My wife and I are new to the overland / offroad community. We currently have a 2002 F350 CC LB 4x4 w/ 7.3L diesel, that has an icon leveling kit and fox shocks w/ 35" Toyo OC R/T's. The plan was for this to be our camping / overland rig - though very large, we need it as we also tow a trailer occasionally.
About 4 weeks ago we found out my wife was pregnant with our first kid and so we purchased a 2003 GX470 for her to drive and be extra safe with the baby, plus turn into a sweet and more maneuverable overland / offroad rig than the F350. Sadly, we got caught in an odometer rollback scheme and have had to spend a good amount of money bringing the vehicle up to our standards (odo was at 50k miles, but truck actually has 200k on it) - big bummer. Nevertheless our quest still continues to make this the best overland setup we can for the money.
As much as I would love to make this a long travel rig with 35" tires, I think that is out of the budget so we are focusing on a mid range setup with ~33" (hopefully around 4-5k for the suspension and UCA's). The rig will be my wifes daily driver (she likes driving trucks over cars) and we will be taking it out 2-3 weekends per month to camp, do trails with the toyota club, and possibly some light rock crawling and desert running on occasion.
Initially we were looking at an EMU setup with UCA's and then quickly thought it might be worth jumping into a icon stage 2 setup. However, after reading countless forums, and reviews on Icon, King, and Fox, it left us feeling like we really want to go with an adjustable setup, but also very confused with which brand / system (progressive / digressive) will best suit our needs.
At this point we are debating between the following which all seems to be around the same price point ($4kish):
- Fox 2.5 - front and rear with DSC adjustments
- King 2.5 - front and rear with compression adjustments
- Icon 2.5 - front and rear with CDCV adjustments
In any case, we plan to go with either Icon UCA's or Total Chaos (debating delta joint vs uniball) and plan to run 285 70 17 Open County R/T's
Can any of you with more experience give your view of which setup maybe the best bet for a daily driver / weekend overland rig? Are we crazy for thinking "buy once / cry once" and going with a nicer system vs starting with OME or Bilstein?
Currently we are leaning towards the Fox setup with the thinking that dual adjustment would be great. At the same time we have always seen King as the top Dog and notice that lots of Toyota rigs run Icon.
Buy once cry once only makes sense if you will eventually need the capability that is afforded with the more expensive option.
My mantra has kind of been buy the tool you need that fits your budget and if the tool wasn't up to par over time then that is the tool you needed to be better. If the tool costs 40% of the price but performed 90% of the function as the better tool and my needs weren't beyond that 90% then it sounds like you saved on that extra 60%.
I don't own many snap on tools but the few I do were because I needed a specific tool of higher quality as opposed to all of my tools.
Case in point, when I was working on my old VW Bus I needed a brake line bender. I went to harbor freight and bought the best one they had on the shelf (I compared between the few they had and bought the one that had the jaws the fit the best together). I went home and used that tool. It did what I needed to do and it has sat in my tool box ever since. Could I have spent $60 on a snap on one? Sure. Would it have done a better job for me? Doubtful in that instance.
What I am saying is for your wife for a daily driver that might rarely go off roading I would think to start with a basic set of bilstein 5100s, run the stock springs, move the circlip up a notch or two to give you a bit of a lift and do the airbag trick in the rear to give you an overall lift of an inch or two. If you want to rip out the airbags then you can run springs off of a 4 runner with the spring conversion kits that can include a spacer for the spring to give it a lift as well.
Is more expensive [more] better? Sure. But evaluate if you need better in your application.
But do bear in mind that when you go to the fox oriented options that suspension rebuilding will be necessary more often. They are made better and perform better but their tighter tolerances do degrade faster than something like an off the shelf bilstein shock.
My mindset on that is from me being active in the miata community. Fox makes suspension there too as do many other top shelf competitors. The "better" parts don't last as long and degrade more quickly and need to be rebuilt more often. Even a street driven miata I would expect to need a full set of shock rebuilds with foxes at 40k miles as have many other people in the community.
For the GX, I think I paid $350 shipped for my set of 4 bilstein 5100 shocks. They felt great compared to my tired 112k mile stock shocks.
If you are dead set on 2.5 inch diameter shocks bilstein does sell an option for that that is around $600 that does come with new front springs and an adjustable spring perch that isn't based on a circlip.
As far as the UCA's are concerned, have you given the freedom offroad UCA's a look? They are not adjustable but they give an inherent +2 increase in caster. Caster is the issue that you will run into with a lifted suspension. Cost for that pair of arms is around $360 shipped. Quite a few people on this forum run them to great success. I believe the tacoma forums were speaking high praises about them. They have replaceable ball joints on them. Food for thought.
I am not trying to steer you away from what you want but I think for $1k all in you can have a suspension that does what you need it to do comfortably.
Maybe my opinion is unpopular and doesn't fit your needs but I do think you can go camping your 2-3 times a month with far less than 4k in suspension.
If you are that set on rock crawling then I think spending money on armor would be well spent.
Final thoughts. For a daily driver I think keeping as much rubber in your suspension is a good idea. I would not want to run helm joints and spherical bearings when a normal ball joint will do. Performance won't be quite as great with rubber and ball joints but for a daily it will be well received. I would think make the GX from your description a better street car as opposed to throwing crawler parts at it and making it a compromised crawler for the sake of wanting to have daily manners too.
