The Everyday Titan now sports...
The Everyday Titan now sports a Glassworks Unlimited hood and front fenders and soon will have matching fiberglass bedsides. The unfinished tubular front bumper is starting to take shape but still needs some suitable attachment points. For traction the truck now rides on a set of 34-inch Nitto Dune Grapplers on 18-inch, powdercoated Weld Commando wheels. What's next? A paint job and a 3/4-ton rear axle.
Our Project Everyday Titan returns this month with a whole new personality. Some of you may remember Part 2 (Jan. '07), where we addressed and improved upon the truck's functionality through additional front bumper beef, a winch, auxiliary lighting, and a Prerunner Series Tire Gate to help manage the 34-inch spare tire. While most of those add-ons did serve us well during the first two years of the rig's purposeful life, one staffer managed to unintentionally remove the Road Armor front winch bumper while executing a vehicle recovery. Evidence pointed to a flaw in the bracket design as the culprit. However, we didn't hurt the Ramsey 9500 in the process so we decided to proceed down the custom fabrication route, giving master metal crafter, Toby Lavender of XXX-Traction in Seaside, California, full creative control over a new prerunner-style front bumper design. Still a work in progress, the new custom-fabricated bumper pointed the truck in a whole new direction.
The path would now include towing, some weekend fun in the desert, and the same around-town reliability sought early on in the buildup. We removed the dated graphic treatment and began replacing the body panels with bulged fiberglass units from Glassworks Unlimited. Our plan was to fit as large a tire as possible with only minimal lift. The front fenders, hood, and bedsides (not shown) speak volumes about the new direction of the project.
Then it was time to address the rig's stock suspension system. From the factory, Nissan equipped our Titan with Rancho shocks, which had sufficed perfectly until now. Because we intend to tow our Carson trailer with other Four Wheeler projects rigs aboard, we craved heavier-duty shocks with adjustability and improved weight-carrying capacity. So we got in touch with the folks at Rancho Suspension. Rancho offered its new line of RS 9000XL shock absorbers for the rear and a pair of Quick Lift adjustable front struts for the cause. Once installed, we proceeded to add a product called Roadmaster Active Suspension to the rear leaf-spring arrangement. Together, the Rancho shocks and this new coil-spring assisted rear-leaf configuration would greatly improve the truck's stability while hauling heavy loads. As with the evolution of any project vehicle, we intend to report on the long-term results of our modifications, but for now, check out the highlights from the installation process.
 1. With the truck properly...  1. With the truck properly secured on a lift, the technicians from Rancho's Long Beach, California, facility removed the factory struts to make way for the new Rancho Quick Lift struts. As you can see from this photo, the old original struts had some homemade 2-inch coil spacers installed on them to effectively level the front of the truck with the rear. This inexpensive spacer lift caused a whole assortment of undesirable ride characteristics. The upper control arms made contact with the strut mounting buckets during extreme droop travel and the preload on the coil springs gave the rig an unnerving poppy rebound feel, all items we didn't like about the ride quality. We were very happy to ditch the arrangement in favor of the Quick Lift struts, and we still had enough room to clear the 34-inch Nitto Dune Grapplers with some inner fenderwell trimming. On a factory configuration, the Quick Lift struts would have gained somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 inches of ride height over stock, with some spacer-type leveling kits. |  2. A spring compressor was...  2. A spring compressor was necessary to remove the coil springs from the original struts and to install them on the new Quick Lift struts. As a result, we recommend having a shop perform this installation rather than trying to attempt it at home. Here you can see the new front arrangement, completely assembled. |  3. The nice part about the...  3. The nice part about the Rancho Quick Lift struts is the nine-position adjustable dials located at the bottom of each shock body. This lets you dial-in your ride stiffness, a handy option for those who tow on occasion or want to set up the suspension for a particular terrain or scenario. Also available for these struts are an in-cab controller designed to provide ride adjustability at your fingertips from the dash. |
 4. The rear shocks are essentially...  4. The rear shocks are essentially a bolt-on, bolt-off affair. The larger RS 9000XL shocks feature a 2.75-inch body, an 18mm chrome-plated piston rod, and Rancho's patented red polyurethane bushings. We like the fact that when you twist the nine-position knob, you can actually feel a difference. When towing we run them stiffer to help reduce trailer sway. |  5. Say hello to Roadmaster...  5. Say hello to Roadmaster Active Suspension. The basic concept here is that by placing a coil spring in tension between the axle centerline and the rear eye of the spring pack, you effectively increase the leaf-spring rate, thus enabling it to carry greater loads. The system is bolt-on and pretty simple to install with basic handtools. Roadmaster admits the system isn't going to increase wheel articulation, and subsequently they don't recommend the setup for vehicles that are primarily used as trail rigs, but when it comes to improving load capacity, there isn't a simpler way to go. |  6. Once installed, the Roadmaster...  6. Once installed, the Roadmaster Suspension requires very specific adjustment by turning the nut at the end of the coil spring. By turning this nut, you effectively load the spring with tension, thus helping the leaf spring handle more weight without flattening the arc of the spring pack. You can actually achieve a slight lift over stock with this setup, though it is not recommended as a lift product. |
New Tires and Wheels
We updated the Everyday Titan's wheel-and-tire package with a similarly sized set of Nitto Dune Grapplers on 18-inch Weld Commando wheels. These wheels were mounted on the Mega Titan at one time and only required a light sandblasting and a metallic grey powdercoat to fit the bill for the new direction of the Everyday Titan. We ran this package in sand, snow, mud, rocks, and on pavement and are extremely happy with how they perform. Especially in the snow, the Dune Grapplers seemed to work much better than we anticipated.
How's it Work?
With everything said and done, we couldn't be happier with the Rancho shocks and Road Master Active Suspension products. Both products inspire greater confidence when towing heavy loads and the Rancho shocks, with their adjustability, are the cat's meow for washboard roads leading to our favorite wheeling destinations. The rear of the truck does not squat down as far as before, and when loaded up with tongue weight, the side-to-side sway is virtually eliminated. We feel that the additional beef to the rear suspension will allow us to eventually swap in a much heavier-duty 3/4-ton rear axle without having to source different springs. To see more on the project Everyday Titan, log on to fourwheeler.com and the project vehicle page.