Project Tundra // Winter (Pre-OXW) Update

RXT Rear Suspension

Late last fall, Project Tundra received a pre-production set of ICON Vehicle Dynamics RXT rear suspension – and the change these RXT parts made to the vehicle’s performance was profound.  The RXT system is made up of a user-configurable, Icon leaf spring pack that replaces the OEM Toyota leaf pack. Also included are Tundra specific shocks with increased travel, and a hydraulic bump stop kit.  Taken as a whole, these parts all work together to make your rear suspension next level.  Project Tundra already has the hydraulic bump stop kit, but adding the RXT leafs and shocks made a huge difference in the way the truck performs.  The best part about the RXT kit is that it can be configured to your specific truck and the amount of additional weight you have in your truck bed, so the end result is a system that will deliver much better performance than a one size fits all solution.  Here’s how it all works.

The RXT leafs for the Toyota Tundra can be configured in three ways all depending on how much additional weight is over your truck’s rear axle, or how much lift you want.  The leaf pack comes configured from ICON to handle an additional 250 pounds of payload while providing about 1.75 inches of additional lift.  If you swap out the third leaf in the RXT leaf pack with the provided additonal leaf, the pack will handle an additional 500 pounds of payload and add 3 inches of lift.  Finally, adding the additional leaf to the pack will provide 750 pounds of carrying capacity and add 4 inches of lift to the rear of an unladen Tundra.

I opted for the + 500 pounds option on Project Tundra, as two dirtbikes or our typical gear loadouts with the truck cap and roof rack come in around this mark.

Installing the leaf packs is easily done in the driveway on an afternoon with basic tools and an extra set of hands.  The first thing you’ll need to do is choose what configuration you want the leaf pack in, and then make any desired changes prior to mounting to the vehicle  A couple of C-Clamps will help you keep the packs from disassembling themselves when you loosen the locating bolt, and otherwise the process is well covered in the instructions.  With the packs configured as desired, lift up the back of the truck SAFELY and swap the packs out.

The other part of the RXT equation are the shocks which provide additional stroke over the 2.5 VS CDCV units that we’ve been using.  ICON offers three levels of shocks, named with their Stage-Number convention.  Stage 1 shocks offer vehicle specific valving, Stage 2 adds the CDC Valve, and Stage 3 adds Omega-level shocks that feature rebound and compression damping.  All RXT kits include the hydraulic bump stop Kit – another system we’ve absolutely loved having on Project Tundra.

As I mentioned in the last article, the performance difference realized by installing the IVD suspension on Project Tundra was huge, so the bar was already set quite high when the RXT parts arrived.  The RXT suspension makes a night and day difference over stock leafs or even an add-a-leaf – especially when you’re carrying any kind of weight.

Speaking of the Icon 2.5 VS CDCV shocks I took off the vehicle, I’m happy to report that after a year of use all over the Southwest the shocks are still in great shape and still fully functional.  Yes, there is pitting on the lower shock mounts and the aluminum bodies aren’t as shiny as new, but this wear has been earned from logging thousands of miles bombing around off-road and on wintry roads.  It turns out flying rocks are an equal opportunity destroyer, so I don’t care whose shock you have – pitting and aluminum oxidation are going to happen.  What counts is that all of the ICON shock shafts look great, and all of the seals are holding tight – so these shocks still have plenty of life left in them before they get rebuilt.

The RXT suspension has handled every type of terrain I’ve pointed it at so far with performance that’s perfectly matched to the front end, which is to say that the back end has now been turned up to match the front end.  The ability to set the leaf pack up for your specific vehicle depending on what you do with your truck and how much weight you carry combined with the damping adjustment from the CDCV and Omega level shocks make the RXT system the choice for Tundra rear suspension.

 

 

LINE-X

Spray-In truck bed liners are hands down the best way to project your truckbed from sharp tools, ski edges, car parts, the occasional steel-fab project, and everything else life throws at your truck bed.  The problem is that the OEM spray in liners leave a lot to be desired, which is why I took a trip to San Diego before SoCal Desert Rendezvous to make an appointment at Line-X of San Diego.

At Line-X of San Diego, Dallas and Chris applied their years of experience in truck bed coatings to come up with in a spray in bedliner application for Project Tundra that was exactly what I was looking for.  In addition to protecting the sheet metal, I wanted to do a few custom things that would make the bed of project Tundra better suited to my needs.  First up, I pulled off the stupid plastic caps that run around the bed rails of the truck.  These pointless pieces of plastic exist only to trap dirt and dust, and when sandwiched with a load (like a truck cap) become plastic backed sandpaper that wears on your paint and in no time at all, starts wearing on bare metal.  Taking the plastic caps off also allowed Dallas and Chris to do a true over the rail bedliner, providing extra protection to the bedsides from the truck cap and from me when I’m loading heavy things over the sides of the truck bed.

With all of the holes in the bed rails covered, we then turned our attention to sealing up all of the drain holes in the truck bed to make the thing as dust proof as possible.

Line-X is also a great thing to spray on your truck’s rocker panels to protect them from rocks and other road debris that are constantly tossed up by your tires.  I sprayed the rocker panels on my Tacoma, and it’s held up great to hundreds of thousands of miles of dirt and rocks.  Again Dallas and Chris applied their expert hands and took the time to remove the plastic wheel well trim so that they could tuck the Line-X under the plastic bits once installed – a detail that will only serve to help lengthen the lifespan of Project Tundra’s sheet metal.

Chris and Dallas devoted an entire day to applying Line-X to Project Tundra, and the results of their attention to detail and skill speak for themselves.  Project Tundra’s bed and rocker panels are now armored-up to handle hundreds of thousands of miles of dirt and rock, and all of the gear hauling I can throw in the truck bed.

ABOUT THOSE HUB CAPS

I’ve had a couple of the hub caps on my ICON Alloys Six Speed wheels break, and when I called Icon to asking about buying new hub caps, I was really happy to hear that they’ve redesigned the caps to fix this very issue.  The new hub caps are screwed together (the old design was a snap-fit) and I do not expect to see any failure or issues from this new design.  I need to give ICON props for revising and continuously improving their products, rather than simply selling more copies of an imperfect design.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Yes, Project Tundra will be getting fully armored – but as with any good thing, it takes some time.  So in the mean time I’ve been working with Pelfreybilt Offroad to design brackets for the Tundra’s A-Pillars and stock front bumper, so that I can add some light while I’m waiting for my armor to arrive.  With a bit of time spent in Solidworks, I’ve developed A-Pillar brackets for the Tundra that will hold an XL 80, as well as brackets that will allow me to run a Baja Designs 30” S8 light bar in the stock bumper.

Project Tundra will be receiving it’s armor soon, so I’ll leave this update with a photo I took of what’s to come.  Stop by and see us at the American Adventurist booth at Overland Expo West (PS1) and say hi!

Full disclosure:  ICON Vehicle Dynamics provided the RXT suspension for review and testing purposes at no cost to Chad de Alva or American Adventurist.  Line-X of San Diego installed their products free of charge.

 

 

Project Tundra // Suspension

Back in May, I installed some things on Project Tundra and something weird started happening.  I started getting this muscle soreness whenever I would drive the truck, and the problem seemed to be exacerbated by driving on dirt roads—especially when driving in a spirited manner (If I’m being honest, it happened on paved roads too….especially the twisty-windy ones.)  After seeking the help of various medical professionals with no luck, I took my problem to Google.  Rabbit holes were explored; but to no avail.  Months later, I can only conclude that I’m suffering from the thing that I hope has afflicted everyone who drives a vehicle off road:  Soreness of the face from too many Grins Per Mile.  And I put the blame squarely on the Icon Vehicle Dynamics (IVD) suspension for making my face hurt from grinning so much.

Not only has the raw enjoyment of the truck increased by installing IVD suspension, but the real world performance has improved considerably as well.  As a quiver-of-one vehicle, Project Tundra does everything from long hauls on America’s interstate system, to frequent trips on our favorite dirt roads.  Therefore, the truck’s suspension system needs to keep the vehicle rubber side down while dodging exploding semi-truck tires at 80 MPH in Utah, and soak up washboarded dirt roads in Arizona so that passengers can still play Jenga in the back seat.

Off the dealers’ lot, the stock TRD suspension is respectably capable—but there’s certainly room for improvement.  The folks at Icon Vehicle Dynamics have spent hundreds of man-hours developing suspension products specifically for the Toyota Tundra, and all of this R&D time enables them to suggest specific parts based on how you’re going to use your rig, and what you’re going to carry with it.  After talking about the end state of project tundra and how it would be used, IVD came up with a selection of parts that would make the Tundra perform like a magic carpet over a wide range of loads and roads.

PARTS OF THE PUZZLE

We were fortunate to get our hands on Icon’s new 3.0 Series coilovers and billet Upper Control Arms (UCAs) sporting the Icon Delta Joint for the front end of Project Tundra.  The 3.0 coilovers take the proven performance of the 2.5 Series coilovers and turn everything up to 11.  Everything on the 3.0’s is massive, as are the performance gains they provide over monotube shocks in every metric.  You can’t help but call the stock TRD-stickered Bilstein units ‘cute’ when they’re placed side by side with the 3.0 Series coilovers.  Installing a larger coilover assembly requires installing an aftermarket Upper Control Arm (UCA) that will clear the new coilover, yet this also provides real performance gains for suspension performance.

Icon’s Billet UCA’s with the Delta Joint give Project Tundra more wheel travel in the form of droop travel and the Delta Joint is far stronger than the stock ball joint.  Additional droop travel allows the tires to better stay in contact with the ground as the suspension (and thus tire) is what falls into a hole instead of the whole vehicle, keeping the vehicle more level.  The Delta Joint is a new product from IVD that combines the durability of a ball joint with the range of motion of a uni-ball.  The Delta Joint provides the benefits of both types of joints, and I’m quite eager to see how they hold up in the long run.  The UCA’s also allow for camber and caster adjustments, which can be used to help clear larger tires or dial in additional positive caster to tweak handling performance.

OUT BACK

To keep up with the front end, Icon provided us with their leaf expansion pack, hydraulic bump stop system, and VS 2.5 Series PBR Rear shocks with CDCV.  The leaf expansion pack provides ~1.5 inches of lift to the back of the truck and maintains the load carrying capacity without making Project Tundra ride like a dump truck.  The pack is installed between the stock main and overload spring so that factory towing and load characteristics are retained, and lift and comfort are added.  Icon has something spring related on the horizon that will be of great interest to the overland / adventure travel community and we will be updating this article as details emerge.

The hydraulic bump stop system was added to help keep the rear of Project Tundra in control, especially while carrying the additional loads that overland-style travel typically places on a vehicle.  Toyota’s stock bumpstops are about as soft as a lacrosse ball, and they instantly release all of the energy compressed into them right back out which can cause the back to the vehicle to kick or step out.  The bump stops provide bottom out control and are speed sensitive so that they can soak up big hard hits without limiting articulation and slow speed suspension movements.

Rounding out the system are Icon’s 2.5 Series shocks with Vehicle Specific (VS) valving, and the Compression Damping Control Valve (CDCV).  VS valving is the result of spending hours playing with shim-stacks, pistons, and other suspension variables to create a shock tuned specifically to the Toyota Tundra.  The CDCV allows me to dial in the amount of compression dampening we want in all of the shocks on project tundra, so we can crank up the compression for better road handling and big hits, and back it off for a more compliant ride when we’re going slow and doing technical trails.

WHEELS AND TIRES

When combined with Icon’s suspension system, a set of Icon Alloys Six Speed wheels allows project Tundra to clear a true 35 inch tire. These 17 x 8.5 inch wheels were developed with a specific +25mm offset that allows for lock-to-lock steering throughout the range of travel from full stuff to full droop. We wrapped our shiny new Six Speed wheels with Falken Tire MT01’s and A/T3Ws. Keep an eye out for a long term test on their tires, and we’ll be talking all about wheels and tires in a future Project Tundra article.

INSTALL

Installing all of these parts on Project Tundra took two days over the course of a weekend, and with the exception of an air chisel, no real specialized tools were required.  On Saturday, Chazz Layne and I were able to install everything on the front end with no real visits from Mr. Murphy.  You do have to cut a factory bumpstop to clear the new 3.0 Series coilover, and rather than take a corner off as the directions suggest, I opted to cut the whole bumpstop off, so that I could weld the bumpstop back on if I ever needed to in the future.  Likewise, you need to trim the ends of the swaybar, but I just opted to remove mine.  (DISCLAIMER:  AA and IVD can’t be held responsible for what you do to your truck…+LEGAL WORD VOMIT AS NEEDED)  We also had to elongate a hole on the reservoir mounting bracket, but other than that, everything was a bolt on installation easily completed in a leisurely day in the shop while stopping frequently to take photos.

On Sunday, I tackled the back end by myself, and here’s where you’ll need that air chisel I was mentioning.  The factory bump striker plates are riveted to the frame, so you’ll need to grind / chisel these mounts off so you can install the IVD mounts.  Installing the shocks is straightforward and took me maybe five minutes in total.  Installing the leaf expansion pack is also a pretty easy process, especially if you remove the leafs from the truck and use a jack and some planning to help haul your axle around.  With everything installed and properly torqued, the next thing to do is get the truck aligned.

SHAKEDOWN

Backing out of the garage, the difference was obvious, and things only got better from there.  The installation was done the week before Overland Expo West, and over the course of this summer I’ve taken project Tundra all over the Southwest, driving on everything from desert freeways to Colorado passes.  In every type of terrain, at high speeds and at low speeds the suspension has soaked up and confidently handled everything I’ve pointed the truck at.

Even when loaded down with the family and toys for a long weekend of play, the truck still had outstanding handling and performance.  While the addition of cargo weight obviously sags the suspension out just like it would any vehicle, being able to add compression dampening with just a few clicks helps keep the truck’s handling in check when loaded with gear.  Where a monotube shock valved for a lightly loaded truck would blow through it’s travel when saddled with additional weight, the IVD suspension keeps things in in control with a few additional clicks of compression dampening.

IT’S TIME TO REDEFINE ADVENTURE TRAVEL / OVERLANDING SUSPENSION

Just like any other sport or industry, the overlanding / adventure travel industry has its stigmas about what constitutes suspension perfection and about a million other ‘best options.’ Well, stigmas were meant to be broken.  If folks didn’t bother to break the mold and try something new, innovation wouldn’t be a thing, which is why I’m so glad that Icon Vehicle Dynamics is pushing their suspension into our industry.  Call it desert racing suspension or whatever you want, the fact of the matter is IVD’s suspension systems are brilliant for how we use our vehicles.  I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of miles on Australian-made monotube shocks, and while those systems work well and are certainly an upgrade from any stock suspension, they’re not on the same level as Icon suspension.

Going with a top shelf system from Icon Vehicle Daynamics is certainly going to cost more than a monotube shock setup—but this is an upgrade where you get what you pay for.  I know that conventional thinking in the industry would steer folks to stick with the tried and true, but I’m a big fan of tinkering, and trying new things.  Going with ‘desert racing suspension’ has worked out quite well for me and project tundra.  The performance (and safety) gains are night and day, and I don’t see any reason why these components wouldn’t last as long, if not longer with proper maintenance than anything else out there.  And besides, having suspension that can handle the occasional surprise whoop section or occasional airing out of the tires happens to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Full Disclosure: Icon Vehicle Dynamics, Icon Alloys, and Falken Tires generously contributed products for this build at no cost to Chad de Alva or American Adventurist. That said, American Adventurist staff members have been using and abusing IVD products for over a decade with zero trail failures in the some of the harshest terrain in North America.