IFS strength?

[TxsizeK5]

If I'm only looking to do trails, how strong is IFS in say holding up to 33-36" tires?

Anyway to get lift out of em besides cranking Tbars? i sthere a kit?

[Grampa]

I'm running 33" tires, locked front & rear, and beat the shit out of my rig daily and it stands up fine. Never broken a CV, but ripped a few boots on my CV's from the crappy angles. Go to Matt's website (http://www.independent4x.com) and you'll learn tons, and I'd also suggest giving him a call. I'd be cautious going up to 35" tires on the IFS... 33"s seem to be the safe max for reliability.

[AirTrooper]

I have 32" super swamper tsl sx's and it ripped out the birfields first time off road.

lifted IFS SUCKS is a total waste of money, and messes up the suspension geometry something aweful.

I would put max at 31x10.50s Street only. or an occasional cow pasture.

[james west]

Originally posted by AirTrooper
I have 32" super swamper tsl sx's and it ripped out the birfields first time off road.

lifted IFS SUCKS is a total waste of money, and messes up the suspension geometry something aweful.

I would put max at 31x10.50s Street only. or an occasional cow pasture.

IFS doesnt use birfields....i ran 33s on mine and took it through tellico with no problem....and drove it 8 hours home:flipoff2:

moderately lift the frontif you must...2-2.5"....matt sells kits, and provides great tech support....but you can learn everything on the internet without making phonecalls...lift is achieved with cranking t-bars, and gaining some "droop" with balljoint relocation and spacer, and lo-pro bumpstops

if your not rock crawling, ifs works great, when you start changing the geometry, some maitainence issues typically arise in older trucks (bushings, balljoints, etc.)

i say go with it until your ready to commit to something solid

[paulevans76]

Originally posted by AirTrooper
I have 32" super swamper tsl sx's and it ripped out the birfields first time off road.

lifted IFS SUCKS is a total waste of money, and messes up the suspension geometry something aweful.

I would put max at 31x10.50s Street only. or an occasional cow pasture.

Yeah but remember you're sportin the 8 bolt front which is weaker than the 10 bolt. I'd say the 10bolt is good for 33's, and even 35's if you drop the diff a couple o inches

[Lil Uzi]

4runner with ARBs f/r and stock IFS went through the Rubicon fine last year (Jeff the Marmot). He's been runnin that way for a while. They tell me backing up, bound up kills em'. Rolling backwards and dropping the clutch is kool, also. Wedging your tire against an imovable object, with the wheel turned and the throttle floored works also. I say drive with forethought and purpose, and run em till you know you need something stronger. I gather that the Isuzu IFS is comparable to the Toy. My shop-built front Toy SAS cost more than my rig did ;) Enjoy the IFS and drive easy, watch the "built rigs" with un-built drivers break all their shiazzz :p :p :p

[Rip DeLips]

Originally posted by james west


IFS doesnt use birfields....



Maybe he swapped in a yota IFS solid axle???? LOLLLLLL :flipoff2:

[paulevans76]

Ed put the beer down and back away from the computer...:flipoff2:

[AirTrooper]

On the trooper the outer is a CV the inner is a birfield. TAke a look

And it was not anything to do with the ring and pinion or carrier that failed. It has been axles.

The trooper front end is very weak when torsion bars are cranked and front axles are at extreme angles.

I had Matt's parts, flipped ball joints, ball joint spacers, short snubbers. They are all show and not serious off road hardware. Camber is horrible but some people want the inexpensive lifted look for blvd cruising.


The last two troopers Matt has run have SAS. I'm sure he will tell you a fully cranked trooper at 2 or 2.5 " has the axles at extreme angles, and won't last in serious off roading.

[paulevans76]

They'll do fine for most stuff. Extreme rockcrawling, no, but for doing the local bog or some trails it'll hold for a while. Matt's parts don't really make it stronger, just give you some travel back after cranking.

If you want to keep the ifs go with a 3" body, 2" crank and shackles and some 33's. You can get 2" drop diff plates to keep the cv's straight (from trooper4life) and some tie rod shields from joe darlington to keep those from blowing and you'll be ready for anything except competition. You'll have about 6-8" of travel in the front and good flex out back. Weld up the rear and tackle the trail.

I'm trying to keep my IFS and I'm trying to make a 4-5" drop diff with 2nd gen a-arms, cv's and spindles with some cross-linked air shocks and a spring over in the rear. It should end up working about as good as a low-lift SAS. CV's really aren't as hard to change as people think.

If you have some dough and skills and tools, by all means go ahead and tread the trodden SAS trail.:D :flipoff2:

Paul

[AirTrooper]

disagree about everything but extreme rock crawling.

Ours were destroyed in pretty mild climbing at Marshall Creek here north of fort worth.

If you have the talent to do drop plates and can weld, you can do SAS.

[james west]

if your were breaking IFS in "mild" stuff, you were doing something wrong.....

the guy who started this thread said he wanted to do trails, not ARCA competition

i had mine airborn, and did some stoopid shit with it...never broke:D...and that was fully tweeked up front with all the shit to gain travel, including homemade 1/2" spacers

but i wouldnt try to drop the axle and shit, just SAS it, it WILL work better, and its easier...unless you walker evens or something

but dont do a :rainbow: bodylift, fucks up center of gravity and looks dumb...just cut the sheetmetal to make whatever tires you want fit.....thats my ultimate suggestion, forget all the lift on the IFS, keep it stock and reliable...just cut the metal

[Rip DeLips]

I broke TWO half shafts in under a year...with no lift and 30x9.50's. Roll it like ya stole it. ;)

[mlclark]

Originally posted by AirTrooper
On the trooper the outer is a CV the inner is a birfield. TAke a look

Close. The outer CV is a Birfield. (All Birfields are CVs, but not all CV's are Birfields :D) The inner joint is a Double Offset Joint. The DOJ allows for angles and length changes as the suspension cycles.

More useless Isuzu trivia for ya.

Michael

[fledgling666]

i wheel a Kia Sportage, which, i figure is built at LEAST a little weaker than a Trooper due to the difference in weight and projected buyers, anyway, my point is, i rockcrawl some pretty serious stuff as often as i can and have, to date, only blown one CV. granted, i don't have lockers front and rear but i do have a rear Eaton posi and i use my brakes to keep both axles turning the same speed and direction as often as i can. i have blown a couple hubs as well, but i would imagine since i built a lot more droop into my IFS and didn't drop the diff, and i crawl a lotta rocks and i'm running 32's, that i would have broken more stuff by now, but it just hasn't happened, could be that i don't normally throttle it much unless i have to, but who knows? i do know it takes a lot to blow a CV, i was fully flexed, right tire drooped all the way and turned left at full lock, then i jammed on the gas and the tire was spinning when it came down to the ground. as soon as it touched, the inner CV crown just walked out the back of the CV cup, spilling all the balls and sounding like a shotgun discharge.

[MountainGoat]

You could do a 2"susp lift (Indy4x, DOR, or Calmini) and drop the diff 1.5-2" (Trooper4life) to straighten your axle back out. You could then do the ball joint flip (Indy4x, DOR, or Calmini) to fix what minimal camber issues you'd have...that can drop and stuff 32x11.50 with ease at max deviation, cut away a little to fit 33's. I put a 3"BL on mine, and it does fawk it up, i'm still trying to find the source of strange sounds. And it you leave the t-bars cranked without correcting the cv angle, you will rip cv boots...both my inner boots were ripped in 2 weeks. Also, get manual hubs, so that your cv shafts aren't spinning unless you're wheel'n, saves cv boots, ect.

[paulevans76]

When i was runnin skinny 33's w/ just t-bar crankage and long ass shackles, I used to beat the shit out of it and NEVER broke anything (besides the engine). I hooked up to a pole that my buddy wanted out of his yard. about 8" in diameter. I had it in 4 low, reverse, dumping the clutch at big rpms. no probs. couldn't get the pole out tho:flipoff2:

Run it till ya break it and then go SAS.

oh yeah, don't for get the manual hubs up front. they will help keep the ifs alive longer.

[Spaceman]

You don't really say what rig you have with an IFS. Most people that have been responding have been talking about troopers.

I have a 1999 Amigo, with about 3 inches of 'crank' on the t-bars and corresponding lift in the rear and I am running 33s. There are a NUMBER of other people that have the same setup and at least a couple that run 35s, with NO significant front end damage to speak of (power steering seals not included). There are also a number of trooper owners that show up each year at Moabzu with tires that *seem* to be a lot bigger than stock (32s and 33s). They manage to wheel the snot out of their rigs on hard trails and don't break anything.

I don't know exactly why AirTrooper had problems with his trooper, but I would count that as a minority opinion, certainly not what I have seen over the last 4 or so years at Moabzu, Crawloween, ColoradoZu, etc.

Oh, and I don't exactly baby the Amigo either :D :



http://www.trailseeker.com/4x4/moabzuVI/7MR-ladies/images/7MR-locomigo%20102.jpg

[AirTrooper]

"if your were breaking IFS in "mild" stuff, you were doing something wrong..... "

so according to the original post, your telling this guy he can run 33 to 36" tires with cranked torsion bars and if anything breaks, he will also "be doing something wrong"

I'm outa here...

[StinkBug]

Funny thing airtrooper, you seem to be the only one here complaining.

Anything you do to modify your rig can have effects on reliability, but IMHO the 10 bolt front end is pretty decent. I ran 32s on mine with the front end absolutely maxed out for about a year of almost constant abuse both off road, and on road delivering pizzas, and I never broke a CV and tore only 1 boot. The tie rods and CVs are definitely the weak points, and i've seen plenty of em break, but in general you should be ok. I'm a lot more worried about blowing up shafts in my front 44 with 37s than i was with the stock IFS and 32s. Also your comments about alignment dont make sense to me, I had my front end cranked over 3" and with the spacers I was still able to align it. sounds like someone is just bitter to me :D

Dallas

[Locomigo]

Originally posted by AirTrooper
"if your were breaking IFS in "mild" stuff, you were doing something wrong..... "

so according to the original post, your telling this guy he can run 33 to 36" tires with cranked torsion bars and if anything breaks, he will also "be doing something wrong"

I'm outa here...




:crybaby: :flipoff2: STFU NOOB! :crybaby2: :flipoff2:



I dont see what you are crying about man, I ,like Jeff, run 33s, run 4+ on a 5 scale and 9 on a 10 scale trails routinely, and have done well.

You should be able to run 33s without a problem on most anything IFS Isuzu. Some exceptions, but I wont go into those. The 10 bolt holds up well.

[Urban_Assault]

I have the Indy 4x 3" susp. lift on my Rodeo and wheeled all the time.Not doing extreme stuff but trail riding and having fun and it took me a whole lot of stupidity to break anything and it was the spider gears NOT the CV's.Both CV's were fine and I grenaded the diff.So I guess what I am saying is Yes 33's will be fine and AirTrooper is:rainbow:

So see ya:flipoff2:

[paulevans76]

air trooper chill out. you have an 8 bolt front it's a piece of shit, the 10 bolt is too, but to a lesser extent. it's ok to be wrong, man. besides, you don't have to worry about it, IIRC, you are going sas.:flipoff2:

[maxwell417]

At Co 'Zu this weekend, us lifted Troopers and Amigos running 33's, ran some very tough trails. Like Holy Cross, Chinaman Gulch, Wheeler lake. No breakage, no broken cv's or tie rods. Pictures here. (http://community.webshots.com/album/85624125FcZZIw) and here (http://community.webshots.com/album/85630134LuPGtg)

[RodeoRob]

Originally posted by paulevans76
It should end up working about as good as a low-lift SAS.

work as good? maybe depending on what your definition of that may be, but be close to as strong/reliable as a SAS (assuming we're talking about D44 or Toyota mini truck), never, not even close. I don't care how much drop axle you got, or what you do to the Isuzu 10bolt, for a given tire size, the SAS will be loads stronger.

My take on the situation? The isuzu 10bolt IFS is good for about 33's locked and 35's open. both situations would greatly benefit from a drop diff and some sort of tie rod beef. but no matter what you do, if you wheel it, time will catch up with you and you will break CVs. how soon and how often, depends on your driving style, but i promise you it will happen. I had have run both of those tire sizes on my Rodeo's IFS before going SAS.

-Rob

[Tuite]

I thinks 33s are fine with the IFS..35s if you want to be careful. I've only broken two with 33s and I beat it worse than most people beat a rental.

The only times I've broken I had the steering almost maxed and came down on a spinning airborne tire while not making forward progress or rolling back. This was with 33s and blew the outer joint. But you can get a new halfshaft fromcar-part (http://www.car-part.com) for like $50 shipped.

[paulevans76]

I like to hit the dunes and do fast shit, so your right maybe not as strong, but there are some advantages. This is turning into ifs vs sas and I KNOW sas is better for most stuff. but its ok to want to build on an ifs platform and make it work better. so thats what I'm gonna try to do.:flipoff2:

[Urban_Assault]

I had dealt with a guy on Club Vmag a while back that said he had some fancy CV's built for him.He was running a locked Rodeo with 35's and says he never broke it.Take it for what it's worth(you could be talking to Pres. Bush right now if that's what I tell you).I don't really know if he was for real or not because he never posted the info I asked for.It might be a path to tread on though.See if you can get some of those really expensive new "CV's" made for your ride.:vader2:

[paulevans76]

cornay jointed halfshafts and big ol long a arms would be awesome, but mighty expensive. have you seen the video of their race truck from their website? its got em and it is badass:eek:


look if you want to tweak your ifs until it blows, go for it, its fun to break stuff. then you have a real good reason to buy a plasma cutter.

[Marmot]

Originally posted by Lil Uzi
4runner with ARBs f/r and stock IFS went through the Rubicon fine last year (Jeff the Marmot). He's been runnin that way for a while. .... I gather that the Isuzu IFS is comparable to the Toy....
:D OK, so I'm jumping on this thread really late, but at least it was still on the first page of threads. :p

Does anyone with a 2nd gen Amigo or Rodeo have a spare front axle that they could measure the narrowest cross-section of a front half-shaft? I'd guess the narrowest point would be at the splines at either end. I'm curious about specifics of how my Toy IFS axle compares.

For the last few years of wheeling with Isuzus, I've assumed my Toy has comparable strength parts of an Isuzu. For example, the rear axles on both have a narrowest section about 1.31-1.32" diameter. But after I broke my front outermost axle (just inside the hub), I'm well aware that the narrowest part of my front axle is a wimpy 1.05" inside the groove at the end of the splines. Pic here. (http://www.trailseeker.com/4x4/mods/4runner/pics/broken%20newfield.jpg) Aaron (BlueDodge) reminded me that max torsion on an axle is calculated using the 4th power of the radius. So a slightly larger diameter can mean a big improvement in strength.

Back when Corbin's '98 Amigo still had IFS, 33's, and no front locker, I was amazed he never broke a front axle. I saw him bounce and spin that thing multiple times. Just based on that, I wouldn't be surprised if the Isuzu IFS front axle is a larger diameter than the Toy's IFS front axle.

The Rubicon was a fun trail for me. I didn't have to spin/bounce to get through it and I didn't break anything. But in Pritchett Canyon I had to try to use momentum to get up stuff (rated 5 out of 5) and so I broke an axle even on a small bounce. I'm now not too thrilled about the strength of the front axles since I have an idea of how much they can take.

Since I broke my heat-treated Newfield axle from CV Unlimited (http://www.cvunlimited.com), I know I got more torque out of it than a stock or other common over-the-counter axle. All the breaks I've seen on other's 4Runners are smooth perpendicular shear (brittle) breaks, as opposed to my spiral ductile break which is characteristic of heat-treatment, such as what longfields look like when they break. I just wanted to add that if you're determined to stick with IFS, the CV Unlimited Newfield axles do seem to be stronger than stock. But they're still a long ways from the strength of a larger axle.

In the end it's still a tiny diameter axle that's holding me back. To get a larger diameter axle, I'd have to replace the diff, ADD, and hub, which basically means a SAS is the only choice. I know the wimpy front axle diameter is the primary reason for a couple 3rd gen 4Runners to now be working on a SAS. At least the Toy rack and pinion steering holds up much better than the Isuzu's, which I know was the primary reason for a few 2nd gen Isuzu SAS's. :p :D

[paulevans76]

don't have any specs for you, but I am throwin in the towel. A.-no money. B.-have to sell the rig. C.-when i was really trying to do it, I kept changint my mind about trying to use 1st or 2nd gen stuff. D.-tools got stolen and I don't have enough to do much of anything.
In about a year I'll have another decent rig. probably something with solid axles:flipoff2:

[OverThrottle]

When I bought my trooper the previous ownder had fitted 33"' mud king simply by cranking the torison bars and adding longer shackles. It also was open both front and rear with manual Warn hub-locks up front. I broke 3 shafts in less then a year with this setup, no rock-crawling, just trails. I could torque them for all the motoer had on level ground and never have a problem, they always seemed to break when I was flexing one wheel up while the other stayed on level ground. Two of the times I was not even giving it hardly any throttle. In fact I borke one of them simply by driving slightly up an embankmant with one tire on the side of the road to allow another rig going the other way to get through.

I am also pretty hard on the vehicle, but almost every CV breakage I wasn't being so at the time. I actually completely destroyed both the inner and outer wheel bearing on my front right hub once by launching it out of a mud hole. I probably would have broke a shaft except I had already broken it earlier on that trip and was resorting to using lots of momentum and 2W hi. I tried driving it home and had to stop when my hub welded solid to the spindle on the freeway :D .

[OverThrottle]

Heres a pic of the hub after the bearings had welded together. I tried beating it apart for several hours and finally had to resort to using the oxy-acet cutting torch to get them seperated. It was kind of ironic the most expensive damage (had to buy a new spindle and hub) was done using 2WD .

[maxwell417]

OverThrottle ... by your profile, you have a 86 Isuzu Trooper it has the weaker 8 bolt front axle. It seem to be much weaker than the 87.5 and later 10 bolt front axle. And who knows if the front bearings were ever repacked (just guessing). Just from what I hear the 8 bolt front end is maxed out at 30" tires.

[OverThrottle]

Yes the trooper was either an 86 or an 87, but due to the axle problems I had and your info it was more likely to be the 86.

As far as the bearings go, I know that they were definetely repacked. I also know that they failed to due to jumping the front end out of a mud hole. There was definite crunch on the landing, and you could hear the bearing fragments when the hub was rotated. The welding of the peices came when I tried to drive it home, since it was a beater toy anyways, and I didn't have a tow rig at that point in time.