3rd Gen Suspension Lift - MEGA THREAD

I was told by my tire shop hub rings where installed, when the wheels and tires where put on. I will confirm that on Tuesday, as I am getting a road force balance done at another shop on Tuesday of next week. It was the earliest appointment they had. I will let you know the out come. Side note, I am wondering if one of the tires may bad. Just a thought.

 

Any rumors of Bilstein, fox, other brands providing support any time soon?

 

I can say road force and centric rings can and will make all the difference. I work for a Hunter Engineering and can attest Toyota’s do have some of the biggest issues with wheels needing to be hub centric. Toyota dealers are even required to have Hunter Road Force balancers and many dealers even go one step behind using hub centric cones to mount the wheel in the balancer. I can personally attest RF balancing will change the way your truck/car drives. I recently had a close friend buy 4 new tires for his Denali and could never get it to ride smooth. Took it to 3 different shops and shops always said they balanced fine. I RF’d the set and the balancer found one tire that had harmonics that could not be eliminated with force matching. Friend went back to where he got the tires and they gave him a replacement tire. We installed and RF’d and he claims the truck has never ridden as smooth. On a related repair I bought a E63 Mercedes two years ago with aftermarket wheels. Could not get rid of a high speed vibration even thought the wheels were lug centric and RF’d I installed hub centric rings and now the MB is smooth at highly illegal speeds. (I assume)

 

Didn’t mean to highjack the post on lifts going into wheel balancing. Also should have said that once RF and hub centric rings are installed if vibration continues there is likely a driveshaft angle issue.

 

Howdy
I am a proud new owner of a ‘23 SR5 Off-Road.
I recently picked up shocks and coilovers from a ‘22 TRD Pro with a Wescott front and rear lift kit installed.

I’m curious what components you guys think I should add to ensure the vehicle operates properly and doesn’t add undesirable strain.

From the research I’ve done, the Wescott lift is designed to allow the CA to operate as intended without need of extension, but what about the driveshaft, cv axels, control arm and sway bar?
Thanks for the help.

 

A few things:

1. Welcome to the forum!
2. With a hybrid lift like the Wescott (it's essentially a spacer lift & with a minor preload collar), you really shouldn’t need anything else. They claim you don't need anything outside of what they include in the kit. These lifts are less complicated than actual suspension lifts, so they don't require much. Most folks who are running it haven't added anything. Wescott also claims their kit will allow you to get within factory alignment specs with nothing else added. Based on what I've seen posted in the forum, I think that's pretty well true.
3. I would recommend you use the search feature for "Wescott lift" and read through the literal hundreds of posts about the lift. Wescott was the first to market with a lift dedicated for the 3rd Gen, so a ton of people jumped on it. I was close to pulling the trigger on it myself until i opted to just run a set of $50 spacers from the 2.5 Gen Tundra until I could get my hands on a suspension lift. There are lots of people who have posted their experiences with the Wescott kit. Many of them still run it today, but I think you'll find the ride quality to be a fairly common concern of most folks. It seems most folks complain about the super stiff ride.
4. The Wescott lift gives you the lifted "look" and gives enough clearance to run larger tires. If those are your primary goals, then you're good to go. If you're looking for actual off-road capability in the form of increased articulation and improved ride quality, then I might look into a true suspension lift from Icon, King, Elka, or several others. It's really all about your priorities and budget.

 

I appreciate your detailed response. After completing installation this weekend, I would agree with what others have said about the ride quality, definitely stiffer.

 

Do you have any pictures?
thx
-c

 

Installed the full Dobinsons MRR. Super satisfied w/ the quality and the flexibility of adjusting your ride stiffness.

 

Here’s a couple of photos post installation. Wheels are ordered, hopefully installed by within week.

The last shot concerns me a bit. I’ll post it in the appropriate thread as well, but if you have some insight, lmk. Looks like the bottom component has been hitting a piece of the lower control arm, they don’t look aligned properly. And it’s happening on both sides. Any ideas?

 

Oh. That's no bueno. I can only speculate on the cause. Your lower ball joint looks hard over. I'd jack up the front, grab the top & bottom of the tire, and see if there is play in the ball joint. I'm going to crawl under my truck and look at the geometry of the spindle and the LCA again to see if something else might cause that interference.

On a side note: Do you have grease in the valleys of your CV boot or is it just the photo playing tricks on my eyes?

 

I appreciate the reply. Thankfully that’s not grease, just a bit of dirt and the angle. I will let you know when I can get it jacked up and check for play.

 

@drk1_yota Definitely something's up with your geometry. Either the ball joint or maybe if your camber was WAY off.

Just snapped the pic below of mine with a 3" lift. You can see the ball joint angle is nearly straight up & down.

 

@KroppDuster What all changes did you make with your lift? Sway bar drop down brackets, driveshaft or anything similar?
Here is a photo with an angle similar to yours.

 

It could be possible that drk1 has a TRD Pro lift with a westcott lift installed which is advertised as a total overall lift of 3.6" (westcott 2.5" plus the factory 1.1") on his double cab sr5.

The pro is a crew max and a hybrid which weighs a decent amount more than a double cab sr5 non-hybrid.

My conclusion is, just maybe, drk1 is actually getting more lift, possibly close to 4" overall than his stock suspension causing the angles to be greater.

 

@iiawah808 You are correct about the Westport lift, they were installed before I received the setup. Since the angles could be greater, should I be looking to make other adjustments? And thanks for the insight.

 

Another thing to check. Make sure that wescott lift kit the previous owner installed is actually the kit for the pro. Not sure if you can shoe horn the kits for the other shocks onto a pro coilover, but people do crazy thing sometimes.

 

New UCAs, extended rear brake lines, adjustable panhard bar, sway bar drop brackets.

Are you still running the stock UCAs? If so, that could a driver to your geometry being off. The stock UCAs can’t handle angles beyond 2.5” of lift. Did you get an alignment after you installed Fox take offs with the Westcott kit?

 

@KroppDuster Vehicle was aligned, but it’s going back in Saturday since the camber is still too high (1.2, 1.1) and is visually off-putting. I considered new UCA’s but figured since mine are the same as the Pro’s, they were not needed. But what you are saying makes sense.

I also am picking up a set of sway bar drop brackets tomorrow, I struggled putting the sway bar back on following the lift, it was very tight. Maybe that is contributing to the camber? Extended rear brake line is on order.

 

I had a hard time reinstalling my sway bar end links when I installed my Dobinsons 3” fronts. I had to drop the truck to the ground, have a friend push down on the radiator support with full body weight and reinstall end links.

I ended up ordering the icon sway bar spacers. Front end came up another 1/4” afterwards. Measured after a day of driving. It even felt like the ride was smoother too. It kinda seemed like the sway bar was limiting the height. Lol.

 

@iiawah808 Those are the spacers I will be installing. Did you keep it on the ground to install the spacers? And I am looking to pick up some UCA’s, maybe that will give me the adjustment I need. Any recommendation on UCA’s? The set that come with Toyota’s 3” lift look affordable.

 

Installed Icon Sway Bar Spacers on the ground. Too easy!

I also installed the trd upper control arms. Affordable if you live In CONUS. Us Hawaii folks, basically the price of aftermarket UCA’s. I scored mine off a member here on the forums. Highly recommended if you are on a budget. They are for the 3” TRD Lift kit though.

Since it seems like you have beyond the 3.6” Lift on yours via the trd pro suspension, it may be worthwhile to go Billet Icon UCA’s or any other equivalent UCA’s.

 

I have this same wear just on my passenger side. I’ll take pics tonight

 

I have the Westcott 3/2 lift with OME 2866 springs and just added 37’s. I posted this other places but figured I would here as well as everyone is still working out options with suspension. This set up does decently well off road for the price. Ultimately I want Kings again so I can fly down the trail like the old days…..sigh

 

Here are a couple pics of the wear I’m getting, it’s rubbing on the LCA i dont know why.

 

Is this not wear marks from steering stops?

 

To be honest, most likely. I realized I'm old. I'm used to seeing adjustment bolts or more of a flat surface as a steering stop, but this is probably what it is.

 

Goodmorning,

I'd like some opinions and advice. I have a 2022 SR5 TRD OR and I'm about to purchase a set of 2nd hand 2023 TRD Pro Suspension(see picture).

The TRD PRO weight is approx 7,615lbs GW and the TRD OR non-hybrid weighs in at 7,210lbs GW. Will the ride/performance be affected at all due to the difference in weight? I realize the PRO's suspension is tuned to accomodate the weight difference, just concerned that the weight diff will change the ride quality/off road performance.

Also will I need to change anything else out? (e.g. axles)

The PRO's suspension should provide lift the truck 1" and i'll be able to run 35" tires, please correct me if i'm wrong.

Do you recommend this setup or would you just run the stock TRD OR and do you consider this "upgrade" minimal.

The suspension pictured above will run me $2.2k USD

Thank you in advance for any feedback/opinions/advice.

 

The upgrade will be minimal, and for that amount of money $2.2k you could get way way better suspension than stock 2nd hand pro suspension.
PS paying $2200 for used pro suspension is like dragging your dick in the dirt.

Here you go: @johnson156
https://dobinsonusa.com/products/dobinsons-2-3-ims-lift-kit-for-toyota-tundra-2022-on-dsskit22t/

 

No disrespect @AND but do you really think this Dobinson kit is comparable to the Pro Fox setup? I am one of those guys that has “drug his dick in the dirt” but only after comparing the specs and costs with Fox directly. I’m positive the Dobinson setup is nice, but could you share the specs you are using to suggest one over the other? Again, I’m not attempting to be argumentative, just curious about your pov.

@johnson156 I made this conversation recently and have been pleased with the result. My used setup came installed with the Wescott lift, which has a pre collar for the coilover with spacers for front and back. The compression that pre collar creates makes for a stiffer ride, which I don’t mind but may opt to remove the pre collar in the future. If I were to do it again, I may opt for something in the Icon family. https://www.iconvehicledynamics.com...undra-2-35-stage-5-suspension-system-tubular/

good luck with your decision.