Frame braces?

There's really no such thing. Frame rigidity w/o insufferable weight has been the goal of OEs, sports car builders and racers forever.

Absolutely correct.

Agree. Similar designs are classic budget racer stiffening techniques. For anything that is regularly street driven, it should provide quite adequate beefing up. Get into trailered rock crawler stuff, and we enter another league. But there aren't many of those around.

That is correct. The more rigid the frame, the more the suspension and tires do their job. Some fairly straightforward chassis stiffening on my race prepped street car did wonders for making my higher dollar suspension and soft tires do their job.

 

On rough roads my 2nd gen Tacoma felt loose. Harsh bumps would reverberate through the frame, the bed shook and the doors rattled. My 2nd gen Frontier feels solid, I can feel the suspension working on the same rough gravel roads. The bed and doors don't shake, no reverberation over bumps.

I haven't had much seat time in a 3rd gen but I understand the chassis is essentially the same. I could see why people might want to box the frame if that's the case.

 

Well we just so happen to be working on a heavy duty shackle hanger replacement right now.

We have a few tester trucks getting them after the new year so we should have something strong on the market soon after.

 

one more thing to add to my list. maybe can ship same time as the diff skids?

 

Hot damn, I'm interested! Here I was looking at fabbing up a way to be the only 3rd genner with an Xrunner brace.

So it won't be a shackle flip or anything, just a straight up HD replacement?
I think that sounds pretty neato. I may hit you up to see if there would be a way to fab a custom one to give me just a hair of lift, like 1/2," as I want to have a little bit of my factory rake back, but everything out there is either a block or an AAL that gives me way too much.

 

Yes no shackle flip a heavy duty replacement and new shackles.

 

Bump!

@JLee , any more details on this kit? Prototype pics / estimated pricing / anything like that?

You'll have to forgive me if this is already posted up somewhere, I know it says you are a vendor here but do you have a website?

 

http://www.bayareametalfab.com/

 

other than serious jumps and desert racing I dont see a need for it.
Unless you've got some serious long travel build going don't see a point

 

lol. logic/worth it is irrelevant in tw. i think the most necessary thing I've bought for my truck was 12v cell phone charger. nm the other 10 grand I've spent on my mall crawler.

 

What I want to avoid is this. Supposedly, this is possible with not that much abuse. I won't get into whether that's true or not, but suffice it to say it is a bad outcome I don't want to deal with.

We can argue need vs want all day, but for what I'm gonna guess is roughly $200 (at least if it's comparable to other shackle flips) plus a little work, the added insurance is worth it to me.

 

Interesting comparison between the Tacoma and Frontier to relate how poor the rear chassis composure is on the 2nd and 3rd gen Tacoma. The biggest issue is the flimsy stock hangers.

Archive Garage has addressed the issue with the Hammer hangers and the optional cross tube to tie the Hammer hangers, and by extension, the frame rails together. The system gives a big improvement in ride quality, the HH being the biggest portion of the improvement. This helps calm down the signature Tacoma chatter and jitters.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tacoma-hammer-hangers-mid-travel-soa-sua-archive-garage.519625/

https://archivegarage.com/explore-archive/ols/products/tacoma-hammer-hangers

 

For what it's worth I bought a pair of Eric's shackle hangers and they are AWESOME. Completely changed the feeling of the truck.

I am planning on getting a bed rack to move my spare to the bed and then brace up the hangers with the cross tube (or maybe make my own...) which I'm sure is gonna make things even better.

 

Thanks for the endorsement! The cross tube does improve on top of hangers by an estimated 10-20% near stock weight, I wonder possibly more loaded up

 

If you wanted the stock length shackle to get the 1/2” lift. Is there a heavy duty shackle to accompany that? On you site I just saw the longer than stock shackle and the bushings for stock shackle.

 

Mike Sweers says the Tacoma's frame flex is a feature.

 

Poor engineering either way, 4th gen Tacoma needs to be way better

It seems the hangers are designed to bend, at the cost of a decent ride. But how TW members have bent hangers and the frame, I've seen several

 

The 3.6" shackles are essentially a replacement for the stock 3.4" shackles, no noticeable difference in height. The 4.5" are the long option

Eric

 

And amusing.

 

Don't hold your breath. Also Sweers is a marketer, he's gotta come up with a better answer than "it saves Toyota $XXX per unit and almost no one notices the difference anyways."

A boxed frame really is the best but it also adds cost and weight.

I think the upgraded hangers and a cross tube are a good 80/20... most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost of boxing everything out. Like I said, the stock springs that everyone bemoans are totally transformed when their anchors are not flapping like a screen door in a stiff breeze.