(men yelling)
(truck scraping) - $700 off-road suspension upgrade. - Versus $3,200 off-road
suspension upgrade. - Does more expensive, mean more better. - Let's find out.
- We're back. Season two! - Season three! - Second car.
- Third season. (upbeat music)
We're back! (laughing)
(upbeat music) (exploding) A big thanks to eBay Motors
for sponsoring this bigger, better and dirtier than
ever, season of Hi Low. (confetti exploding)
(man yelling) - Thanks eBay Motors. Hell yeah. - Are we serious? Money Pit got a marching band and I get Nolan?
(whimsical music) - Yeah. Seriously though. We are so, so stoked to have eBay Motors sponsoring Hi Low.
- For the whole season. - Because eBay is dedicated
to making the best, most secure automotive
marketplace for everyone. There's no better place
to buy or sell your parts and cars online.
- And speaking of parts, this season's kicking
off with a whole lotta... Suspense.
(dramatic music) - That's suspension. Not suspense, James. - I'm dumb. - You know, like the ICON
vehicle dynamic system you bought off eBay motors. - What if it doesn't work?
- Relax, James. We know it'll fit because we used eBay's proprietary web feature, called Fitment. Find out yourself by clicking the link in the description below, or download the eBay Motors app today. Now let's start tearing into these trucks. (dramatic music) - But are we even going to tear into them? (bright music) - We bought two nearly
identical Toyota Tacomas and we're modifying them
to be fun daily drivers you can take literally anywhere. - Except for the ocean. One Tacoma gets expensive parts and the other one gets cheap parts. - Then we test them (men yelling)
(brakes squealing) to see which components are worth spending your hard earned money on. - Upgrading your suspension with new, longer travel springs and shocks can improve your trucks ground clearance, ride quality and ability
to keep all four wheels in touch with the ground, while
going over uneven terrain. - That's right. They also let you run bigger
sicker wheels and tires. - Which is really.
- That's what you want, man. - Yeah, yeah.
(boxes thudding) Today, Hi truck is getting
an ICON Stage 4 suspension system including front
coilovers and rear shocks, both with external reservoirs. It's getting additional leaf
springs and upper control arms. All for a total of 3,200 bones. - And Low truck is getting
this Bilstein 3" lift kit, which comes with front
springs, front shocks, rear shocks, additional leaf springs, throw in some extra
hardware and some stickers. Our suspension upgrades costs $700, less than 1/4 of the
cost of Hi team's kit. (paper rustling)
- Dude, this is not, not nice. - No, this looks decent. This is good. - Looking at the quality of these parts. These are nice shocks.
- Yeah, these are nice. Yeah, I mean for $700, I'm feeling really good about this stuff. - I think this is really great stuff. But let's see what really,
really great stuff looks like. - Okay. Don't do that. (box opening)
(shocks thudding) (everyone laughing)
- Yeah, it's kind of funny, when we opened up the Bilstein set, it was like, oh, these
are Low parts this year? - Yeah, we were both like,
man, these are really good. - Like what more could you want? Right? This is what more you could want - It's a lot more, this
is the heaviest thing I have ever lifted in my entire life. (Nolan laughing) The Bilstein does have
some height adjustability, but only three settings. As you can see here on the ICON's, we can really adjust the
ride height of Hi truck, down to like millimeters. - Another thing to mention is that our kit is kind of disassembled compared to yours. Yours was already already
all put all together we're gonna have to have to put ours, (metal clanging)
assemble ours, and I think reuse some stock components already on the truck.
- It looks like it. - Yeah. - You'll also notice that we
have front upper control arms, where you guys didn't.
- We do not. - These are a little bit extended, which is gonna help correct
our geometry overall, when we lift the truck. - Well, I am really
looking forward to seeing the difference in performance
between these two kits. - This looks cooler in the parking lot. - It does. - But which one will
be better on the trail? (hands clap)
There's only one way to find out, we gotta
install all these sick parts and put these babies (snaps fingers)
to the test. (Nolan moaning) - [Jason] You should get tested though. (upbeat music) - For-
(bright music) Quit. Lets jack her up. (wrenches whirring) - What kinda things are
we considering, James, when we're thinking
about lifting our truck? - Well, we are hoping to get
a little bit more clearance. - Obvi.
- We're gonna be inches higher in the air.
- Entire inches. - Entire inches. - And with more clearance
comes more articulation, so we can keep traction with
the ground underneath us. And this stuff that we got is
really nice and really beefy, which means it's durable and reliable. So I think our peace of mind is gonna be pretty solid out in the trail. If we could have all those things and a comfortable setup at the
same time, that'd be great. - Yeah, we plan on taking these things on a pretty serious road trip
when we're done with them. Most of you guys out there watching, who are maybe building along, probably drive your truck to work, so, we're thinking about you. - All right, currently
we're sitting at 36 inches so after our lift kit install we should be sitting 3 inches higher, which is 36, 37, 38, 39 inches. (tape measure retracting)
- Take the stock assembly out. (wrench whirring) We will have to scavenge some parts from the stock component,
but that's kinda it. Every Midwest guys Tinder page. - Okay, so I really don't
advise you to do this at home, it should be fine though.
(impact whirring) (metallic clattering) You can seriously get hurt. - I almost did that right into my face and almost got disfigured, like 20 minutes before we did that. (impact whirring) (metal clattering)
(groovy music) - All right, so this thing
hanging off down here, this is our external reservoir
and basically all this does is house more hydraulic fluid, which helps keep our temperature stable. Hydraulic fluid in shocks gets really hot when you're really working your suspension so just by adding some more fluid you can keep those
temperatures under control and keep the shock working at
optimum capacity all the time. And it looks cool too. - All right, so this is one
half of the correct tool. It's a spring compressor. (metal hammering) You put one here and the second one goes on the opposite
side, you compress them, which safely compresses
the spring on both sides, you just go a little bit on one side, a little bit on the opposite side, slide your strut in there, then you are going to put the top hat on. Once everything's secured,
(tool whirring) you release the tension on the springs and you got a nice safe install. (tools whirring)
(groovy music continues) (metal hammering)
- This is so dumb. - [Nolan] They're too big. - [Aaron] Nah, I think
we can get them though. This is Low team (beep) dude. - Low something.
- All right ready? - If you can afford to get
a complete coilover kit, where you don't have to
scrunch down your springs, just do it, it's worth the money. (metal clanking)
- Ooh. Is that a good noise? - [James] Sounded satisfying. - Yeah, it sounded like
a old frozen ball joint coming unstuck. - Yeah, it feels good.
(metal clattering) - [Zach] And there she is. - One thing to note, Hi
team, for their install, had to press out their
ball joints, we did not. However, they are pretty roach, so, you know, make your own
judgment, we save money. We save money over here on Low team. (ratcheting)
Savin' money. - So there's basically
three angles of attack (hip hop music)
when lifting a truck, they can range from a couple hundred bucks all the way up to thousands of dollars, like what we're doing. The first is a body lift,
that is just spacers that goes between the frame and the body This looks like a higher truck, but you don't get any more
clearance, no more travel. It's really aesthetic only. You can also do spacers
on the bottom of the- (metallic banging) You can also add spacers to
the bottom of your shock. This does give you a
little bit more clearance but you don't get any more
travel in your suspension and you don't get the benefits of a beefier shock and spring combination. This is actually what
we did on Eddie's Miata, on an episode of Money Pit. And then the big boy, the bad boy, is a complete suspension overhaul, that's what both teams are doing today, that consists of beefier shocks
in the front and the rear, additional leaf springs, and in our case, new beefier upper control arms,
really the whole nine yards. It's probably a little overkill, but it's cool.
(upbeat techo music) (saw whirring) - What up!
- Watch yourself. (metal banging)
- Damn it. - I'm gettin' outta here.
(laughing) (metal clattering) - God, Jimmy! Whoo. All right. Only one to go.
(laughing) (metallic banging)
(wrench whirring) (upbeat techo music continues) (drill whirring)
(metal clattering) (men laughing)
(drill whirring) - So this upper control
arm, this is gonna give us a little bit more area
around the suspension. So when things go all the
way down and all the way up, this won't contact right here, that's a problem with
the factory control arm, especially when you go like
three or more inches of lift. - So when a lotta people do
a lift, including Low team, they install what's
called a diff drop kit, which lowers down the differential and kinda keeps the
angle of the suspension a little bit more normal, like stock. We're scared that it might
not fit with our armor so right now we're not gonna do this, when we get back under there and start installing our
skid plates and stuff, if it doesn't interfere we might do it, but we also might not do it. (upbeat techno music continues) - The fruit of our labor. - Oh. Binding. - What's binding? (laughing)
- Sorry. - Trust issues. First episode already. This guy's prankin' me,
doing the classic Aaron. Oh no.
(indistinct) Whoa.
- Dude, straight up. - F S O O, front shocks officially on. Officially on. - [Zach] Now it's time to do the rear. (upbeat music) (wrench whirring) Ah there we go. - This guy goes on here. (hammer banging)
Hell, yeah brother. So let's pause real quick
and explain why we're adding a leaf spring in the first place. As you can see, here's the
new shock with the stock one, we have those extra three inches there. If we just put this new shock in, we would technically have
those extra three inches, as long as the truck was in the air. Once we put weight on it,
without this add-a-leaf, the weight of the truck would actually (grunting)
shrink the shock down and we wouldn't get to utilize those newly gained three inches of travel. We have to stiffen up the
bottom end with this leaf spring and get the correct spring
rate for our new shock. (uplifting music) (wrenches whirring)
(saw buzzing) (metal banging) Now we are in like Flynn. (jack creaking) (thudding)
- Oh! What do I do?
- Cop to it. - Huh?
- Cop to it. - Talk to it?
- Cop to it. - I don't know what that means. - Admit- - That you (beep) up.
(laughing) - Yeah.
(beeping) - I see a little scratch right there. - Can you just give him this video? - It's getting repainted.
- Oh. - Yeah, you're good.
- Okay. - Hit it again, bro.
(laughing) (tool whirring)
(upbeat music) - Don't tell anybody I said
I overtorqued those lug nuts. (tools whirring) - Perfect. Yeah.
(wrenches whirring) - [James] We're done, dude. Rear suspension officially on.
(moaning) That's a lifted truck.
(impacts whirring) - Touchdown.
- Yeah, ours is definitely way smoother than that one.
- Grave Digger and Big Foot. - Yes. I love Grave Digger.
- Grave Digger is pretty sick. - All right, well let's measure them. Who's got a tape? So stock, this fender was
35 inches from the ground. That's a solid three inch
lift in the back baby. - Really?
- Yeah. - 'Cause that Add-A-Leaf kit said it was a 1 1/2 inch addition. I guess there's maybe some
settling that needs to happen. A little bit of driving that could occur and then we can remeasure,
but I'll take three inches. - Three man, that worked.
- Right at 39. As advertised.
- As advertised. - This is a Low team first. We actually installed the product that said we were gonna be exactly where we're at after the install. - All right, so Hi truck
is done for this episode. We've gotta get both trucks aligned, which is very important when
you install a new suspension, especially when you're
changing the ride height and then we're gonna take
both trucks to the dirt to find out if more
expensive means more better. Who can drive over bigger stuff? (techno music) - I'm tired. (hands clapping)
- First up, we're gonna test the approach and departure angle of our trucks. Now, we were supposed to
come out here last week and do this bone stock with
Hi truck and Low truck, but California catches on fire quite often and this whole area was shut
down and we weren't able to, but we wanted to give
you guys a baseline test, because we are scientists. So we went and found an
identical Toyota Tacoma crew cab, so we can see how it does totally stock. - All right, so we have set up a course over some steep obstacles to test the approach and departure angle. After we run the stock truck, we'll run our trucks to see
how much we've improved. Who's driving?
- I'll drive. - I'll take backseat.
- All right. (upbeat music) - How's my cone clearance?
- You're good, you're good. Go straight over here. (metal clangs)
- Oh! - Well.
- Keep going. - Well.
- Go left, go left, go left. - Good thing we borrowed this truck. Just a little frame kiss. - Okay. I think that was the bumper. - Ooh.
- Ooh, scrapy mcscraperson. - I heard that. I took the...
(men groaning) (metal clunks)
- Oh. - Start with a bunch of beef in it. (laughing)
- Nice. (man groans)
(men laughing) - Oh, we might owe them a bumper. - Yeah. We might've
just bought this truck. That wasn't as bad as I thought though, I mean, it made it over, no problem. - Oh!
(groaning) - Yeah. I mean, we do have a
lot of dude in this thing too. - Lotta dude.
- So I guess that means we're going to have to go
four deep on all these tests. - There's like a thousand
pounds of dude in here. Good trucks. All right. You can go straight through, right. - Right on drag. - [James] I think we're
going to hit again. - Less.
- Way less frame. - A little.
- Way less frame. Way less. - Just a little tip tap. - Oh!
- Still touched a bumper. - A lot of bit a tip tap. - Oh yeah.
(groaning) (scraping) - Maybe we just hit the front bumper too. - We didn't take into account
driver, the driver variable. - I gave it too many beans. We're going to try that obstacle again with a little bit more finesse and see if we don't scrape
the front bumper again. - Yeah, get the beams up
so you just barely crest and don't ever stop at
the top and then just. There you, nice, yeah.
- Okay. - I love it.
- That is smooth, bro. - Dude. That is great.
(scraping) Yeah, much better.
(laughing) (indistinct talking) - Really go, frame touching.
- Something touched. (scraping)
- That's smooth. - That's a little less though.
- Give her the beans, James. Not too many.
- A few beans. - Don't want to get stuck at the top. Keep going. (laughing)
- What is this? - See that's butter, bro.
- Beautiful work, James. (scraping)
- There it is. (laughing) - Sounds like we're in a submarine and it's about to split in half. We definitely saw some improvement on approach and break over angle. (trucks scraping) - Keep going!
(quirky music) The real weak point in these trucks still is departure angle. (groaning)
(scraping) That's not super surprising. I mean, we only have three inch lift kits on these trucks and we
didn't make them any shorter. But for now one place that I
do think we're going to see a lot of improvement is in articulation. So we are going to go test that right now. - Let's going to twist those frames, boys. (upbeat pop music) This is the articulation station. It has a bunch of opposing dips and hills to really force your suspension to articulate at each corner.
- Like that. - Now ideally, with our lift
kit and our new suspension, like, i.e., our new shocks, we'll have a lot more travel
and a lot more articulation so we don't run into stuff like this, where we're not touching the ground, no traction pretty much stuck.
(engine revving) You can see they're just hanging so that one wheel at each axle
is hanging with no traction and with open differentials, that means you just going
to spin and not go nowhere. - So if they can get
through this this time in Low truck without problems, that means there's been huge improvement. (upbeat pop music continues) - All right, so this is where
they got stuck last time. Let's see if they can get over
it with our new suspension. - Yep yep.
(laughing) - Quick work baby. Easy meal. What's that, some mac and cheese? (mimics electronic beeping) That's an after-school snack baby. - Yeah. What he said.
- Here they come. - Oh wow, okay. That's like three,
they're three doggin' it. - Feelin' a little clicky clank. - Yep. Well they just made and no
problem, made it through. - Nice, dude to me, Hi truck
has just got the butter, dude. It's like the transition
from no load to load with those shocks, to
me, was like really good. It was like. - What'd you think of that, boys? - It looked really smooth, honestly. - It felt great.
- So I have been through this with the stock Tacoma and our Tacoma felt way more sorted out, it
didn't seem to mind that, we drove through it and I
honestly wasn't even sure we had driven through it yet. - For the money.that we've
spent so far, I'm feeling good. But we do have one test left. (rock music)
- Time to crawl some rocks. But not like a baby.
- Get in! - Like a, like a scary lizard! Poisonous one! Gila monster with bacteria and slime! (rock music continues) This is our crawl test. Big old horseshoe It must have
come off a pretty buff horse 'cause this thing is hell. we're going to come back
to this obstacle every week and our goal is to make
it all the way around. Eventually we will tackle it. - Probably.
- Probably. But let's see how far we can get today with our new suspension. - Okay, so for the first time we've got a spotter situation going on. That means the Low team is split up, Aaron's outside of the truck and he's going to be
telling Nolan what to do via hand signals and his
mouth, and basically, this is a really important
part of off-roading. If you come out here by yourself, sure, you can do some off-roading, but if you really want to get crazy you need somebody else to spot for you. - Okay, you said turn and then straight. - I know, I keep (beep).
Don't worry about it. - I like how he stuck
his head out of the truck to call you out.
- Yeah. - Nolan's gonna give up his controls. He's not even going to be thinking about what he's looking at. He's just going to be listening to Aaron and doing what Aaron says. So there's a lot ridin' on the spotter. It's a real Jesus take
the wheel type situation and I don't think Nolan
could have a better guy. All right, let's see what these Firestone Destinations can do. - Come on, come on, come on. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. (tires squealing)
(engine revving) That's enough beans. So there's a chance we
could maybe take that with some momentum and bounce over it, but we are clearly at the
limit of traction with tires. (blues music) - Yes.
(scraping) (laughing)
- Beautiful. - Oh, okay. Here we go. Yes. Yes. You're good. - So Nolan's gotten Aaron into
a tricky little spot here. Tricky little spot. This is a great example
of how this whole thing is in the spotter's hands
and can we get a tight on those hand signals?
- More straight 'cause it's kind of precarious right now. - I mean, that tire over that corner is so on the edge, it's...
(squealing) - And there it goes.
- Oh my God, look at... - I think they stuck. - Yeah, I'm pretty stuck guys. - All right, well we just
got Low truck good and stuck, but if I'm honest, I
really think that that was a little bit more related to
the spotting that was going. (groovy bass music) - You ready?
- I was born ready, bro. You ready?
- (beep) Yeah. Meet you on the walkie. A little bit left. - [Nolan] Were these rocks on the course? - Yep.
- Okay. - A little bit left. Just a little, yep. Just like that, looks great. Go for it. Keep coming, you look good. Okay, straight. Okay, creep it, creep it. Creep it, creep it, and give
it a couple of beans for me. - I really think spotter experience plays in a lot on this challenge. There's been no missteps. Okay, they're coming up
on where we got stuck. (tires squealing)
(engine revving) - Come backwards. So,
stop, stop, stop, stop. So we're right at the
point where they fell off. Go forward and just give it some beans. - Just give it, just ride it out? - Give me some beans, baby. Forward!
(groaning) (laughing)
- Whoops. - All right, so before
James accidentally reversed off the course, we were kind of stuck. - Yeah, totally stuck. - We had reached the
limit of our traction. We had our tire just dipped down and we couldn't go any further. So I think that we'll see some improvement in that kind of thing once we get some gnarlier rubber and bigger rubber, I think that'll help that stuff out a lot. So unfortunately, I'd say we
got stuck in the same spot. I guess we need some bigger tires. Now let's get another one unstuck. (revving)
You're in good shape. (upbeat music)
- So Nolan, does more expensive mean more better? - I mean yes, but how much better? - So ground clearance, about the same. Articulation, Hi truck
was slightly better. The buff horseshoe, which
kind of is everything, Hi truck slightly better. I do want to say that on the trail, just driving off road and having fun, Hi truck was amazing. - Low truck, the Bilstein suspension is managing the trail pretty
well, managing those moves, whereas Hi truck really
seems to take control and just eat, we filmed a
few episodes in advance, so we have gone back out
to our testing ground, and a moment that you'll
see in a future episode really demonstrated the difference between these two suspension setups. - [Zach] Come on, come
on, come on, come on. More more!
- Whoa! - But I don't think
that would have happened with the Hi truck suspension, because Low truck suspension, it's just not dialed like Hi truck's is. Hi truck would've eaten up that drop and gently returned you into position. You probably wouldn't have
fallen off the obstacle. - Yeah, and even if we decide
that high truck suspension isn't as dialed as we would like to be, say if we were bounced off
of an obstacle at some point, we can go in and adjust our
dampening and our rebound. We can go do that.
- We do not have the option. So I think that is the difference between the $700 suspension
that we have on Low truck, and how much is yours?
- $3,200. - $3,200 suspension on Hi truck. I think that's where your money goes. - So finally, Nolan?
- Yes. - Which one would you buy? Low truck.
- Me too. - $3,200-
- Is a lot of coin. - That's a lot of coin.
- Yeah. - That being said, if
you get into off-roading I could totally see a situation where I start off with that suspension and then like a couple
of years down the line think, you know what, I've
been doing this a while, I love this truck. I'm going
to keep the truck forever, but I need some more serious suspension and I eventually do by the ICON. - Thank you you guys so much for watching the first episode of our
second season of Hi Low. We got a bunch more, really,
really fun stuff to come. Speaking of trucks, we got some
trucks merch coming for ya. One of my favorite hats we've ever made. - We'll be back next week with more cheap versus expensive mods. - Be kind.
- I love you. - We'll see you next time. (groaning)
(laughing) Oh no! - Nolan, why'd you take my head off. - Oh my God, dude.
Lucked out while browsing YouTube and saw this two minutes after it was posted. About damn time!
I'm hoping they stick to quality, but budget-friendly parts for Lo-car. Some of the choices they made last season were kind of ridiculous going with dangerous, garbage, ebay crap.
Anyone else get the feeling that Aaron and Zach don’t really like each other? I got that vibe season 1 and it still feels awkward between them in season 2 so I’m feeling a pattern lol