Maximizing flex on Lexi the Lx450

As of lately I have been trying to maximize & get the most of what my LX suspension can give me. Learning the capabilities & limitations of my suspension has been a huge learning curve for me. I have realized I really can't go to far "outside the box" on what works & has already been done by the many 80 owners that ave been there & done that years before me. I now know that OME did a good job with the L shock for the reason is the front suspension doesn't want to drop out much past the L shock extended length of 26.5" measured at the shock collars. Anything more than that will start releasing coils & hitting tie rod to control arm on full flex.
I did try the sway bar & hitch pin mods & on my set up it started having problems around the 27" drop out mark. This is with OME yellow CC bushings. 

Getting 11.3" of travel out of a shock that compresses to 15.25" is also a big deal. The only negative I have herd is they are very stiff... this is why I have stayed away from getting them. (EDITED LATER: I now have these shocks. They are firm & stable).  As far as the OME 1.5" coils, they flex very well to that certain point. The coil springs offer a ride that a leaf spring will never offer, but In my opinion the front suspension can't even compare to the leaf spring over full axle fj40 I use to have. It's a tradeoff, ride or flex.

At this time I am very happy with my LX450 & what it can do.

My R&D phase is complete. There are only a couple things I can do later to increase flexibility. One is to do a body lift & go back to the stock bumps stops,(Edited later: I did do this & it works very well) this would allow more room for up travel. The reason is the hitch pin & sway bar disconnected mods want to offer more up travel than down. A body lift will give the extra fender clearance needed for more front tuck.

The 1st pic here has a pulled hitch pin, sway bar connected & stock bump stops. See how the driver tire is stuffed more compared to the 2nd pic which has the 1.5" bump stops.

I also just wanted to add that I'm looking forward to getting the LX out on the trail this summer & getting some seat time, I'm long over due.

RS9000XL (999234) Rear install on my LX450

I sold the 265s tires so I was able to get another set of the Rancho RS9000XLs for the rear of my tight little ride. With the 16.5" to 27" measurements they fit perfect.
The only mod I had to do was change out the bottom bushing to a fatty size, 14/32" inside demention to be exact. They have a 4.5" up 6" down travel.

~~~~~3-31-15 update~~~~~

After doing a test run, it looks like I will install the 1.25" bumpstops. When compressed my test zip tie is all the way up, which means it's to close.

Passenger side pulled hitch pin mod

Today I pulled the front passenger arm bolt with sway bar connected. It did not have the extreme drop that was like the drivers side which was the result I was after, the less drop was most likely due to the front panhard bar & sway bar connected.  The front end did feel more free. The negitive was it was into the passenger side tie rod. The drop out measurements was 27". 

That is only a .5" more drop from it all connected this is measured at the shocks.
Once the coils start releasing there is nothing left to push the axle down. I also belive as far as the tie rod, the caster bushings & arms might have different results with bind if you play with maybe lowering the aft part of the arms via something like the Man-a-fre caster brackets. Just a thought.

I'm pretty much done playing with swaybar & pin mods for now. Another thought is to raise the fenders via body lift to allow the more up travel that the disconnected mods have to offer.
Again, all these results are from a 2.5" OME 851+25mm/860 lift w/ 315s tires.
Hope this helps
Gary

Rancho RS9000XL actually 999234s...

I bought some Rancho RS999234XLs for the rear but I was curious of how they compare to the Doetsch Tech 812SS that I have had up front so I made some U brackets & slapped them on. They measure out as 16.5" to 27" & with the 1.5" U bracket its 18" to 28.5" With the previous measured l.5" bumpstop length of 19" compressed this works just fine.

Front bump stop pucks 1.5"

I installed front bump stops today. It is something I have been needing to do for awhile. They are 1.5" which leaves 19" compressed & with 18" compressed shocks mathematically works. Hopefully it fiscally it works also. Here are some pics.

Slee rear sway bar brackets

I was able to put on the Slee rear sway bar brackets tonight. The best part was my girls helped me wrench on them. I took longer with them but I enjoyed every minute of it. They seemed to like it also.

Hitch pin pulled & sway bar disconnected...

I did the hitch pin mod on the LX450 this morning to see if what they say really works & this is what I found out:

I disconnected the sway bar & it did help with more up travel than it did down. I had smaller tires on at the time & it only maybe dropped a half a inch, not worth the effort. 

But today I pulled the bolt out of the front drive control arm ("hitch pin mod"). 

This also was just acting like the sway bar with same results. 

But here is the good part.
With both disconnected created a tremendious results. 

The coil released out & dropped by 3" the shock went to full drop of 29".
This is a 3" improvemnt of drop. 

This created a whole bunch of other rubbing issues with the tie rod hitting the control arms. 

 Heres a video, click it & enjoy the ride.

As for now...I'm putting it all back, pulling the pin created more other rubbing problems than I'm ready to deal with... I will work on this later down the road... It's good to know there are more options for a more extreme results.

 
 
 
I did the other side. Here is the results.
http://projectfj4door.blogspot.com/2015/03/passenger-side-hitch-pin-mod.html

"Whoops" Testing the new shocks on the LX450

Rear shocks

I put some shock extension blocks on the rear stock shocks because it only had 2.5" of down travel. Now the it has 5" with the 2.5" tubing.

The exact specs are:

My static height is 21.5"

My stock shocks are 14.3" to 23.3"

Stock with 2.5" x 1.5" tubing plus washers is 17" to 26.5"

Shock removed the suspension is 16.5 to 26.5"

This is all with no swaybar extention. 

The result of this has made the suspension feel more balanced & doesn't carry tires as much.

My tight little ride got some 315s today

My tight little ride got some 315s today.
The E rating has a firmer sporty feel to them compared to the spungy C rated 35s.

More R&D of the LX450 suspension.

I have been doing alot of testing of the capabilities of my front suspension & here is what I have found so far. With no shocks, the measurements came out to 14" to 26". Crazy, that's it. 14" to 26". This is with swaybar installed.

My current set up is the Old Man Emu  medium duty 851 coil in front with a 1" spacer & in the rear is the OME 860 medium. This gives the Cruiser 2.5" inches of lift. I was running stock shocks with a 2.5"x1.5" square block to make the shock taller. Now that you now the basics we can get down to the tech stuff.

The stock shocks are 14" to 24". With the 2.5" extention it was 16.5" to 26.5".

With the 35" tires it worked very well, the front were stuffed but no major rubbing. It needed 1" less up travel to be save for a big hit.

I just resently purchased a set of 812SS shocks from Doetsch Tech. They have 12" of travel. 17" to 29".

This gives me 3" of available down travel. Next is to get the swaybar disconnected & see just how much drop that gives.
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The next day I did disconnected the sway bar & it did help with more up travel than it did down. I had smaller tires on at the time & it only maybe dropped a half a inch, not worth the effort.