Hi everyone. I came across here and thought I would join. Very cool place.

As for me, Ive been steadily upgrading my 82 2wd longbed for about 2 years now. Everything fom a hybrid 20/22R motor w lots o porting, w58, 84+ front suspension, and my fav mod yet Ls400 front brakes.

Ive been reading and getting excited about you guys who drop the trucks arond 5 inches. I think it looks great w/ 17s. nice and tucked.

Here are some pics (im posting photobucket links so ??? if dats what you guys do).

Anyway, great to be here! Oliver.

With 3in blocks since removed


Bad boys. They work gooood.

Another one

 

Welcome to TM! Good lookin truck, I like the fender flares!

 

more details on the brakes please. lol.

 

looks great! those aren't Supra front spindles right? (from what i see lol)

I think the round headlights would look sexy on your truck!

Anyway, truck looks great!

 

ya im interested in the brakes.

 

I thought about round headlights for a while, sorta a JDM look, but then I saw this bad boy...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdettling/2763251289/in/photostream/

As for thew brakes, those are 84-95 truck spindles.A (95?) or 96 LS400 caliper bracket just needs a little grinding, then drilling and tapping the upper spindle to caliper bolt. The bottom bolt hole on the bracket's stock.

So LS400 rotors, pads, calipers, caliper brackets, and brake hoses.

The rotor hub opening has to be ground out, and centered onto the hub. Then I just bolted it together. They *just* fit under my 16in wheels. Insane front braking power.

Strait out of the JY.

Modified caliper bracket. Notice 32V- refrencing the 32V 4.0

Double 36MM floating caliper. They're heavy sobs...

All done ready to bolt on.


On a side note. How do I edit down the gigantic picture size?

 

Welcome to TM! Sick brake mod! I've never seen that mod before. As for giant pics, we love em around here!

 

yeah, keep the pics the same size. that is sick with the brakes. why'd you take out the lowering blocks? welcome to tm

 

Shadetree- Ive spent alot of time roaming junkyards lookin for different stuff. One day I was just walking by a LS400 and it dawned on me. Got the stuff on half off day real cheap and went from there.



The blocks made the truck look much better. But it handled and rode terrible. Spindles, arms and a dropped ladder bar rear are on the burner....



For some reason I thought the big pics would somehow insulting. Good to know.

 

yeah, i hope to find some leafs for my truck. i know belltech makes drop leafs for your year, but so far all i can find is a complete kit for mine. my front is low enough, i just want leafs in the back, no blocks.

 

welcome to the site man. some very impressive brake job there.

as for the rear drop, you might wanna play around with the leaf pack in order to improve the ride with the blocks...... good shocks will also make a big difference and you might wanna remove 1 or 2 leafs out of the pack when you drop it, and leave the overload in with about 1/3 of it cut off the back.

 

I was looking at beltech springs. They say there 3in drop.

Do they still have a high (stock) spring rate? As in they dont overload as easy as leaf removed springs. I really dont like that 1-2 inch to frame bounce.

Is the spring rate higher? Because they are bent to be lower? At 170 bucks it sure is tempting...

Info please guys.

 

not sure about them compared to stock, but check out streetbeatcustoms.com they are 132 something and 183 shipped to you

 

I don't know anything about those aftermarket springs, but I wanted to point out you can alleviate a lot of the "1-2 inch to frame bounce" by just trimming your rear bump stops down so they are only a half inch thick or so. I don't know, maybe you already tried the removing the middle leaf method, but I think it's well worth the cost (free) to do it even temporarily to see if you like it. You can always put the middle leaf back in later.

 

+1 on trimming bumpstops

 

When I did the blocks, I unbolted the rubber bounce stops. So literally it slapped frame.I never unbolted springs and removed leafs, so maybe I'll try.




Heres some more humungus pics....

Just a rear shot.

A snap shot when I had a coolant leak
A 20R intake with a *little* gasket matching.

 

Man you werent kidding when you said you took off alot of meat!

 

Shoulda been a butcher...

 

I just got a set off ebay for $35 each plus $20 shipping, so it came to about $90...

they are much better than the "pull the middle leaf"

they are two full length leafs without the overload bottom leaf, much better spring rate and more set for a car like ride, don't plan on hauling anything with any weight anymore though


here is the link
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...0370324562&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MEWNX:IT

 

Wow, those seem like a great deal! So did you have the middle leafs pulled before you installed these? I am wondering how they compared to the stock spring packs too. It would be neat to see a picture of these next to the stock spring pack with the middle leaf pulled for comparison. I wonder how much less arc they have to them and what the spring rate is?