Suspension Help

Quit flashing your junk you Perv.

 

If you want to sell the rear air bags let me know. I may be interested. Plus I’m fairly close by.

 

I will let you know.

 

Lots of good advice in this thread. @n2deep and @KevinK know what they’re talking about from their own personal experiences and trial and error.
I have the ADS front and rear setup mentioned from MCM. 2.5” coilovers with TC adjustable UCA’s up front and triple bypasses with U748 Deavers and TC shackles in the rear.
You won’t be disappointed if you go this route, it’s a great mid travel setup that will allow you to do the kind of off roading you want and more.

 

I see the ads rear triple bypasses are only 100$ more than the fox 2.5 w dsc. I just want to be sure triple by pass in the rear is what I should do even if I stick to fox 2.5 with Dsc in the front. And to take in account the 600 lbs in the rear at all times (unloaded), if not more(loaded). @KevinK @n2deep

 

I love finding these threads where the suspension experts throw out knowledge. Kudos to @n2deep and @KevinK!

 

A triple bypass will out perform a non bypass shock, because you can control the valving in each zone. You make the ride zone what you want and then can ramp up the stiffness of the bump zone so you don't have as harsh bottom outs with the turn if a screw on the bypass tubes.
https://youtu.be/HBjZu3TfjF8
http://www.crawlpedia.com/shock_tuning.htm

The springs are what hold the weight and the shock is what controls the travel of the weight.

 

That video is internal bypass but same concept just the bypass tubes are on the outside.

 

Once you start looking at bypasses, it becomes more a decision between valving styles than anything else - all the major manufacturers are excellent in this category. Fox, King, ADS and Icon make great bypasses.

At this point you’ll begin to consider if you want digressive or progressive valving in the ride zone.

Progressive valving is soft at slow speed movements and gets progressively firmer as you incur higher shaft speeds. So, the harder you hit the wheel, the harder the shock resists the movement and transfers that energy to the truck. Some people translate this to a rough ride on small stuff at high velocities (fast washboard).

Digressive valving starts firm at slow shaft speeds and provides less resistance at higher shaft speeds. So the harder you hit the wheel, the faster it gets out of the way and the less energy is transferred to the truck. People translate this to a more comfortable ride over those fast washboard type roads.

The traditional risk with digressive valving has been on non-bypass shocks, you can blow through the stroke on big hits and bottom out (a hydro bump helps resolve this). Digressive valving in a bypass shock doesn’t have that bottoming out problem because you can stiffen the last part of the shock stroke (this isn’t technically true, but the easiest way to explain it. Really the last part of the shock stroke is tuned with the valving on the piston, and the ride zone is what you have control over with the external tubes and clickers).

For our own use, since the truck is my wife’s daily driver and always loaded +4-500lbs, we chose to go with digressive valved bypasses from Icon. They are relatively firm on the street for good handling without jarring your teeth (turning corners are considered slow shaft speed events). And then we can adjust the ride zone for whatever terrain or speed we’re doing off road (high shaft speed events). On the big hits they resist bottoming because of the last zone in the shock.

I hope that didn’t make it more confusing. LoL.

 

I'm trying to decide right now what my suspension setup is going to be. I did want 35s but have decided to go smaller because I do NOT want to rub and I don't want to feel a power loss.

So, I'll probably end up with ADS coilover with clickers and some kind of A-arm in the front. For the rear it will be ADS with reservoir and a Coachbuilder 1" shackle. My tires will be 295/65-18...a little smaller than I wanted but Cutter29s truck helped me decide on these.

I just have not decided where I'm going to buy the suspension components yet.

 

Slightly more confusing haha, but that's part of learning. I guess Im just worried about being able to easily tube my bypasses like I can with the shocks. And how my truck will handle it. And I expected the triple by passes to be much more expensive. I know the fox 2.5 dsc are top of the line but does that mean the ads triple by passes only costing 100 more are low end bypasses. And if so how closely do they perform. I guess I'm just worried about picking the wrong tool for the job.

 

Haha! Welcome to the world of high performance suspension debate.

Our group of friends, the Speed Glamper Uberfahrt, argue about this constantly.

I think Fox uses excellent quality parts, and they’ve been in the game a long time. ADS also uses excellent parts, but is a bit new relative to the other big 3. I think that’s why Brian’s prices are just a little less. He’s a bit smaller of a shop than Fox and has a bit less overhead, so he can pass that savings to the customer.

 

For what it’s worth, I’ve seen every brand of shock fail. I’ve also seen every brand take massive hits and stay together. There are just too many variables off road to say one is significantly better or worse.

 

This may or may not be helpful, but we run 37s on a 2” lift with no rub. It takes some trimming of the body mount and pinch weld, but it’s not visible from outside the truck.

Power loss is subjective I think. We already had the tow package which. Ones with 4.30 gears instead of 4.10. I think most people complain of power loss with 4.10s.

We can still drift the truck just fine on stock gears.

 

Y

But it's true I don't need a

Good to know. In the debate of ads bypasses vs fox 2.5 w dsc. What would you choose if you were in my position with everything I've stated thus far, and what you like and know about your current set up. I do not mind doing a hydraulic bump stop with the fox if it's gonna be better for me but the bumps and fox are more expensive that just the ads bypasses.

 

So basically the ADS will out perform the fox. Is the valving something anyone can do like the fox dsc. Or is that the biggest fall back for me when choosing ads vs fox.

 

Short answer if it was me?

Bypasses.

Any brand of bypasses is better than any other brand of remote resi smooth shock.

Internal Valving can be done by you if you’re mechanically inclined. It involves taking apart the shock body and putting it back together. This needs to be done on a regular basis as part of maintenance anyway, so all you would do is change the shim stack.

All bypasses have external adjusters for the bypass tubes. So while the Fox smooth body has one adjuster and it only does compression for the whole stroke, a triple bypass has three adjusters. One for rebound. And two for compression.

 

If you really wanna nerd-out, this is my bible.

http://www.shimrestackor.com/

 

How often is this maintenance required? I'm fairly mechanically inclined but out if my comfort zone right now haha.

 

It depends on how much you offroad. Anywhere from 10-30k. We offroad agressively about 6 days a month, maybe a little more. By aggressive, I mean pushing the truck to almost 90% for 8-10 hours a day. So we’re on the 10k schedule. Once you do the first service you’ll have a good idea of the service interval.

If you can remove and replace the shocks on the truck, you can do it yourself.

 

Kevin quit confusing everyone you nerd.

 

10k you are too anal. I bet you change your oil at 3k still.

 

With the bypasses you shouldn't have to change valving just use the bypass tube to fine tune how it rides. It adjust how much of the vavling to bypass to get the results desired. No need to pull off the truck and open up. Doubt most pull them off and have them rebuilt under 40 or 50k miles

 

@KevinK you are my hero. you are everything I wish I could be. You are the wind beneath my wings. Too soon? Sorry. I’m bummed I’m going to miss you, Lisa, and T2S. I’ll be moving cross country though. I’m sure it will be a success and even bigger than last year. Sorry. Not trying to hijack the thread.

 

This is helpful...I'm just a little adverse to cutting, etc. Who knows, I may end up doing this to get what I want.

 

5k, even though the used oil analysis always says to try a longer duration.

Love you too buddy! Definitely gonna miss seeing you tear up the Cinders. I hope the move is a good one for you. Maybe we’ll come visit when you get settled in.

 

@joonbug is this true.? I'm in the market if you're selling.

 

Yes, it’s the Boss system. Just need to get them out of the box and take some pictures. Will try to put them up for sale this weekend. But I might try to sell locally first so I don’t have to deal with shipping.

 

Message me your asking price, I'm in San Diego & am willing to travel.