I have an ‘04 Lexus GX with 125K miles. No significant off-roading. Occaional small boat towing. Mostly pavement princess. Have just confirmed (by Dealer) that rear lift bag is leaking and before remaining components go, I am considering a Metal Tech or Dobinsons rear coil conversion / air delete. Are there better Delete choices? I’d appreciate hearing from anybody that has installed either of these kits. Thanks, Rob
Rear Air Lift Delete - Dobinsons versus Metal Tech (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter robo99
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
I'd suggest the Ironman kit, as it is threaded for height adjustment and comes with the spring isolators. It's worked well on my GX and its easy to adjust the height.
ironman4x4america.com
Adjustable Rear Airbag Delete Kit Suited For Lexus GX470/GX460
Ironman 4x4 America offers off-road parts, accessories, and equipment for the off-roading enthusiast. Check out our website for more information.
ironman4x4america.com
- Thread starter
- #3
Thanks for the feedback. Expediency led me to going with Dobinsons. Now I’m wondering if I’m going to experience unbalanced ride as i am leaving front suspension stock…as per some posts i have seen. Any thoughts? Other posts suggest upgrading front shocks could correct any issues i may encounter. Any thoughts?
I ran stock 4runner coils on the rear of mine for a while before I lifted it, you’ll be fine.
I'd suggest the Ironman kit, as it is threaded for height adjustment and comes with the spring isolators. It's worked well on my GX and its easy to adjust the height.
Adjustable Rear Airbag Delete Kit Suited For Lexus GX470/GX460
Ironman 4x4 America offers off-road parts, accessories, and equipment for the off-roading enthusiast. Check out our website for more information.
Hey guys - just bought he Ironman kit for the 1" of adjustability. The question I now have is which coils. My front has a 1.5" bilstein 5100 lift on it (I had tricked the bags about 1/2" to level it as factory suspension comes with about a 1" rake). I like how it sits (well, when the bags are holding air)
Thinking a stock-height spring - either Metaltech's SuperSpring (5% stiffer than 4R/FJ OEM spring because the GX's added badonkadonk weight), Dobs "stock height" (which they say adds 1/2" lift) or the OEM 4R/FJ coil (and hope we can spin the adjustable lower perch up enough).
Ironman's tech really isn't of any help with this - and finding people with experience and can say "I put OE 4Runner coils with _x_ kit and it was level/low/high" is hard to come by...
Opinions / experience?
I had stock (used take off) V8 4runner coils on the rear with the SSO coil conversion kit. The kit comes with 2x 1/4” spacers but I wasn’t using them. On the front I had stock GX coils on 5100 struts on the first lift notch which supposedly is .85” of lift. With that combo it sat pretty level, definitely not nose high. I tried to find some old photos but don’t have any. With 1” of adjustment in the rear and stock height coils you should able to match 1.5” in the front.
GX DAVE
SILVER Star
If you go with dobinsons stock height coils for the rear and add 1/2 in of "pre load" to that iron man coil conversion spacer, with your current 1.5" front lift you will sit about 1/2" higher in the front compared to the stock rake, if you want your rake closer to stock ratio add the full 1 in to the rear spacer. Just remember, the more height you add on that rear coil conversion spacer the stiffer the spring will become because you are essentially adding preload to the spring by adding height to the spacer. If you do not want to add any height to the spacer and want you rake to be closer to factory ratio without stiffening the spring with preload and you dont have steel bumpers, then go with a taller spring in the rear rated for stock weight - +200lbs. I believe this is how their stock/light weight option is rated. The factory rake is about 1 in taller in the rear than the front. Contact Exit Off Road via email, let them know the rake ratio you are looking to achieve and they will guide you properly on which spring to order for your desired front/rear ride height combo.
You can’t preload a loose coil, that only happens on a coilover. On a coilover the spring has to be compressed to install the top hat, on a loose coil the only thing compressing the spring is weight.
Hey Rob. Would you be interested in selling the pump/reservoir for the air suspension system that mounts on the passenger side firewall?
I am running the Dobinsons MRA 3 way with reservior front and back (back is the long travel version). Front springs are 100-200lbs heavy load (C59-352) to compensate for the coastal offroad bumper and 10k which. The rear springs are 400lb+ rated to account for the tongue weight of our off road trailer. Without the weight the rear is about 1.5 - 2in higher, but once hitched up the truck levels out. The higher rate spings also don't feel too stiff when we are not hitched up, so very happy how that all turned out.
The adjustability of the 3 way shocks seemed like a gimmick at first as I figured I would never touch it but now I actually really appreciate the fact that when I am on highways towing I can stiffen the shocks up and once we get on washboards roads and overland terrain I can soften them up and soak up a lot of the bumps.
Also if you do end up raising the rear, make sure you invest in a good pan-hand bar relocation bracket.
The adjustability of the 3 way shocks seemed like a gimmick at first as I figured I would never touch it but now I actually really appreciate the fact that when I am on highways towing I can stiffen the shocks up and once we get on washboards roads and overland terrain I can soften them up and soak up a lot of the bumps.
Also if you do end up raising the rear, make sure you invest in a good pan-hand bar relocation bracket.
