There has been such a huge change in the way we go wheeling over the past 10 years. We started 4WD in 1998 the year the TJ was introduced and as you can see above this Land Cruiser goes well beyond a coil sprung TJ.

The competitors went from build it big to build it light. Now a competition rock buggy costs 10's of thousands and weights so little they need to add weight inside the tires to meet competition weight rules.

I always felt the rock "crawling" stadium style wouldn't work over the long haul because the action is to slow for today's audience who wants it fast and dangerous. So here comes another change - Rock Racing. Faster, jumps and still big rocks - this might work better indoors. Now we have a switch back from super light air cooled engines in rock buggies to 400hp LS aluminum small block Chevy engines.

It was interesting to see the changes Jeep made to the new JK. Longer control arms, wider axles, longer wheel base - they do pay attention to what we do to our own 4x4's as you can see.

It still seems though that IFS is the ugly cousin of the 4x4 world. Again look above. These cutting edge machines use four-wheel independent suspension and have 18 inches of wheel travel and 24 inches of ground clearance (with a 46 inch tire).

Walker Evans tried the IFS route a couple of years back but the designs of the competition courses required a very narrow vehicle and IFS needs width to make A-arms long enough to get flex and still get an axle shaft between the arms.

This is the main problem with all the trucks we buy off the lot - the A-arms are so short and the axles are so short they both run out of travel.

The best example of long arm IFS at work is a desert racing truck. The front end of the Terrible Herbst Truggy (below) shows how long they made the control arms and this set up has extreme travel - so it is possible to make IFS work off road. And you know it can be tough enough as these guys do it at 190mph!

While both of the trucks on this page are filled with cutting edge technology they are expensive to build and that may be the biggest draw back to the advancement of IFS technology to the average wheeler - cost.

Before we did the solid axle swap in our 4Ruuner I seriously looked at creating a long travel IFS front end using a Dana 44 centre section and Bigelow equipped axle shafts. In my hunt for a new project maybe I will have to resurrect this idea and see if I can make it work! Until then I am sure most of us will enjoy our Solid axle trucks.

Albert Vandervelde
Editor, 4WD Magazine