mid-travel suspension tuning

Here's how we tuned our MT2 (or MT3/2? MTpi? I lost track of the versioning...)

We have Icons which are digressive instead of progressive, but that's a whole different argument the tuning process can be similar.

We set the coilover to 7/10 firm and went into the whoops to tune the bypasses for that terrain (after getting some initial settings on smaller single events on the street like small drops and step ups [a single event is not like a speed bump - that's a dual event, compression followed by rebound. A single event is a drop or a step up - you're only tuning one side of the stroke at a time]). Before everyone shits the bed saying a coilover should only be a spring carrier, we're not a race truck. The truck is my wife's daily driver, and so there are other things to take into account besides strictly trail perfect bypass tuning. We also run a super wide variety of trails from high speed desert stuff with washouts and whoops, to narrow trails strewn with baseball sized rocks and ledges, to boulder crawling - each has a specific kind of suspension requirement.

So... we're 7/10 firm on the CO and hit some smallish whoops to fine tune the bypasses. Making sure we don't have too much rebound in them that they pack after 3 whoops (suspension can't droop out enough to soak the next hit, the truck starts to squat real low after a few whoops in succession, and then BAM you're bottomed out when you hit the next whoop face, sending the ass 10 feet in the air), but also not so little that we buck hard when the suspension tries to droop while still on the face or top of the whoop.

Now that we've got everything set nicely at 7/10 firm on the CO and in medium whoops, we can close the CO to 10/10 firm and hit the bigger stuff, now having more compression resistance.

Or, we can open the CO to 1/10 and make it soft and squishy on the street or in the dirt on slow trails over all those baby heads and washboard for miles on end.

It takes 10 seconds to spin one clicker on each coilover to go from street to HAM in the dirt.

But that's just our use case - almost everyone here will probably disagree with me. But my mom says I'm special, so it's OK.

 

this is a great explanation for what works for you guys. thanks for that. i've got a good starting point now i think.

 

No it wasn't. You didn't understand any of that ridiculously over complicated explanation, just like the rest of us

 

AMEN

 

lll be honest ... I knew it was going to not make sense because #kevinisms so I didn’t even bother reading lmao

 

Glad I could help.

 

super useful ..... like a pair of tits on a bull

 

Like LT on a bracket lift

 

thats a much better analogy.. going to start using that everywhere hahahaha

 

and we are back to square 1...

 

isn't analogy the study of buttholes?

 

didnt take us long..

 

are there any websites that you can recommend? in case my neighbor would like to do further research in this area of interest.

 

Ask @KevinK , he's an expert

 

bear in mind, i'm just asking for a friend...

 

Wait, so am I supposed to be giving myself advice? I’m confused now. Directions unclear. Dick stuck in a vice.

 

idk, alex said you are some sort of expert on all things butthole. and i am just asking for a friend...

 

Well instead of starting a new thread, I thought I'd start this back up. After reading the thread, I noticed that the tuning is primarily for dual shock bypass combo. I'll be revalving my front coilovers in hopes to dial in the front end a bit better. Im noticing since adding armor that it can be refined quite a bit. Has anyone revalved ADS coilovers with 700lb springs?
I'm doing this in hopes that I get close to how I want it to ride. So that I can just add bypasses and be happy. But I don't want to keep adding MT if Lt is the ultimate answer.

 

Revalved ADS coilovers with King bypasses up front. I'm happy with my front end setup.

 

did you revalve your ads without the bypasses? or were they tuned to pair with the bypass? I'm hoping to tune mine to stand alone without a secondary.

 

Installed the bypasses, called ADS about revalving and they told me to just flip the shims. instead of skinny to big, they go big to skinny. The bypasses are pretty much doing all the work.

 

I'm taking the truck out to moon rocks area in reno tomorrow to get some vid of the suspension cycling. Then Ill be rebuilding/ revalving in a few weeks. I can find a local spot to tune it off the videos.

 

you don't want the bypasses to do all the work. you want a flutter stack with a rate plate in the coilover and a traditional stack with rate plate in the bypasses. They need to share the dampening so you don't load all the heat into just the bypasses.

Also, if you're gonna do LT then don't waste your time with MT. Trust me. I spent 7k on front MT with bypasses then ripped it all out and installed LT sooo...

 

hey, those front bypasses are still on the road. only the road though :'-(

 

haha do something about that!

 

i fuken mob through pot holes and speed bumps.

 

I’m really happy with the performance so far. I know that out of the box application is only so good. But with bumpers and armor, it’s worth tuning to the trucks specifics. I’ll be tuning the front end to stand alone. At least for the summer.

 

Well lost track of time today shooting off some AR rounds. Going to need to head back out to get some vid of the suspension working. After speaking with Sam at Samco Fab in sparks nevada,(and a few other shops) the answer I am looking for is LT. Just like @osidepunker said earlier. So ill just be revalving this go around and start saving....