2017 Tacoma | Icon Stage 3 Build
It is no secret that Toyota has long had the compact pickup truck market cornered with their Tacoma. Known for it’s legendary durability, simplicity, and off-road prowess, the Tacoma has long been a very popular platform for people to modify. When we were recently contacted by our customer about upgrading his 2017 Tacoma TRD Off Road, Icon Vehicle Dynamics was the logical choice. After discussing his needs (fire road exploration, tow a small camp trailer, bed storage rack with rooftop tent) we settled on the Icon Stage 3 kit, with an upgrade to the full RXT spring pack in the rear. The front internal reservoir 2.5” coil overs and rear 2.0” remote reservoir shocks with tuned springs make a perfect complement to the combination of mild off-highway usage and street miles the truck will see. While we frequently upgrade our suspensions with the focus of better off-road performance, we can typically enjoy much better on-road performance too, suspension upgrades make just as much sense for a daily driver as the bigger dampers control body motion better than factory dampers.
Why are upper arms necessary?
Tubular steel control arms with a uniball (or spherical bearing) have long been a staple upgrade for IFS Toyotas. They accomplish 3 critical bullet points: increased usable wheel travel, caster correction, and increased tire clearance. Cheap lifts that do not correct these issues generally clunk, drive poorly and or rub when cycled. An upper control arm is a simple upgrade that makes a huge difference, both adding caster back into the alignment spec and increasing the range of usable wheel travel. While the factory lower control arms are pretty stout and capable of a decent range of motion, the uppers are stamped steel made as flimsy as possible to save weight and use a pressed in ball joint; when a leveling lift kit is installed the ball joint is near the end of its range of motion and will top out. Over time, this will lead to adverse wear, especially if the vehicle has higher mileage or the vehicle will be driven hard. Icon now has 4 unique configurations for their Tacoma upper control arms. The tubular steel arms use polyurethane sleeve bushings at the frame side of the arm, while the aluminum arms use threaded heim joints which further allow fine tuning of caster and are adjustable on vehicle thanks to their double threaded adjuster. In 2017 Icon introduced a proprietary new joint called the Delta Joint which combines the higher misalignment capacity of a uniball with the simple, proven construction of a metal on metal ball joint.
The RXT Multi-Rate rear spring pack is a complete replacement spring with more leaves, made of thinner steel; this allows the spring to be more progressive and when coupled with their RXT 2.5” remote reservoir shocks, there is a 20% gain in usable wheel travel. A bolt in air bump stop completes the whole RXT rear package, but we opted to keep the factory units for this particular application. This spring pack ships with an extra leaf, for 3 possible spring rate and ride height configurations; we setup this Tacoma for option 2 which should net 1.75” rear lift once the customer adds his other accessories. These springs also soften up the ride a good bit around town for a smoother and more controlled feel over the typical, more cost effective ‘add a leaf’ method of rear lift.
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870 Industrial Way
San Luis Obispo, California 93401