Update for Spring 2007:
Body lift has been removed.
Torsion bars have been un-cranked about an inch.
Firewall seam has been hammered back to clear the tires.
3" of lift and the 35's still clear. I like it better lower...
I took a used and beat-up Superlift 4" IFS lift kit from an '88 4runner and rebuilt/modified it for the T100. The only difference was the width of the frame rails and crossmembers, the rest of the suspension is the same.
The Superlift kit had some good and bad things going for it. It was beat up and
slightly bent, but still plenty usable. The thing that was kind of strange to me
was that the front drop brackets dropped 4.5", the rear 5", and the knuckle adapters
4" whereas most other kits just drop everything 4" even. The good thing was that the diff drop brackets were designed to tilt the pinion towards the
t-case for a good driveline angle, which other lift kits don't bother to do.
I needed to modify (widen) the drop brackets anyway and they were a little beat
up, so I just decided to build new ones. While I was at it, I made them all 4" drop. I also
beefed them up quite a bit using all 3/16" and 1/4" steel, fully boxed. The
Superlift brackets were all 3/16" wall and not boxed-in at all.
I also had to build new diff drop brackets to match the rest of my new brackets.
This required a bunch of measurements and calculations and LOTS of time fitting it all up, including going back and notching the crossmembers for diff clearance since I used bigger 2.5"
square tubing.
Also, I added my own home-made copy of the Rockstomper "IFS travel
kit."
The only Superlift parts I even ended up using were the knuckle adapter/spacers.
Here are some pictures of the lift brackets/crossmembers I made compared to the
old Superlift brackets:
And here they are on the truck:
For the rear, I used '88-98 Chevy 3/4-ton rear springs (63" long, 4-leaf pack plus overload) and flipped u-bolts. I built low-profile spring hangers that are 1" closer to the frame than the Jeep hangers I used on the 4runner. For lift, I moved the shackle hangers to under the frame instead of re-using the stock mount which is higher and through the frame, and made longer shackles. This all worked to turn the pinion towards the t-case without shims, which I wanted. I just guess-timated lift and angles, and I didn't really take any measurements, however the driveline angle seems to have to worked out perfectly on the first try without blocks or shims!
I later went back and cleaned up the hangers, cut off the sharp points, and removed the old stock hangers. I also took out the gas tank so that I could go back in and weld up the inner side of the hangers.
For now, I've just re-used the stock length shocks, front and rear. The front is using some fabbed-up spacers on top of shocks, and the rear shocks are using the original top mounts and some temporary shock tabs welded to the top of the axle housing.
This project was a lot of work (much more than I expected) and I'm not sure I'd do it the same way again (especially trying to do it all in two days), but now that I'm done, I'm stoked how it turned out. And so is
my wife, so that's good too. Plus it was a good way to break in my new welder.
Now the 4runner doesn't look so big any more!
