I’ve been skating Indy Ti 169s for the past couple months and I’m really enjoying them. I love the wide hanger in combination with the lower, forged baseplate.
My question is - is the amount of clearance you get from the Indy inverted kingpin baseplate set worth it? I’ve never really messed around with inverted kingpins but I do a lot of frontside slappies and smith grinds and seem to be chewing through the kingpin nut and kingpin kind of fast compared to the rest of the hanger. Not sure if anyone else has had this debate - I’m wondering if it’s worth sacrificing the lower forged baseplate (looks like the inverted kingpin Indy sells comes with the standard baseplate) for the extra grind clearance.
Although the inverted kingpin does give a touch more clearance, it is only a touch, so not actually that good overall.
If you spend more money and get different kingpins with more thread, then they can sit lower, but the existing inverted kingpin setup only goes down so far, which for most people is not far enough to make it worthwhile.
The baseplate is taller, same as the standard, as you would have already seen, so not only is your truck going to sit higher, it is not going to have that much more clearance either, if the hanger is well worn.
The best alternative is cutting down your top bushings (take maybe 1-2 mm off in total) so then the kingpin can sit lower so you can pretty much get down to axle without having the kingpin nut catching or as per some people having it completely smashed to the point of it falling off, just from skating.
I can post "how to" pics and video if you need it, or just link it from the last time I posted it.
Others on here have been able to do it and keep skating til the hanger is in two pieces, so at least it gives you some more life in the trucks, until the very end, so to speak.
Edit: I bought three sets of the Inverted kingpin baseplates when they came out, but from looking at them, I didn't want to set any up and neither did any of the others who I skate with once they saw how little it would actually help or work, so I kind of shot myself in the foot with that one, but the usual way I have been angle grinding down the standard truck kingpins after using lower top head bushings makes them work so well, I didn't need any other options. It works the same way for hollow kingpins, be it on standard or forged baseplates too.