicle may have some body roll without the sway bars. Maybe I must test it myself and see because I have not done so yet. I don't want to tell somebody to remove his sway bar and then he makes an accident.

What shocks did you have on yours ?
At the moment my current shocks in front is just long enough for the downward travel with the spacers fitted. If I remove the sway bar the shocks will prevent the control arms from moving down further so there is no use for me to fit the disconnects if I do not fit longer shocks.

Pieter I had Iron Man Foam Cell shocks. I never checked the travel, maybe that was the limiting factor with the articulation.

pietpetoors wrote:Nice Tumelo
I have two sets of those disconnects in stock but I doubt that they will go very fast.

Tumelo I would first do the rear shackles if I were you. You need to adjust the hight of the vehicle before you can do the alignment. If you do the alignment now you will have to do it again after you changed the rear shackles. Change the shackles, the adjust the front torsion bars so the nose is slightly lower than the rear (about 10mm) and then go for alignment.

Do me a favor and measure the height from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch. Always use the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch, it is more accurate than guessing where the center of the hub is.

Cool will do

must say i had a look at the sway bar connects and personally i dont think it is going to improve to much if you disconnect.You still have that bump stop on the top that will stop the articulation.but it will be good if you can test it Piet

I will jack up my trokkie later today and give feedback

For Pieter:

Previous:

Front driver side - 52.5 cm (before)
Front driver side - 58.5 cm (after) - 6 cm gain

Front passenger side - 54.5 cm (before)
Front passenger side - 60 cm (after) - 5.5 cm gain

Measurements taken below wheel arch to bottom of rim (265/75x15 tyre @ 2.5 bar):

Driver side: 76 cm
Passenger side: 76.5, both are after ball joints - hope this helps

Just look at the shocks, it looks if it are at max lenght.

I did not forgot to measure, I just did not have time this week.
I have to replace the front brake pads next week and then will sommer do all the measurements.

:wink2:

george wrote:must say i had a look at the sway bar connects and personally i dont think it is going to improve to much if you disconnect.You still have that bump stop on the top that will stop the articulation.but it will be good if you can test it Piet

I think there is not much to gain if you do the ball joint spacers and the sway bar disconnects on the IFS, it will make it higher but doesn't help articulation, for that we need to drop the front diff and longer shoks, without this we are going to experience CV axle binding as explained on http://www.4crawler.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By adding shims to the bump stops you are effectively reducing your downward articulation, BUT IS NECESSARY IF YOU DO NOT LOWER YOUR FRONT DIFF!

Im doing mine tonight and will take some pictures

I ve put some ball joint spacers 4 cm and dropped my torsion bars makes a huge difference on my down wards is there any thing spesific i should look at


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-29.619406,31.105969" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mylux

donkey what does your van mesure at the back? mine mesured 390mm before the extended shackles and 410mm after that is from the top of the rim to the wheel arch

Will measure and advise you but remember the rear is still standard?

Donkey wrote:Will measure and advise you but remember the rear is still standard?

jip thats what we would like to know, want to see how your kz compares to mine before and after.

Update please

Eish been busy and so forgot, apologies. I can post on Sat morning.