[turbocruiser]

Very cool Darren! I'd love to see some more backside shots with the Slee rear bumper on and the storage setup complete! Very very cool.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by turbocruiser

Very cool Darren! I'd love to see some more backside shots with the Slee rear bumper on and the storage setup complete! Very very cool.

back into it this week, will get some more pics up.

Rear bar will leave tomorrow hopefully, as soon as Christo tells me my order is ready to pick up.

[ats4x4dotcom]

I just got uniballs for my lower arms and panhard rods, to keep them looking factory. The offroad guys are using them with minimal wear issues, and here have never seen one fail, so they should allow the flex we want more easily than binding up the rubber bushes.



We machined the hi mis spacers down to fit into the original cruiser brackets in width, and used 19mm bolt size spacers so they go straight on the toyota bolts, and with the locator ring welded onto the cruiser control arm at the diff end, will look factory when you stick your head under there, compared to heim jointed units.

We used 1" for the arms, and 7/8 fit onto the diff end of the panhards using the same method as above, machining down the high mis spacers to get the right width.

Will get some pics when they are installed.

[cruiserdan]

Darren how well do they seal out dirt, sand and such?

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by cruiserdan

Darren how well do they seal out dirt, sand and such?

The offroad guys have been using them over here for front arm and ball joints for offroad racing, and they are self lubricating, teflon sealed, and havent seen one fail as yet, they just require some wd-40 type lube sprayed on occasionally, I am expecting, based on shock uniballs and heims previously to get 70-100000km [45-60 000 mils] out of them reliably.

Some of the vehicles racing off road are ontop the 3rd or 4th season on same units.

[concretejungle]

interesting. THose joints have been kicked around here in discussion a few times and most feel that they will fail quickly. Again, most are probably cyberwheelers at best

[LC80Ducati996]

I know much of what had teflon lined spherical bearings (uniball) in rotory wing aviation is gone. Elastomeric bearings have been found to be lower mainenance and last longer in dust and dirt. These are not just a chunk of poly but spherical plates laminated in elastomeric (rubber/polly) capsule.

The desert racing community knows the most about uniballs. Race-Dezert and Glamis Dunes forums for example have some posts about how often they need to be changed. Most do not recomend on a DD due to the replacement schedule and NVH transmitted into the frame.

I for one would probably put them on only one end wth poly on the other.. Get some flex but isolate some vibes too. Probably the frame end to lower dirt and moisture exposue time. WD really just flushes water and fine dirt out of them.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Like anything, you only get what you pay for, and there are varying qualities of such products, and we have certainly not gone the cheaper ones, so we will see how they go. Based on my research of these specific units over the last 18 months, I think my km expected in the post above should be a very reasonable estimate of service life.

We are putting them at the diff end, and leaving the factory bushes at the chassis end, because of NVH with both the arms, and the panhard rods.

[ats4x4dotcom]

heim jointed 80 a frame we worked on yesterday on the 512 ci 80 chassised truck.

[ats4x4dotcom]

This is the sort of travel the swivel arms and a frame give an 80 with the sway bars disconnected. This truck has 14" Fox smoothies fitted.











This is where we are now doing a more user freindly ride height vehicle, in ROOBY, to get the travel, with bigger tyres, like the big block truck here.

[F0RSAKEN]

One word: wicked.

[Walking Eagle]

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

This is the sort of travel the swivel arms and a frame give an 80 with the sway bars disconnected. This truck has 14" Fox smoothies fitted.

interesting, I get that kind of travel with stock set-up and stock bushings... Truck has 14" travel RSXL's.

[FJBen]

Yeah with 14" shocks and the stock 5-link rear, thats what I was doing on my old rig.

The front is where I'd like to see some gain without a full redesign or loss of street manners. Or at least the ability to match the rear without a full redesign or some sort of compromise...

but I'm not sure thats possible with the setup.

Can't wait to see what happens next

[Lockd97]

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

jet hot coated extractors and 3" system, preparing for the supercharger,

Do you have pics of the exhaust routing?

[FirstToy]

DMC,
great stuff as usual
I noticed the LSPV brake proportion valve is newly mounted on the flatbed. Do you have a system/guide to properly determine the position of it? I am unsure of this on my truck.

keep going, enjoyable reading

[Nay]

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

Like anything, you only get what you pay for, and there are varying qualities of such products, and we have certainly not gone the cheaper ones, so we will see how they go. Based on my research of these specific units over the last 18 months, I think my km expected in the post above should be a very reasonable estimate of service life.

We are putting them at the diff end, and leaving the factory bushes at the chassis end, because of NVH with both the arms, and the panhard rods.

This is the same thing as the MAF 4+ arms. My rear panhard is set up this way (MAF 4+), and I was dubious about it as I've had a lot of experience with heims (no failures, but they can get "squeeky")

The big deal as pointed out in getting what you pay for is the teflon bonding process and bearing to race fitment tolerance. Early spherical joints (heims) in 4x4 applications had a lot of premature failure because the teflon bond itself failed, ruining the entire assembly. When you have very tight bearing/race tolerance, grit cannot get in the joint between the bearing and race and ruin the teflon. This seems to work extremely well in the upper rear panhard mount. Control arms will see a lot more grit as they are more exposed.

These "uniball" pressed bushings appear to have a very good daily driver service life. One thing that can be lost in the discussion is the advantage of adding bushings that allow zero compression movement, as this tightens up the link rigidity on big tires to a degree.

I have actually used a dual sided heim joint panhard on a unibody Jeep, and it caused no NVH issues.

The race crowd will use a setup like this because of strength and rigidity, things that translate in some ways to the rock crawling world but not in others. Our issue is more flex vs. mount stress vs. durability, and the Toyota factory rubber does very well in this regard.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by Walking Eagle

interesting, I get that kind of travel with stock set-up and stock bushings... Truck has 14" travel RSXL's.

Give us an RTI, and we shall see how it compares, but it doesnt look close to grahams at this stage, bearing in mind Grahams is parked there in 2wd, without the locker in to take those pics.

And they are actually 16" shocks.

The 4 link front also travels like the back, and drives well on road, though in those pics the sway bar was still connected.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by FirstToy

DMC,
great stuff as usual
I noticed the LSPV brake proportion valve is newly mounted on the flatbed. Do you have a system/guide to properly determine the position of it? I am unsure of this on my truck.

keep going, enjoyable reading

BEst thing to do is get some fencing wire, and make a template of the shape/position of a std setting, so you know where the standard location is, and then you can play with it from there.

Grahams has a swivel at the diff end from another toyota, to hook it up.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by Lockd97

Do you have pics of the exhaust routing?

will get some for you.

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

will get some for you.

Here we go, hope this helps








We are now going to add a resonator to the rear tail pipe, once the Slee tube bar is mounted.

[Falco80]

Great work with the suspension so far Darren and getting those 37's rolling without a sky-high lift! The part i'm hanging out for now (and i'm sure a heap of guys on here are) is when you blow that 1FZ!!
Nothin like a bit of forced-induction...

[ats4x4dotcom]

Originally Posted by Falco80

Great work with the suspension so far Darren and getting those 37's rolling without a sky-high lift! The part i'm hanging out for now (and i'm sure a heap of guys on here are) is when you blow that 1FZ!!
Nothin like a bit of forced-induction...

We ordered the de compression plate and computer, and dash adjuster/display as well today, so its coming soon

[Tapage]

wou .. this exhaust looks good .. really nice !

[Walking Eagle]

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

Give us an RTI, and we shall see how it compares, but it doesnt look close to grahams at this stage, bearing in mind Grahams is parked there in 2wd, without the locker in to take those pics..

You give us an RTI first. Course, I never realized that 2wd and lockers changed full compression and extension on a shock. That's some funky physics to be sure. Full extension and compression on a 14" travel shock is full extension and compression, doesn't matter if it's on a RTI ramp, a fork lift, or on a trail. It also doesn't matter how close you think it looks, full compression and full extension is 14" reguardless of how you squint your eyes - and it's of course going to look different - being completely different bodies and all.

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

And they are actually 16" shocks..

ha! nice how they changed from 14 to 16 after the advantage is challenged.

[Nay]

Originally Posted by Walking Eagle

You give us an RTI first. Course, I never realized that 2wd and lockers changed full compression and extension on a shock. That's some funky physics to be sure. Full extension and compression on a 14" travel shock is full extension and compression, doesn't matter if it's on a RTI ramp, a fork lift, or on a trail. It also doesn't matter how close you think it looks, full compression and full extension is 14" reguardless of how you squint your eyes - and it's of course going to look different - being completely different bodies and all.

The advantage of the uniball is rigidity and drastic reduction of stress on the mount, not flex vs. a rubber bushing. Durability of either depends on usage.

Extension and compression of the shock is a dick swingers competition. How the suspension works is what matters, and 80's need big tires a lot more than they need 14" of rear travel given the front can't manage half that without modification, and if you free up the front to match you're going to get a slinky.

2wd and locked does affect how you get up an RTI ramp, in 2wd a tire will spin before you lift it. Still not sure we really care whose is bigger

Having said this, the 80's rear arm bushings can take a ton of flex and don't fall apart - it is a great design. I went back and forth on buying Slee arms with factory rubber vs. MAF 4+ with uniball, and I went Slee. Of course, my setup never has more than 5" of shock travel in any direction, so I'm not putting much stress on them, either.

The Rooby project is after 12" of travel, 8" down. I'd probably go uniball, too, given part of the usage is offroad speed oriented, if I was designing for the same outputs. Getting rubber out of the system becomes a greater priority as certain usage biases increase (long travel with frequent hardcore use being one of them in most applications).

[Walking Eagle]

[QUOTE=Nay;3230106]Extension and compression of the shock is a dick swingers competition. How the suspension works is what matters, and 80's need big tires a lot more than they need 14" of rear travel given the front can't manage half that without modification, and if you free up the front to match you're going to get a slinky.
[QUOTE]

Real simple Nay - the statment was made

Originally Posted by ats4x4dotcom

This is the sort of travel the swivel arms and a frame give an 80 with the sway bars disconnected.

And the counter statment is 'you can get that sort of travel with the stock set-up', which is 100% true. Extension and compression of a shock is only a way of measureing the sort of travel (amount of travel) you have, it's not about a swinging competition. If you go off pictures, you can argue angle, or tire size, if you go RTI ramp, you can argue tire composition, sidewall flex, air pressure, how you drive up the ramp, and on and on. If you measure shock extension on one side, and shock compression on the other side, that takes all the pissing contest out of it as that really tells you where the axle is relative to the frame.

Yes, it is only a measure of ultimate stuff and ultimate droop, and does nothing to speak of balance or quality of suspension travel. But that balance and quality isn't what was presented, what was presented was ultimate travel, and that is what was countered.

As far as the 80 not needing 14" of travel in the rear w/o freeing up the front, I can only speak from personal experience in that my 80 handles trails much better with 14" than it did with 10" and I haven't freed up the front.

Actually, the more interesting part of this build is how he frees up the front to make use of the longer travel front shocks, as making use of the longer rear shocks doesn't require any work. And we haven't seen anything on that yet, except the possible use of an X-link. Even in the rear, the more interesting thing in that frame work isn't the amount of travel that can be obtained with it, is the elimination of the panhard bar.

[FirstToy]

thanks for the exhaust route pics darren, a friend also did this and I like it a lot. I am going to go this way as well. i can print your photos as reference for the shop

[FJBen]

The bad thing about going 14" travel in the rear without freeing the front is some unwanted movement.

ESPECIALLY when going down an off-camber spot. Going up it flexes sweet and you have no issues. When you start going on a trail or big obstacle, the front dictates where it goes and the whole body follows it.

this is where a 3 link would really help up front. Get the right springs/shocks/rates and balance and now it works well.

[LC80Ducati996]

I prefer a parallel four link front. This is what the truck with the y rear link has in front.. If you bust one link and there is still 3 left with one on the other side of the axle. On a 3 link if the single upper link pops.. look out.

[LC80Ducati996]

Oh the exhuast is some of the best I have seen...

One thing I would do different for a number of reasons is a side exit just before the rear wheel well.

Super simple to do.. More room for a subtank, custom suspension stuff I want to do later ( torsion bar remote swaybar, cantilever/rocker arm prerunner style suspension) or things like sub tanks.

I can also make a simple quick attatching exhaust snorkel much like that seen on real AMG hummers with fording kits but not as elaborate.