i appreciate all the help. Now it's time to do some R&D with a few of the local fab guys and see what I can come up with.

Just graft a Camburg setup off of a tacoma and you would be set

How wide are the Tacoma front ends?

The problem isn't the lack of res. on the strut nor brand/custom valved strut. It's the single a-arm to strut design. Camber, that's what's you need to look into & why those "who know" are building a upper lower/spindle setup. You talk of long travel, you need to focus on the addition of a upper arm or Ford style "twin I beam". Cheapest (workable) options out there.

i have found that quality of travel is as important if not more than the amount of travel. even just adding good progressive bumpstops can allow you to go faster in the rough. look at world rally cars, not alot of travel but huge performance due to very effictive damping.

I agree...travel length isnt as important as quality of travel...if you watch dezert racing lots of cars(jeepspeed, vw's, full size stock) all have limited travel either by design or rules of class and some of these cars haul azz out in the dezert

That's very true about the quality of travel vs. quantity. Gonna talk to a local fab guy about maybe doing some simple shock hoops and plating the lower arms and making a set of uppers to mount a coilover and some airbumps.

93pretracker, is your tracker 2 or 4 wheel drive?

so i bought some subaru wrx struts, 9 inches of travel versus 6.5. i cut the brackets off and i am building new ones for the new struts to fit my sport. was going to go sas but i really want to keep the ifs fornow and see how far i can go with it. stage one will be, subaru struts, T 100 axles, wider a arms and spacers to get 3 to 4 inches of lift. stage 2 will add a 4 inch drop cradle and my own 12 inch travel struts for 6 inches of lift

What is the dampening rate on the WRX struts vs the Tracker?

not sure but cars are similar weight and there are many many aftermarket struts available to choose from. kyb has an adjustable one kind of like a rs 9000 rancho. i am almost done with new backets so i will let you guys know how they workout. i am starting out with monroe sensa tracs and being that the wrx is a performance car of similar weight i think they will be ok.

Bilstein can rebuild the struts if you send them in, and looking at the design of the struts you might be able to convert them to a remote reservoir system.  That would be an interesting project. 

The only issue with struts is how to increase the travel without requiring a new mounting point.

one thing to keep in mind is that with extreme abuse on the front strut towers they tend to bend. strut tower braces help, but if you were really pounding on it i think some reinforcement would be in order.

one thing to keep in mind is that with extreme abuse on the front strut towers they tend to bend. strut tower braces help, but if you were really pounding on it i think some reinforcement would be in order.
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One plan that I had to help with that would be to have the strut mounts plated and have them incorporated into either a full cage or and engine cage much the prerunner guys do.

After doing some thinking, with how short the wheelbase is on my 2dr, I'm just gonna go with bolt on stuff (4dr springs and Bilsteins with a strut spacer or a partial Calmini Kit with just the arms and links) and save the hardcore L/T stuff for my 67 Chevy project truck. I appreciate the help that I have been given though. No other forums on the interwebz have as many people as willing to help out as the Zuk forums.

one thing to keep in mind is that with extreme abuse on the front strut towers they tend to bend. strut tower braces help, but if you were really pounding on it i think some reinforcement would be in order.

On Project Trouble we just added some bracing to the existing mount and welded it in place:

http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/build-diaries-how-to-diy/project-trouble/msg227825/#msg227825

so i bought some subaru wrx struts, 9 inches of travel versus 6.5. i cut the brackets off and i am building new ones for the new struts to fit my sport.

What year wrx did the struts came off? or is it aftermarket ones?  The subarus I've seen doesn't seem to have 9 inches of travel.