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IFS plans

nissanboy

Explorer Addict
Joined
December 24, 2003
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City, State
Winston Salem, NC
Year, Model & Trim Level
97 XLT 4.0 4x4
just ordered the front kit from superlift to add on to my existing Torsion twist lift. Now im thinking about running 37's on IFS.

Things i know i need to consider are
1) Ball Joints
2) Wheel Bearings
3) CV strength

I have already deal with my wheel bearing problem by replacing them with f150 units from a 99 F150. This took some minor fabrication and had to rebuild my outer CV joint using half explorer parts and half F150 parts. To do this you need to dremel out the bearing races inside the joint to accept the larger bearings the f150 uses.

For the ball joint issue I have been thinking about uniball setups using heim joints instead of ball joints. I have sourced some 1" Heims from McMaster Carr that will hold up 1200Ft/lbs of torque and have a shear rating of 10000lbs. using these for upp and lower ball joints would greatly increase the durablility of the joints and should one go bad it will be easier to replase due to the simplicity of the joints and cheaper than having a factory ball joint replaced. The heims are only 24.50 each.

Then to address the CV strength i have been toying with the idea of just using complet F150 units and having a splined adapter made to use the f150 CV's with the explorer differential.

Now before everyone starts telling me its a waste of time i want to let everyone know that i know it is. I just dont want to do a Solid Axle. Its the easy way out. I want to do something unique that hasnt been seen yet.

So that being said can anyone help me find some more weak links that will need to be worked out or see any flaws with my current plan.

As of March 2005 money isnt going to be as big an issue as my truck will be the sole sponsored truck of Keenesaw Mtn Accessories and they will be fronting most of the cost.
 



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Inner tie rods and steering in general. Inner tie rods wear quickly (<10k mi) with larger tires. A few have busted steering racks, or ripped them from the frame running 35's
 






Tranny, turning 37's will be a chore for the tranny.
 






will the tranny really be all that bad.... i know there are some SAS rigs out there running 38s on a solid axle with 4.88 gears. so why not run some 4.88s with 37's?

Steering shouldnt be an issue... worst case scenario i mount a steering box and use a calmini steering setup made for nissan rigged for explorer since they use the same taper ont he TRE's. I honestly thing with the proper steering stabilizer valving and propper bracing for the actual rack there shouldnt be a problem with the factory rack and pinion.
 






Dude, you'll grenade your cv axles, tie rods, ball joint if you put 37s on your IFS. Don't go any larger than 35s on a IFS. If you wanna run something larger than 35s, do a Solid axle swap.
 












hey ben... doesnt this sound "exactly" like that thread i started a few weeks ago?

im gonna go dig that up..
 












i read over that a lot of times... and if you even bothered reading my post i adressed each item that was brought up.

My setup will no longer use ball joints cause they suck. Instead it will use Uniball setup much liek the desert racing trucks run.

for the steering im gonn run dual stabilizers to reduce the shock load brace teh rack to the x-member since it has been noted that some people tear them off the frame.

and for the CV's its all wheeling style. If you have front and rear lockers and can crawl over stuff the CV's will last just as long as hammering on em with open diffs and 31's. It is all about sudden shock. Constant torque they can handle. if it does become an issue with breaking CV's i will just have to go to a Drag Racing shop and have some custom CV's made to handle the added stress. ONly other thing i have the slightest concern about is the carrier int eh front diff. It is only 3/8" smaller than a d44 carrier though so i doubt i have anything to worry about as far as internals go.
 






Blee1099 said:
Dude, you'll grenade your cv axles, tie rods, ball joint if you put 37s on your IFS. Don't go any larger than 35s on a IFS. If you wanna run something larger than 35s, do a Solid axle swap.



Ding Ding Ding Ding DIng Ding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ran 35's on my IFS for a year and a half and it started to fall apart. Let chad(nissanboy) be chad though. He can always make **** better, when me meet up for the next wheeling run we will see who does better, bwahhahahahahahahaahah!!!!!!!!!!............................j/k

I have heard some cool stories anout him ghetto rigging his nissan IFS.All power to u chad if u can do this successfully, im not saying its a bad idea but why not throw a 30 or 44 under there for the same price?.IM not sure whats going on in chads head. Do what u want to do, its your truck. Good luck and get that bi**ch going

Matt
:p
 






if i wanted to be a lemming i would do a solid axle swap. I want something different and unique.

now please make suggestions on the custom work not on the factory BS... if you even bothered reading the first post everythign you keep mentioning has been addressed in my plan. I only want advice on other items that might need to be reinforced.
 






Most of the responses are negative and I hate to be one of them, but.......
I had a chat with DBR-EDGE from Dixon Brothers Racing. He indicated that the heim joints don't have as much articulation as ball joints do. I was thinking of fabricating some upper and lower control arms (to use heim joints [fish eye bearings]) but, apparently, Dixon had tried this and it's kind of a dead end.

Hope this helps - Dave.
 






trail running doesnt need articulation IMHO... it helps sure but for 90% of the trails out there lock the front and let he tires lift. Lock the rear and let them push. But when peopel say that Heims dont flex as much as ball joints that is a no brainer. But factory suspension limits the travel of the ball joints by setting up the angles so the ball joints are already about 2/3rd s the way through their range of motion. you can take that same ball joint and mount it on t aplate to correct for the angles and get much more travel from the factory suspenion... hence ball joint spacers.
 






Still no mention of the tranny......
 






FordBeast98 said:
Ding Ding Ding Ding DIng Ding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ran 35's on my IFS for a year and a half and it started to fall apart. Let chad(nissanboy) be chad though. He can always make **** better, when me meet up for the next wheeling run we will see who does better, bwahhahahahahahahaahah!!!!!!!!!!............................j/k

I have heard some cool stories anout him ghetto rigging his nissan IFS.All power to u chad if u can do this successfully, im not saying its a bad idea but why not throw a 30 or 44 under there for the same price?.IM not sure whats going on in chads head. Do what u want to do, its your truck. Good luck and get that bi**ch going

Matt
:p

Anytime you go bigger than stock, your front end components will wear out faster.. I'm sure Doug and quote a few other members who are running 35s could vouch for that.
 






well if he swaps things out from a newer f-150 (has an 8.8 front pumpkin) he easily could make this work. Now unless there is a large discount for the items it wouldn't be worth skipping a sas for it.
 






I'll chime in again. . .

Ball joints vs. heims: I never had a problem with my stock ball joints, even after running 35's for ~2 years. As for heims not having as much movement, yes thats true, but there are ways to get around that. Just look at the front end of any trophy truck.

Transmssion: He's got a 5R55E and if you've been keeping up with Glacier and Brain's threads they are somewhat supperior to the A4LD. Just look at the tear-down of mine w/ 90k mi on it (in Brains thread). It's still in decent shape. I would go with 5.13's though (would equate to having 4.10's stock), but 4.88's should work alright.

Diff: you mention that the ring gear is only fractions of an inch smaller than a D44. That may be true, but the carrier is much smaller. I still wouldn't be concerned w/ the carrier though. Just look at what JohnStone did to his housing. The aluminum housing won't hold up forever, but you'll likely break CV's first.

Frame: The IFS brackets on my truck had been bent quite a bit by the time I cut them all off. I think you're running the superlift 4" kit. I'm not sure if that kit braces the back points of the lower control arms, but that should be necesary. And just know that with everything droped 4" the frame brackets are going to bend more easily since there is more leverage.

Now, if I had this crazy train of thought w/ custom CV's and heim'd control arms, I would at least widen the stance a bit and throw in some coil-overs. That way you can get a little more articulation out of it, and ditch the torsion bars.

*Note: all of this is advice I give after seeing how my front end held up in the 2 years of running 35's, and with my style of wheeling. I do try crazy stuff, but I'm not one to punch the throttle, which is why I never broke a CV, but still all this stuff I'm mentioning wore out and needed replacing over the years.
 






well i have been on 35's for a few months now... nothing seems to be wearing extremely quickly. My sponsor and I have designed a "brace bar" for the superlift kit to prevent it from flexing rearward or forward. it ties the bracketry into the fame right at the t-case x-member.

The way we have been discussing custom a-arms is to make them so i can adjust the trac width should i ever decide to widen my stance. But for now i want a semi factory width IFS. the Upper arms will be finished by christmas time and the lowers will hopefully be done by march.

If and when the housing grenades i will replace it with a F150 8.8 IFS.

The main reason i want to keep IFS is the type of wheeling i do around here. I run high speed on gravel roads for 10-15 miles between trails and IFS soaks up the washboards and potholes so much nicer. And if Walker Evans can run IFS for half a season in a UROCC i can run IFS on most trails in the country.
 



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nissanboy said:
The main reason i want to keep IFS is the type of wheeling i do around here. I run high speed on gravel roads for 10-15 miles between trails and IFS soaks up the washboards and potholes so much nicer.
I dunno. I like my solid axle so much better than the IFS, especially doing high speed stuff. The increased travel (28" vs 8") far outweighs the unsprung weight effects.
 






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