Expeditionr

As a dedicated BFGoodrich tire guy for almost ten years, I was surprised to see such a loyal following in the FJ forums for Nitto brand tires, specifically their all-terrain series tire known as the Terra Grappler. The positive feedback for this tire and rating for its performance under the FJ was so overwhelming that I decided to take a chance and branch away from BFG. With the new rear suspension on the way, I decided nothing would complement it better than a new set of shoes. Plus, with the suspension raised three inches higher than stock, the original tire size was going to look somewhat dwarfish. So I decided to upgrade the tire size in the process. After calling around to various tire shops, I finally got a smokin’ deal on five brand new Nitto Terra Grapplers in a size of 295/70R17 and an appointment to get them installed.  For those who may have missed my previous post, I had recently ordered the remaining pieces of a Stage One suspension from Icon Vehicle Dynamics.  So two new springs and shocks, five new tires and one alignment later, I was driving home in a lifted, but very smooth-riding FJ Cruiser.

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One of the more prominent issues I noticed early on when driving the FJ Cruiser was that any stops other than those that were completely controlled (slow and steady), resulted in noticeable nose diving. I was also interested in eliminating the forward rake as a result of the front suspension being positioned much lower than the rear. I’d like to point out that I initially went with stock size BFGoodrich tires in order to maintain some semblance of mileage and avoid having to immediately lift the FJ to accommodate a larger size tire. But after almost a year of driving and nose diving, I decided to finally fix the problem and upgrade some parts in the process.

Based on a good past experience as well as overly-positive input from FJ Cruiser forum members, my first decision was to upgrade my front suspension using 2.5″ racing coil-overs manufactured by Donahoe Racing (DR). It should be noted that Donahoe Racing has since been sold to Icon Vehicle Dynamics (IVD) or Icon as they have now become known in the forums. Icon’s engineering and design of the products is identical to the original product and their reputation for producing quality parts has become very well established in a very short period of time. Even though my first revision coil-overs were DR, for the sake of this post and any future posts, I’ll be referring to the company as Icon, Icon Vehicle Dynamics or IVD since I’m sure anyone looking for this product will want to reference the current company rather than the previous manufacturer.

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