Suspension Advice- Icon, King, Alcan, deaver??

Hey everyone, wanted to introduce myself and ask a couple of questions for advice. Got my 2017 Tundra SR5 in October 2016. Immediately put a 3" spacer/1.75" block level on it and some some method wheels with 295/70/18's. Here she is the day that I brought her back from the store (I had the dealership put the lift and tires on since my brother manages a discount tire and my dad is the GSM of a Toyota dealership


Eventually I got a smittybuilt overland tent and moved 3000 miles away. A 7000# trailer was not fun with the lift I currently have driving that far, but the drive was awesome.


So here we are now. I do a good bit of driving in the snow (in the winter) on forest roads/fire roads and moderate trails to get to camp sites out of the way of public ones. The spacer lift with blocks is very rough for all of this. I'm replacing the rooftop tent with a GFC that is going to (hopefully) be ready in June. I just bought a decked system as well.

I want to revamp the suspension. I'm currently siting at 60K miles. My question is: what should I do? I know this is a very weighted question. I've looked hard into the Icon RXT system for the rear and Icon coilovers, but I've also looked at OME with dakars, and toytec with deavers in the rear. I'm also very enticed by TAV's setup with Alcan and Kings. There's so many options that I'm just looking for advice from folks. I'd like to maintain the towing capacity, but sit with little to no sag with the GFC (roughly 500ish pounds in the bed always total).

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

 

For the rear id recommend the rxt icon leafs

 

I'm partial to KINGs and Deavers or ADS and Deavers. ALCAN are great too.

 

King is pretty much the cats meow

 

The icon's seem like the easiest option to go with since so many people run the RXT system. Where do you get custom length/longer travel King's? For a 1.75"-2" rear lift I think you need 12-13" travel kings, which I'm not sure they have in the 2.5 that I can find.

 

Call king directly. They are very helpful

 

Fox king or ADS wouldn’t wonder far from those three

 

I’ve always liked icons and haven’t ever had any issues. My last coil overs and shocks lasted over 50k with a lot of off roading and no leaks. I have a set in my garage now waiting to install. I didn’t get the rxt leafs yet but probably will. In my experience, they are very quick to answer emails or questions if you call.

 

Call King

 

It looks like if I went Kings, filthy motorsports does custom length rears for longer travel. I've pretty much narrowed it down to Kings or Icons. I there any benefit to Deavers or Alcan's over the RXT leafs? The RXT leafs seem the easiest since you can switch leafs around depending on the weight.

 

also note KING has been shutdown for covid19 so you gonna have to wait a long time unless in stock somewehere.

 

RXTs are probably in stock somewhere. I think deaver and alcan are custom made, but I could be wrong. Other than that they will all serve the same purpose. Like you said, RXTs can be changed depending on weight and lift height.

 

ben at filthy is awesome. great guy and super knowledgeable. you can’t go wrong with his advice or service.

as someone with a lot of full time weight in the back, my advice, weigh the truck and call alcan or deaver for custom leaf packs. the rxt packs will probably need replacing sooner than you want.

the other option, which i am waiting on to replace my deavers, is the 3” pack setup for MT from @osidepunker and @papasmurf.

 

oh, forgot, go blue or go home.

 

OP there is a really simple answer to all of this, but first some questions.

Front Coil-overs and rear shocks. what color do you like? Black or Blue?

If Black, go Icon, if Blue go King. Icon has a unique ride quality due to the Digressive valving. I used to run Icons and liked them very much. Now I run Kings and I love them too. So really that is your call. They are both great. @KevinK can fill you in on the Icons, hes our groups resident expert on them. With that many miles, you should replace the ball joint on the stock one, and in my opinion, a set of UCA's would be a good upgrade at the same time.

I would also look at getting a set of UCA's which will help the front end with articulation and ride quality.

For Leaf springs, Alcan is decent, Deavers are great, and the RTX is pretty good but I'm not entirely familiar with them so I can't say how great they will be in the long term since they are a newer product.

If you go deaver you will want the u748's they have better weight handling characteristics.

While I appreciate the plug for our 3" product, thats a really new truck and I don't think you warrant a 3" leaf upgrade yet. Let's try some other options first. You can always upgrade later. But its a pretty serious mod, not trying to steer you away from it, just requires cutting and welding on the frame.

Now as far as the trailer deal, I would highly suggest a something like this,

https://www.sdtrucksprings.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=47970

combined with daystar airbag cradles https://www.daystarweb.com/product/air-bag-cradle-polyurethane-black

which allow full suspension articulation while off-road, but the support of the airbags while towing, its what I ran on my truck, and it was the best of both worlds.

Let me know if you have any questions, id be happy to answer.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone.

@smslavin yeah they've been really helpful with all of my questions about Kings so far. It's great.

@papsmurf For color, don't really have a preference honestly. I'm just more looking for what's functional and what people have had good experiences with. I was definitely going to get some new UCA's, I should have added that in the original post. You said alcan's are decent and deavers are great, can you expound upon that? It seems like alcans are hit and miss for some and the same goes for deavers for the other half of people.

The floating airbag is awesome! I honestly wasn't really sure how those worked since I had only seen them on a TAV stage 1 tundra.

 

here's my take after having both icons and kings.

icons give better road manners. kings give better off road manners.

that being said, i have zero complaints with the kings on my tundra. handles great both on and off the pavement.

i currently have deaver U748s. they will be just over 2 years old this summer and they need replacing as they are completely flat already. for full time weight, i have a topper, decked drawers (full), dometic 95L fridge/freezer, expedition one rear bumper and a full size (35") spare. there's also a 50lb LiFePo battery. i do not tow but the idea of an off road camper trailer has been floating around my head for awhile. it will likely stay that way for awhile longer.

i was going to have alcan build a custom set based on the truck weight prior to learning about the 3" leaf pack mod. i'm just going to hold out a little longer and wait to make that jump. i think it will server me better long term.

 

Erick @state48overland

Thoughts, opinion and general insight?

 

Like others have said, consider ADS. Matt at MCM Fab knows our trucks inside and out and the ADS components are high quality. Look him up and give him a call.

I have a full ADS setup along with some Deaver U748 springs.

John

 

Id say Alcan is hit or miss, Deaver has a much longer history and reputation. that's really it

 

Agree with the info posted throughout the thread. Similar weight and components you have or will have used in our prior builds ...we have paired folks up with Deavers and ICONS. Icons RXT shocks are properly spec'd for the RXT leaf pack application with no other changes to height. Ggiven your constant load...leaf pack height that will be needed etc...we have done the RXT's, with a Coachbuilder Stage 1 (gives about 3/4" of lift) shackle, and airbags with Daystar cradles. The airbags will help to support the constant weight taking some pressure off the leaf springs keeping the arch integrity over time-you set the psi accordingly. The CB shackle kits add comfort and eliminates the rubber bushing that and replaces with poly style-that moves free through the suspension leaf pack cycle. The cradles allows/enhances droop and articulation off road. Sounds like you will be an option 3 candidate -given your constant loads paired with airbags could be a great combo. If going with other shocks -custom length will be needed to accommodate for droop. Your up travel numbers will be limited by your air bag psi, which is basically your bump stop. Shocks lengths I have requested in the past from manufacturers have been 10"-11" in travel with measurements between 27.5-28.75" extended....16.5-18.75" compressed,,,which allow for most of the shock to be used with air bags on the up travel side and bumping out before bottom out, and allow for great droop numbers with the leaf pack/shackle set up

 

Yup ADS is also a great option, and Matt can hook you up! one-stop shop everything at once, except for the airbag stuff

 

Ah gotcha that makes sense. I'll look at Deaver a little harder now to see. I've done more research of Icon RXT and Alcan than Deaver so far.

 

Thanks so much for all of the info! One of my big questions about the Icon RXT leafs were whether it was better to run stock shackles or CB +1's on them. That info helps tremendously.

 

Not to hijack the thread, but will the King 2.5 rear shocks work with 1.75” lift?

 

I’m putting ads triple bypass on with rxt icon at setting 2 to almost match the deaver set up. Trying something not sure if anyone has done this set up yet but we’ll c

 

Completely missed your post. I'll take a look at ADS. I don't know too much about them, but I'll definitely search the forum and do some research. Thanks!

 

Curious if you'd looked and compared the shocks lengths on the Omegas vs ADS. I ask this because Icon made specific shocks, from what I recall, to work best with the RXTs. Honestly, you may be hindering travel mix matching. Icon uses a very specific lower mount, probably for a good reason.

 

I vote kings, over 50k miles on mine no issues, might get them rebuilt soon. Plush ride on the street and smooth off-road

 

I did check into it. But to me icon was just something I’m not willing to put on my truck way to many problems I’m not willing to deal with as far as a shock goes. When chatting to the dealers with shocks and leafs they matched the length size of the shocks to make sure it was pretty close to the deaver as we could go. For what I’m doing I can’t see it making that big of a deal. @dcsleeper408 had the same rear set up as all actually