ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Suzuki 4x4 Forum => Topic started by: Jeremiah on March 02, 2009, 10:12:59 AM
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I like desert running, and rock crawling. I have 35" tires & yota solid axles ready to go. I've driven the 35" on a 4-door SAS, and it was amazingly capable rock crawling in the Rubicon. I've driven my 4-door on 29" tires w/OME in the sand, and it was amazingly capable through the whoops, and catching air. I'll be installing a Samurai doubler, so I'll be perfectly geared for 35/37" tires down the road.
So, do I follow the crowd, and SAS w/ coils on my new 2-door project, or should I be a rebel and find a way to make IFS work? I was considering Toyota IFS, as it will get me away from the lack of strut options, it will match Toyota bolt-pattern, more after-market support for Toyota IFS, have less camber-change than McPherson struts, and I won't have to engineer an IFS setup (which is probably beyond my abilities).
If I go SAS, can I just sleeve & lengthen the stock links, extend some break lines, put in a high-steer, pop in some QA1 coils & some shocks ??? Other than trail slayer (I don't have that kind of $$$), why is everyone going to leaf springs on their SAS projects?
If you wanted to go fast in the sand, crawl in the rocks, had 35" tires (with the option of doing 37" later), what suspension would you do and why?
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In my opinion IFS is a weak point with that large of a tire, probably one of the main reasons why you don't see that every day. There would also be quite a bit more time and money put into the install, beefing it up, and maintenance.
I think the main reason you see everyone going with leafs when they SAS there rigs, is the simplicity of it all. There is a lot less geometry required to set everything up, you don't need worry about gas pressures and spring rates as much....and its a hell of a lot cheaper.
It may not be the best riding set up around, but if set up right it will flex out and work awesome.
For the intended used of high speed in the sand and ability to crawl, i would go a 200-250lb+ coil (200 being on the soft side), im not too sure about the coil height, i see a lot of people running 12" on 33's.
A 3 link set up would be a good way to go, it's simple and pretty cost effective.
I'm not sure how much money have and/or plan on putting into this, but this set up seems like it would be on the cheaper side.
Just some ideas, hope it helps out some
Amilla
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35s on ifs is fine if you use 26 spline front spline and lower gears in the tcase. Trim the wells a bit and you have a nice ride that can handle 35s without much trouble, at a fraction of the price of sas. I have no problem and wheel pretty hard.
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If I'm re-using a lot of parts from the stock link setup, and just stretching (cut & sleeve?) them out - maybe I can make a cheap coil setup? Even if I ditch the Y upper link, and make a 3-link rear w/ panhard, I can maybe re-use (by lengthening) the lower control links. QA1 coils are $40 each.
For the CV, I'm willing to try and make Toyota, or Porsche 930 CV's (the long travel ones sand buggies tend to use) work. Which makes sense anyway to get the Toyota bolt pattern up front. I don't see how this would be any more expensive than Longfields. Maybe not as strong, but hopefully that will be okay being driven by a light rig and 1.6L engine? I've even considered going to the whole Toyota front clip, so I can get dual A-arms (less camber change, and opens up WAY more options for springs & shock combinations).
I'm no expert here - just kicking around ideas. I hear this site is maybe a little more IFS friendly, so hopefully we can get some good tech & internet engineering going...
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go find a samurai axle and go to town or find a toyota axle and put some 1.5 spacers on the rear axle.
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go find a samurai axle and go to town or find a toyota axle and put some 1.5 spacers on the rear axle.
For what purpose?
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The Toyota front axle is wider then the rear axle on the Tracker. If you throw spacers on the rear it evens them out. Still use a different bolt pattern though.
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Oh, I get it. No need for wheel spacers though... second line in my original post:
I have 35" tires & yota solid axles ready to go.
The 35" tires are already on Toy bolt pattern wheels. I'm trying to decide if I put the solid axle up front... like everyone else... or if I figure out how to keep IFS up front (maybe by using Toy front clip, or adapting knuckle to acceptToy CV wtih toy lockout hubs ??? ). I know Mike Hagen & crew have done a lot of great things with IFS, and I like high-speed wheeling... so... it was something I wanted to kick around with you fellow keyboard engineers and see what we could come up with.
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Go with the IFS is my opinion. I've been wanting to do a long travel IFS on mine for a few years now. My ultimate plan would be to shoehorn in a small block v8, relocate the radiator, custom control arms, coil overs, etc. >:D My only problem is funding :'(
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The biggest I'll go is 2.0L. V8 is way too heavy, and WAY too front end weight biased for type of wheeling I'll be doing... especially being such a short wheel base. I'd loose all my stability in descents & high speed desert running.
I would LOVE to copy Mike Hagen's work, but I think that it would be a little too far over my head. I've got no idea how he did the steering in this thing:
http://www.zukiworld.com/month_050106/feature_hagen-newfrontend.htm (http://www.zukiworld.com/month_050106/feature_hagen-newfrontend.htm)
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More Mike Hagen IFS pron: http://www.izook.com/features/kickin/kickin.htm (http://www.izook.com/features/kickin/kickin.htm)
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Yeah, you're right about the weight issue. I was just dreaming big >:D. A nice V6 or hot rod 4 banger would do the trick and be more practical, the main reason i thought of the V8 was because i had one just laying around.
I forgot about that setup that mike did. That is some really good engineering to get that to work. It's really pretty simple if you look at it. The arm from the steering box goes to the top corner of the cantilever then the tie rods go to the center holes. Then it pivots on the large bolt at the bottom in the center of the cradle.
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So...
(http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i246/Jeremiah_Junkins/Auto/11steermock2.jpg)
Looks simple, but I get the feeling I could easily screw something up by not knowing what I'm doing. Steering's funny... if somethings even a LITTLE off, it can create all kinds of problems. I barely understand steering on a more conventional leaf setup as it is. I'd be afraid I'd get into it, have a messed up system, and have no idea how to fix it. Hitting a brick wall in the middle of a build sucks :'(
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Thats what i gather from looking at the pictures.
Steering systems aren't usually too complex, they are usually just more intimidating than anything. The biggest thing to remember is to keep it simple. And make sure you make everything adjustable so you can compensate for imperfections.
Keep in mind, I've never actually built my own steering system, but i do work on them for a living. So I'm just speaking from theory not from experience ;). lol
One thing i see from that setup that may be an issue is the steering geometry changing as the suspension moves up and down. The best way that i know of to keep that from happening is to have the tie rods and control arms parrallel and close to the same legnth. Although, I may be wrong about it being an issue with this setup, can't really tell from the pictures though.
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mike's system works well. we run 39.5 pit bull tires with our ifs systems & toy axles. i have a new system with 15 + in of travel that thinking of using on my x-90 crawler project. so ifs can be made bomb proof in my opinion. the porsche cv's have interested me for a while now, they look tuff. stan
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Stan, got any pics of your build, or know of any other pics I can look at ???
I'm also curious to know what knuckles MH used... were they Toyota ones? Trying to figure out how he got Toyota CV to work (I presume it's yota), and how he attached that upper A arm. Seems like a yota knuckle would make sense.
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I think he used the stock knuckles. It looks like he made a adapter bracket for the ball joint that bolts in the old strut holes. Also I believe the upper a arm is the Calmini lower a-arm an he fabbed a new lower
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I think he used the stock knuckles. It looks like he made a adapter bracket for the ball joint that bolts in the old strut holes. Also I believe the upper a arm is the Calmini lower a-arm an he fabbed a new lower
I believe you are right.
I've also have thought of finding an old Toyota and removing the front frame and welding it onto the Tracker frame. It would give me a double A frame suspention, it would allow a toy IFS so I can match gearing with a rear toy axil and lastly the bolt patteren would be the same.
Never have gotten past the thinking part though.
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Yep, you're exactly where I'm at in the thought process. I've read about someone who did it on pirate, but... his writeup sucked. I'm guessing it'll add a couple hundred lbs to the front (bummer), but I would think about the same as a SAS. With IFS, the added weight is mostly sprung weight at least :)
MH had to do some kind of adapter to make the Toy CV shaft work too. Toy IFS clip would bypass the need for that as well. Handy since the person who used to make the adapters has gone off the radar.
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I did the toyota front clip it wasn't to hard, and the drive shafts eve bolted right up!!
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/trackersale002.jpg)
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/zukyodaIII001.jpg)
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/zukota009.jpg)
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/ZUKI.jpg)
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I used the stock toyota suspention, and got 6.5" of lift with out "cranking" the torsion bars and I can clear 36x12.5 swampers |removethispart|@ full stuf, and I got 1.25" more wheel travel than stock Ifs......but I hate the torsion bars they are too stiff, I'm saving up for coil overs....
If you need more info on the swap just let me know!!!!
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Ohhhhh.... I didn't know Toyota IFS was a torsion bar setup :'( Well... that kinda kicks my 'brilliant' idea in the nutz. I'd probably have to figure out a coilover setup (more money than I want to spend) too... doesn't look like there's room for separate coils & shocks ???
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there's tons of room for coil overs or air shocks!!!! but keep brain storming...........any things posisible!
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what about using a tacoma front clip? they are coil/strut setup. It is easy to ditch the torsion bar set up with the toyotas. I had a 91 that i lifted 5" and took the torsion bars out, put in some shock hoops and ran air shocks in the front. Stock cvs held up great with my 35's. Went with 38's for a while, broke a few cv's. I am also looking into putting toyota front clip on my zuk.
I already have a sas with toy axles on yj leafs, it's is GREAT. More of a crawler.
I was thinking about buying a front cradle lift for a toyota (like the superlift one) and retro fitting it to my frame, with the toyota 3rd, cv's and spindles. May be an option. I am still doing the research on it.
I was thinking i could use everything with the kit except for the spindle extenders
(http://superlift.com/Resources/_Goliath/Images/Preview/SEIK306.jpg)
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I'm figuring once the toy front clip is in there, then any after market lift should fit with no problems.
Nevadasmith,
If you did it all over again, would you do the whole front clip, or just adapt the front suspension bits to the Kick frame? How hard would it be to move the suspension bits forward to stretch the wheel base (I want to try and maximize approach / departure angle)? Were you able to weld everything right up or did you have to narrow the Toy frame a little?
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Were I cut the toy frame was the same width as the tracker frame were I cut it, I wouldn't even think of trying to just mount the toy suspention bits on the tracker frame way to differnt......
If I were to do it again......I would just buy an FJ70 and call it done..........no probly not I would shorten th toy ota truck frame use the 22r and toyota running gear, and mount the tracker body.........but having said that..........
when I did mine useing stock tracker drive shafts streched my wheel base 3" in the front and 1" in the back........
36x10-15 full stuff stock toy ifs
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/tracker001.jpg)
front strech with 31's ~ 3"s(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/zukota013-1.jpg)
Frame Conecters/stiffener
(http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/silashowell/splice001.jpg)
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If I can clear 36's On stock toy IFS and you did the 4-5" lift pictured that would be like 11-13" of lift and you could clear like 42's, I loaded my diff's with 5.71's.......
I barely could pull 36's to 55 mph, 35's I max out at 65 mph....... I dont know what you have do to pull 42's???
a sami dubler case would help but your asking alot of a 1.6L..........
also Toyota Ifs front/toyota rear only added 150 lbs total weight to the truck I weight the whole truck / before and after on certifed truck scales
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150 LBS? Wow, that's not bad. I was expecting a lot more. You're still lighter than a stock 4-door then ;D I'm trying to stuff 35" tires (maybe 37" down the road), so that's great news. I'll be using the samurai with tracker doubler with 4.88 diff gears, which will over-rev me a few % (to make up for rotational mass) but be reasonably close to stock gearing (so I can cruze on the freeway). I've got the 4-speed auto that will be going in. If that's not enough, I've got a IHI RHB5 turbo in a box ready to go if the 1.6L can't get it done. The hope is 7lbs of boost will get me 30%ish gains (any turbo nerds want to comment on this?). Though, I might sell off my turbo stuff & 1.6L 16V in favor of a 2.0L N/A... haven't decided yet...
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I looked under a tacoma thier frames look wider it would take more messureing..........but 86-90 toy frame is do- able
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86-90 toy frame is do- able
Is that torsion bar, coil & shock, coilover, or coil & strut? Can you tell I don't know poo about Toyotas :-\
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Those years are torsion bar set up. All the older toyotas, that where IFS are torsion bar. The tacoma was when they switched to coils.