--- UPDATE: PRE-ORDERS NOW OPEN ---
After all the testing and development, we're officially opening pre-orders for our HD IFS Differential Drop System.
MSRP: $549
Intro Pricing (first production run): $499
First batch is limited and will begin shipping on or before April 27.
More details here:
Heavy Duty IFS Differential Drop System, 2003-2024 4Runner, Tacoma, FJ Cruiser, GX470, GX460 - https://www.marlincrawler.com/diffdrop
Really appreciate all the early sign-ups and traffic, excited to finally get these out in the wild!
----
What's up Mudders, BigMike from MC checking-in!
I wanted to share something I'm particularly excited to get to market: Our long awaited patent-pending HD Differential Drop and Ultimate Skid Plate!
We'll be making these for 1995-2024 Tacoma, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, and Lexus GX470/460.
You may have heard about the typical way at dropping a front diff in IFS applications, which is to insert 1" spacers at the forward frame mounts. I call them hockey pucks:
While this lowers the diff frame mounts 1", it only lowers the axle centerline a fraction of this amount due to the diff tilting forward and pivoting about the rear pinion mount instead of being properly repositioned and lowered into a true drop amount.
On our website I added interactive comparison images that make it easy to visualize: Because the axle centerline is only ~39% the total distance away from the fixed pinion mount, it only drops ~0.39 inch. Not 1-inch. Not even half an inch.
Yet that's exactly what most people think they're getting because that's the messaging that has been used to advertise them for decades.
And because the spacer is inserted above the bracket, which is already bulky due to having bushings, the entire stack is now some 3-inches thick hanging under your frame, requiring skid plates to bend early and drop even lower to go under these parts.
Here are a couple examples from our site. This is not a criticism of any manufacturer as all these designs require bending early to clear bulky front differential mounts and extend far out in front of the axle centerline.
Instead of protecting the vehicle, they become the first point of contact, and none of these examples even have diff drops fitted which often also requires dropping the skid plate itself
Until now, every 4WD skid plate ever made had to follow this same compromised geometry.
It gets even worse when you consider how tall the spacer actually needs to be to achieve an actual 1" drop at your axle center: It would require more than TWO AND A HALF spacer kits, or 2.51" of spacers, to drop your axles a true 1.00".
This now makes the full spacer + bushing + diff bracket hang almost half a foot under already the lowest point on the front of your chassis like so:
That's two-and-a-half 1" spacers kits. Which is actually impossible because at that point:
- The bushings would go into a 10° tilt (breaking all three),
- The pinion mount gets pulled/dragged forward nearly half an inch (bolt holes no longer align and would break your frame), and
- Depending on setup, would require up to 10" long 14mm bolts (which are not manufactured anywhere in the world)
Spacer drops become no longer a "kit" but an outright failure.
So instead of all this, back when I was developing RCLT HD (the strongest and most low profile Long Travel kit on the market), I came up with much improved differential bracket geometry that matches the high ground clearance nature of our inverted lower control arms:
What we did instead was move the bushings from the frame to the differential, and properly built the drop into the brackets themselves, thus eliminating the spacer+bushing stack entirely.
We also add a double-shear to the passenger side, an extra frame mount to the driver side, and an upgrade to the pinion mount, making this the strongest differential mount upgrade ever made.
Best of all it results in only a 1/2" worth of brackets hanging below the frame despite having a true 1.00" axle centerline drop:
We now have a true 1" axle centerline drop by repositioning the differential and restoring the pinion mount to it's original position to prevent fatigue and frame mount failures.
This is now 9-times less ground clearance loss and 2.6-times more axle drop than any spacer kit ever made. And without any of the negative side affects you get with spacer drop kits.
Essentially, this is a 4WD setup where the differential brackets do not exist, which allows us to create an entirely new, never-before-done Ultra low-profile Skid Plate that looks like this:
This is the lowest profile 4WD skid plate ever built for these frames despite simultaneously having up to a true 1" axle centerline drop.
More importantly, our first bend doesn't even occur until below the axles.
That means you're removing 12" to 14" of parts hanging in front of your axle centerline, giving your tires a chance to climb and start lifting your frame before the skid ever makes contact.
And when it does, the transition is only a 15° slope (instead of 40°+ required by traditional skids), so you're gliding over obstacles instead of plowing into them. This has been a game changer for me and snow wheeling!
Here are some pics of what this looks like under my '16 Taco:
And what's amazing is that even despite seeing how low profile this is, hidden behind our skid plate is up to a true 1" axle centerline drop.
After all the testing and development, we're officially opening pre-orders for our HD IFS Differential Drop System.
MSRP: $549
Intro Pricing (first production run): $499
First batch is limited and will begin shipping on or before April 27.
More details here:
Heavy Duty IFS Differential Drop System, 2003-2024 4Runner, Tacoma, FJ Cruiser, GX470, GX460 - https://www.marlincrawler.com/diffdrop
Really appreciate all the early sign-ups and traffic, excited to finally get these out in the wild!
----
What's up Mudders, BigMike from MC checking-in!
I wanted to share something I'm particularly excited to get to market: Our long awaited patent-pending HD Differential Drop and Ultimate Skid Plate!
We'll be making these for 1995-2024 Tacoma, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, and Lexus GX470/460.
You may have heard about the typical way at dropping a front diff in IFS applications, which is to insert 1" spacers at the forward frame mounts. I call them hockey pucks:
While this lowers the diff frame mounts 1", it only lowers the axle centerline a fraction of this amount due to the diff tilting forward and pivoting about the rear pinion mount instead of being properly repositioned and lowered into a true drop amount.
On our website I added interactive comparison images that make it easy to visualize: Because the axle centerline is only ~39% the total distance away from the fixed pinion mount, it only drops ~0.39 inch. Not 1-inch. Not even half an inch.
Yet that's exactly what most people think they're getting because that's the messaging that has been used to advertise them for decades.
And because the spacer is inserted above the bracket, which is already bulky due to having bushings, the entire stack is now some 3-inches thick hanging under your frame, requiring skid plates to bend early and drop even lower to go under these parts.
Here are a couple examples from our site. This is not a criticism of any manufacturer as all these designs require bending early to clear bulky front differential mounts and extend far out in front of the axle centerline.
Instead of protecting the vehicle, they become the first point of contact, and none of these examples even have diff drops fitted which often also requires dropping the skid plate itself
Until now, every 4WD skid plate ever made had to follow this same compromised geometry.
It gets even worse when you consider how tall the spacer actually needs to be to achieve an actual 1" drop at your axle center: It would require more than TWO AND A HALF spacer kits, or 2.51" of spacers, to drop your axles a true 1.00".
This now makes the full spacer + bushing + diff bracket hang almost half a foot under already the lowest point on the front of your chassis like so:
That's two-and-a-half 1" spacers kits. Which is actually impossible because at that point:
- The bushings would go into a 10° tilt (breaking all three),
- The pinion mount gets pulled/dragged forward nearly half an inch (bolt holes no longer align and would break your frame), and
- Depending on setup, would require up to 10" long 14mm bolts (which are not manufactured anywhere in the world)
Spacer drops become no longer a "kit" but an outright failure.
So instead of all this, back when I was developing RCLT HD (the strongest and most low profile Long Travel kit on the market), I came up with much improved differential bracket geometry that matches the high ground clearance nature of our inverted lower control arms:
What we did instead was move the bushings from the frame to the differential, and properly built the drop into the brackets themselves, thus eliminating the spacer+bushing stack entirely.
We also add a double-shear to the passenger side, an extra frame mount to the driver side, and an upgrade to the pinion mount, making this the strongest differential mount upgrade ever made.
Best of all it results in only a 1/2" worth of brackets hanging below the frame despite having a true 1.00" axle centerline drop:
We now have a true 1" axle centerline drop by repositioning the differential and restoring the pinion mount to it's original position to prevent fatigue and frame mount failures.
This is now 9-times less ground clearance loss and 2.6-times more axle drop than any spacer kit ever made. And without any of the negative side affects you get with spacer drop kits.
Essentially, this is a 4WD setup where the differential brackets do not exist, which allows us to create an entirely new, never-before-done Ultra low-profile Skid Plate that looks like this:
This is the lowest profile 4WD skid plate ever built for these frames despite simultaneously having up to a true 1" axle centerline drop.
More importantly, our first bend doesn't even occur until below the axles.
That means you're removing 12" to 14" of parts hanging in front of your axle centerline, giving your tires a chance to climb and start lifting your frame before the skid ever makes contact.
And when it does, the transition is only a 15° slope (instead of 40°+ required by traditional skids), so you're gliding over obstacles instead of plowing into them. This has been a game changer for me and snow wheeling!
Here are some pics of what this looks like under my '16 Taco:
And what's amazing is that even despite seeing how low profile this is, hidden behind our skid plate is up to a true 1" axle centerline drop.
Last edited:
Oh wait, there's somehow also a true 1" axle drop in there 
