bjowett
Supporting Vendor
What didn’t you like about the IRS?
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- Thread starter
- #22
I think the problem is the amount of lift you’d have might be difficult to replicate up front. The complete independent suspension seems to wheel well in places where a long wheelbase is favored (Moab) but would be difficult in big rock gardens.
Have thought about it, but seems a path to doing both ends. 74Weld is reported to be working on portals for the second gen Tundra, that is really interesting if it comes to be - the clearance with a fully independent suspension would be insane. My son is committing to his 2008, ee think 38’s are a shoe-in given the amount of front clearance you get with a Coastal Offroad body mount trim up front and Total Chaos arms. He just put Kings up front today, I have to deal with the fact that my Elka DC coilovers failed with some basic road miles and they aren’t responding to warranty claim, which makes me remember why I love my 80 so much.
But the second gen Sequoia has stupid potential for an all around adventure and wheeling rig outside of hardcore rock crawling and we have two of them on a build journey so we’ll see. I hardly drive the 80 at all so at some point it’s growing pains. My son likes to outdo me these days and I’m happy for him to take lead. Tires can’t rub if the metal isn’t there….
bjowett
Supporting Vendor
The Sequoia body is obviously a large limiting factor for the IRS w/ big tires. There’s a good chunk of up travel that the stock bump stop eats into, but unless one is going to cut a serious amount of sheet metal, and poke the shocks into the passenger compartment, it can’t be accessed.
- Thread starter
- #24
Yea, there is no ‘tucking’ the tire into the wheel well like with a solid axle so it’s straight up travel to the body. Those of us with a couple of decades or more of 80 series tire fitment and use probably have a hard time thinking 37’s are ‘enough’ for these rigs, but they probably are enough. If we ever have the opportunity for portals that game would change, although the question of using a Tundra rear portal on the Sequoia could have a brake fitment issue. I haven’t looked into whether the rear brakes are the same since it’s all made of unobtanium for now.
For what it’s worth, as a guy who has sworn forever that it’s front and rear solid axles or nothing, I’ve come to like the idea that for a huge body rig, working out in open spaces, I’d rather have IRS for the clearance and off camber stability in conjunction with IFS. Plus I put an entire range oven in the back the other day with the second row up and didn’t even have to turn it sideways. If you sleep in this thing, the beauty of a completely flat queen sized bed area is a hell of a lot more compelling than a solid rear axle still being held back by IFS. And one-ton duty parts don’t hurt, just slap on your mods.
The thing about the door is that there is metal to work with, because there are two seals. The first is at the door edge and the second is inward where the door innards begin. The 2” of so you have to work with of just sheet metal extends through the entire wheel well. You don’t unseal the door by trimming since the red arrow seal is intact, but you do lose the outer seal and have a project to tidy up that cut so you aren’t introducing a rust problem.
The line of available sheet metal only follows this red line.
The available up travel remains limited by the drop in the inner fender - no wheel well hump in the 2nd gen. If you move the arm back, it gets worse as the inner wheel body clearance becomes less. This is with a 37” tire. Now if you went big on track width and got the tires outside of the drop in the inner fender as you’d have with a long travel setup…there’s a lot of space if you are willing to work with the sheet metal only portion of the door. Portals reasonably solve all of it, keep 2” of suspension lift and get 4” from the portals, track width increased, that’s long and wide for stability.
I’ve been back and forth in a “that’s dumb, don’t do it” thinking mode, but my purpose for my 80 is about 5% these days of my purpose for the Sequoia at the level of life stuff. I put six mountain bikes on the back of this thing, haul a bunch of people and four dogs, and want something that gets away from the Instagram crowd and can get busy on some pretty serious trails. Yea it does that on 37’s, but my smile would be bigger on 40’s. Noting I still need to gear and lock it.
