Reposting to see if anything new has come around in the area of brakes and suspension upgrades for towing. I Tow an ultralight aircraft, about 900 lbs total. The trailer does not have brakes at this time. It actually tows rather nicely, the trailer came out well balanced. I also use the prius for work, and ofter haul two ladders, thousands of feet of cable, tools, and gear... I take out the front seat for more room. Would like to know if anyone has a good suspension mod to keep the car level, and help handling, and aid in braking. I go over the I5 grapevine pass often and it gets kind of "fun" going down hill loaded with gear. Have to use engine breaking, the little disks just heat up to quick... and have warped a set once. Not interested in lowing car. This is purely for performance and handeling while loaded heavy. Attached is a towing pic. ThankS
Well, to keep the car level you could install an air suspension. I have no idea how extensive that would be, or if it's even possible, having never touched one myself. For brake cooling/thermal management, the best thing to do would be install larger rotors to get a bigger heatsink, but that won't be possible. If it were me, I would start by using a good brake fluid with high dry and wet boiling points (I like the Valvoline DOT 3/4 Synthetic, as it performs very well and is widely available at auto parts stores, unlike Motul and others). Then, I would probably experiment with flexible ducting to get air to the brakes; you can find kits online or just fab one up from hardware store stuff. You'll want to run it from a high pressure area in the front of the car, which will mean either cutting openings in the bumper cover or cutting up the existing radiator shielding to take air from the lower grill. Gen 3 pressure distribution shown, but Gen 2 will be roughly the same:
For the suspension that is exactly what I was looking for ! Thank you Actually that air bag setup was done on a Gen3. I need bag kit for gen2... anybody know of one?
For brake upgrade, you can pm Justdidit, sounds like he will end up with extra custom brake caliper mounting brackets. Sounds like he has done a lot of research and put a lot of thought into doing a big brake upgrade on a Gen 2 Prius. Usually, you look for a swap with a larger/heavier vehicle in the manufacturer's lineup, like say a RAV4 to swap brake components with. I know the Camry guys are swapping in Highlander brake parts for more stopping power: GenII Brake Upgrade w/o breaking the bank? | Page 4 | PriusChat The parts for the Gen 3 or Yaris applications on the linked page might fit. Take measurements and contact the seller.
Gen 2 rear suspension is coil over. Gen 3 uses separate spring from shock... very different. Again. .. any gen 2 suspension mods?
Its not always about towing, I often carry more weight than when towing. And the trailer I have is cutom built for my ultralight. This week I had 6000 feet of cable, two ladders and tools in the car over the grapevine, engine brake works, but for emergency situations, would like to have more stopping power. No real luck here though, I'll just fab the stuff myself. (sighs and walks away)
justdidit is working on bigger front brakes, but no one else has tried it that I know of. there are some folks in japan that have done crazy mods, but if you can't read Japanese its kinda tough to figure out what they did. if you do decide to upgrade your brakes and suspension, please post up some pix for us to drool over.
I've loaded mine down pretty heavy with building materials and when moving. I wouldn't do any mods, myself. Just make sure there's plenty of air in the tires, use B-mode on the descents, leave plenty of following distance and use the brake pedal in pulses so the wheel brakes stay cool when the traction pack reaches max charge. I've never heated the wheel brakes up enough to smell, and definitely not enough to warp. I find the Prius braking system to be pretty exemplary, compared with the overloaded '85 Toyota truck.
