Hey everybody, I’m new and looking fo advice for my 2006 access cab

Thanks for the heads up. I just apologized to her.

 

You’re very welcome and I’m proud of being able to serve

 

It’s all good….simply sat morning dry humor on my part. @Sunnier is our resident F with wonderful off road knowledge. I’m like @Azblue, one of the elder Aholes

 

Thank you

 

That being the case, unless you want to clear 34s or 35s, a 2.5 to 3 inch suspension lift will easily clear 33s (your 285s).

As for supior offroad comfort, I recommend a few options:
ARB Old Man Emu shocks and coils (not sure if their Dakar leaf packs are available for our trucks or not) is a smooth ride that won't break the bank. Next are your big 2.5" diameter coilovers, such as King, Fox, ADS, Sway Away,.and Icon, ideally with with extended travel and remote reservoirs. These will require upgraded upper control arms.
Last and most comfortable (also most $$$) is your full long travel set up which replaces upper and lower control arms, spindles, and uses one of the afformentioned 2.5 coilovers brands. Kits exist from Total Chaos and Camburg I think. There's probably a other brand I forgot.

As for the rear suspension if comfort off road again is your goal, you'll want a custom leaf pack catered to your needs. Deaver, General Spring, maybe ARB OME Dakar. Pair those with a decent rear shock set, ideally 2.5 shock, or 2.0.with reservoirs, or 2.5 with resevoirs ($$$)

 

This is good! Knowing you want to do some off-roading*, we don’t want you to do a drop bracket lift, and if you do, @des2mtn gave good advice about avoiding a spacer (this is me emphasizing, avoid spacers in your suspension set-up… although you may use a quality hub-centric** wheel spacer to make the wheels/tires fit).

Have you seen a 4” lift on a 1st gen? If so, that’d be a good one to crawl under and see what’s what. But I’m guessing…. that’s why your referenced rcd? If not, and if you can adjust a bit to function over form… maybe not exactly 4” and sometimes the bed might be a bit higher than the front unloaded (between off-road adventures)… you can probably build a very good looking truck that drives well on and off-road. Examples coming; I just have to remember who has what truck… someone other than me, that’s has 285’s without long-travel….

I don’t mind. I initially responded to joke about it myself— but I didn’t want you to feel picked on when, really, it was just a late Friday post and nothing to do….

FWIW, all males fill in their gender. You did, even though you shared nothing else about yourself. The few blanks are typically women. I lurked a bit, looking for truck info before I joined this forum, and saw that when anyone posted as a female, they got hundreds of welcomes immediately— and seldom were taken seriously about truck questions. So I just skipped it when I signed up. Almost everyone assumes all participants on a truck forum are male, so I’m fine with answering to any casual dude pleasantry, rather than have my contributions dismissed as being from a female.

Welcome to the forum!

 

What gen is your truck?

@One eyed bluetick while this is great general info, there’s a bit here that seems to apply to 2nd and 3rd gen trucks… not to 1st gens. You’ll have to get in the habit of adding “1st gen” in the title of any thread, because there are 2 assumptions most forum members make: that all members are male, and that all trucks are the same… 2nd gens (because there’s is no real 3rd gen….).

Yes you can fit 285’s with a good coil over shock, new UCA’s, + custom leaf pack… and probably some trimming at the body mount, as well as dialed in alignment with caster as high as possible, close to +4, and probably hub-centric wheel spacers… But no, it’s not easy because 285’s ARE the 1st gen equivalent of 35’s….

Are you running 16” or 17” wheels?

 

Add me to that list. I even had a mod call me an ass, so I got that going for me.

 

You're already the "Local a-hole"....wildly known as the HAHIC

 

06 AC on 295/75r16s and Kings

285s can be achieved with as little as 5100s on stock wheels, though I highly recommend wheels spacers and UCAs because otherwise you will rub the UCAs on occasion.

 

Cool. I’ve never seen OME for 1st gens, a few of the others you listed. Wanted to make sure he’s aware the list you made might include options not available for his truck as an easy replacement. If I misunderstand, and you are aware of suitable options from each manufacturer you listed, my apologies; I just haven’t seen ‘em.

 

It's all good Sunny. You may be right about a few things I may have gotten wrong.

I'm not 100% sure about the Dakar leaf packs for our trucks as I mentioned. Nor am I sure that ADS or Sway Away coilovers exists for our trucks. I do rember debating between OME or Toytec back in 2018 for my truck. I've ridden in a few Tacomas with OME and the ride is very plush for what they cost. Dare I say smoother than my King's. But that could be because of better leaf packs too as I'm on stock leaf packs with progressive AAL, overload removed and 5160s. I haven't committed to really upgrading the rear yet as it's a rabbit hole.
Some of what I said came from experience, some from quietly lurking the forums for a few years before becoming a member. My memory could be faulty though, as I was a first gen Tacoma owner for about twice as long as I've been a first gen Tundra owner. That and I haven't been actively reading or modding much in the last year or so. But since I too desire a 4 inch lift (so I can fit 35s), so I figured I'd contribute what I can to our new members quest. I've always felt that 4 inches of lift was the perfect amount to please the eyes. I started out at 2.5 with toytec boss coilovers and SPC UCAs and 295s on a 0 offset wheel but I rubbed frame on full lock and had to do some considerable trimming. So I added 1.25 spidertrax spacers and did more trimming. This worked great for pavement but still rubbed the wheel wells when off roading. So that's when I made the switch to a heavier duty coil and extended travel Kings and set em to 3 inches, then adjusted my caster on the UCAs to the 2nd from furthest forward setting. I've got a 1 inch body lift on order now and will likely adjust the UCAs to that final setting to fit some 35s in 2022. I just gotta buy some 17s so I can do the big brake upgrade... Then gears and a locker. Oh the rabbit holes we will go down for the love of out Toyotas

 

Hey, that sounds very doable. Thank you so much for the advice and I’m glad to be here with such knowledgeable people. I’ll get started and will be happy to post pics along the way. Many thanks again

 

Hey Sunnier, it’s a 1st gen

hey Sunnier, I can assure you that I’m no female, lol. I went back and filled in more info for y’all. I have a 1st gen. It’s a 06 access cab 4x4 sr5 limited. I’m running 16” wheels with pretty much factory spacing. I put a cheap leveling kit on it a couple of years ago. It looks ok, but rides like crap now. I’m ready to have fun on trails and want to make sure if I spend the money, that I put it in the right places. I’ve gotten some really good info and look forward to many more conversations/arguments with everyone, lol

 

What kind of setup do you have

 

I know it. I was asking TRDgen because he posted good general info but some of it is not applicable to 1st gens, and I didn’t want you, or anyone with a similar desire for a 4” lift that reads this thread in future, to get wrong info. He explained what he knows and why he posted; all good.

Mine is a 2002 access cab with long-travel and 16” SCS wheels and BORA spacers to make ‘em work (the front is wider than the back, even with spacers). King coilover shocks, Total Chaos suspension components. Custom Deaver HD leaf pack. Still don’t have *real* bump stops, but ready to add ‘em whenever my @TruckBuilder has time to make the magic happen. Here’s the never-complete build thread:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/lon...ld-papasmurf-sunnier-build-a-first-gen.44398/

 

4crawler.com is where I found the body lift. Their website is a bit complicated but very informative and thorough. Roger answered all my emails and helped me place my order.

 

The rcd 6 inch lift is a good option. I have it and love it. Its built very durable. Drives really good on and off road. You can fit up to a 35 ince tire. The only thing I don't like is it comes with 4 inch blocks for the rear witch are terrible. To much axle wrap. I had to get custom leafs made for the rear to replace the lifting blocks.
https://www.bilsteinlifts.com/shop/...MIw-GQqMOO8gIVRAp9Ch0oTQHfEAQYASABEgJPnvD_BwE

A few random pics.

 

Agree with most everything here. I'll preface with I never drove the pickup without the lift. I wouldn't go as far as to say the blocks are terrible. They're less than desirable, for sure. If you get the lift, should you buy new springs and never install the blocks? I wouldn't say so. Unless you have cash to burn, run the blocks until you can put enough scratch together to get new springs. Have a look at it. I'll say it's the best prefabbed 4" lift for our 1st Gens.

A few random pics of my Tundra.

 

And forking leads to ...

 

Welcome @One eyed bluetick
It looks like you've gathered some good info and suggestions already but thought I would throw in my spare change ($0.02) and suggest looking at ADS shocks. Great company, great customer service, great product. They came already set to the right height and I think I ended up getting about 3.5" inches out of them. Height hasn't changed since install (about 9 months ago). Those paired with SPC UCAs and Toytec AAL and Fox shocks in the back gives me about an extra inch height in the back without any weight in the back.

 

Thank you for the great info. Yeah, I figured it out as I was reading his post. Everything I’ve seen so far with the long travel means I’ll have to replace my fenders. Is that correct or can I just trim?

 

Thank you Kimosabe, I’m gonna look into it now while I have the computer out. Y’all have turned out to be a great bunch of folks on here.

 

Yeah, I’m not suggesting you go LT. It would make your truck uber-capable off-road, but requires removal of the front sway bar which allows a lot of body roll… kinda disconcerting on pavement. And yeah, you’d have to replace your front fenders.


A good midtravel coilover suspension in front + Deaver or Alcan leafs in the rear (NO SPACERS ANYWHERE IN THE LIFT) will make you happy on and off road. And you’ll fit 285’s. Without new fenders.

You’ll need a great alignment shop and you might need a bit of trimming at the body mount, depending on what wheels (offset) and wheel spacers you run.

 

I would imagine just trimming the pinch weld should be enough, since that all I've done. On mine, the body mount is farther back that the rear portion of the front wheel wells. I've seen people chop the body mount on other Toyotas but not our first gen Tundras. That said, I've seen people here tub the front wheel wells for 35s. That's why I'm just doing the 1 inch body lift. To avoid anymore cutting for 35s.

 

They are local here, my machinist buddy said their shop is absolutely nasty AF!!
Like the 2.5” shocks they make for us are a drop in the bucket compared to their actual race shocks.
One day at lunch they all filtered into this pizza joint we were at, a motley crew, but it looked like a great crew!
I wish I could afford some of their stuff!

 

Everybody already covered the main points I was going to bring up. Take a look at these two threads, lots of good info and people running 285s (including me):

https://www.tundras.com/threads/how-big-is-yours-measure-up.46186/

https://www.tundras.com/threads/tire-rub-trimming.90600/

 

Nasty in a good way? I can picture both. I've seen messy, disorganized shops of my friends who are skilled engineers and organized white glove clean shops of the same friend group.

 

Nasty as in they have a ridiculous shop set up with big boys toys. I think my buddy was saying they make 6” diameter shocks for racing…..