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Update... drove across the country last summer with a over 500 pounds of load. (moved from Vancouver to Toronto) Have done some med. off roading since. Everything is holding like a charm! Problem was never the 5125s, or the spring height. Problem was definitely the fact the shop use the wrong sleeves in the original 5125 bushings leaving 2mm of play on the pin. This caused one of the original 5125 bushing to blow out. Replacing both bushings with the engergy bushings and correctly fitting sleeves working like a charm. Suspension super happy. Everything feels like new and ready for 10 years of abuse. Cheers!

do you have any links or retailer info on the sleeves? For pre-facelift owners who can’t swap bolt size on the lower mount (unlike post facelift owners who can on the upper mount), it would be nice to have a verified part number, as the bushing/bolt fitment is really the number one issue with fitting bilsteins to these vehicles, and I don’t usually have a good answer when prefacelift owners ask me about this. Thanks, and glad to see you got the issue settled.

Hello everyone. Glad to be here with you all.

I actually got the upper plenum and lower intake off this evening. Took about 3 hours taking my time getting everything off including clean up after. I also took off the hood so I can climb in and move around freely when needed. I have to finish changing the parts tomorrow ( injectors, FPR, IACV, coolant hoses) then put everything back together. I’ll also have to adjust back the idle and new coolant. I installed the new knock sensor before calling it quits for the evening. The old one was completely destroyed. It was cracked in half and completely brittle. From the time I grabbed a hold of the harness the head of the knock sensor just broke off. The bolts came out of everything with absolutely no problems at all. And I was worrying about this leading up to the project. What I did do for several days prior was soak down all the bolts with PB blaster. I made sure to get all parts beforehand including extra screws, bolts, clamps, etc. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d really steer clear of cutting the coils

Not to jump the gun on the shocks and shock mount info, but one thing I already do know about the 33 185569's is that they're not suitable for pre facelift shock mounts unless you have alot of lift. I've personally had to reseat @micahfelker's 9448's (yes, NRC9448 springs with no coils cut), back after they drop out at full flex. The pre facelift shock mounts are close enough together that a 30" fully extended shock is just too long, whereas my 9449's stay seated at full flex (I have a 2003).

Okay so update. Me and @PathyDude17 started chatting and it appears there's more differences in rear shock mount placement and required lengths than I originally thought! Pre-facelift has an upper mount that is slight up/away from the top of the spring mount, and a lower mount that is about in line with the axle. My 3.3L post-facelift has an upper mount like pre, but a lower mount that is dropped below the axle. 3.5L post-facelift seems to have an upper mount closer to the top spring mount and dropped below the axle. We're going to try to gather some picture examples and put together a separate post about it. Just another example of all the minute differences between models...

Sounds like an unusual issue indeed, 5100's are extremely common in the Toyota communities I'm involved in and failures are few and far between, with the only ones I've seen being the end snapping off due to extreme abuse. I wouldn't take unusual premature bushing wear as a reason to jump up in cost on shocks, although if you want longer ones anyways it's a good excuse haha. That's also extremely like Bilstein to deny warranty, from what I've seen it seems that they will only warranty things when they're done precisely as they specify, although that does make sense I suppose. Personally I think the amount of rake you have is very reasonable and looks good, is the trunk empty in the pic? A couple toolboxes and/or camping gear when on trips should get it level I'd imagine, so if it sits a bit uneven day to day but sits right in the woods, sounds like a good setup to me.