Eibach coils on non-Eibach shocks

I have the #700 Eibachs on my coilovers. Good springs and came in very handy after I added about the same weight as you. My #650 and #700 are both 14", I adjusted the collars up 3 turns to get back to where I was. You may or may not have to adjust for the additional 3/4"

 

He was not thinking clearly at the time... hope he replies.

The shock overall length and the perch-top length are very different things. As far as the spring is concerned the perch-top length is what is important. The overall length is irrelevant. The difference between that and the spring's free length tells you the spring compression (preload) at max extension. You also want to know what the shock travel is, as that combined with the preload tells you the max amount the spring can be compressed in the shock.

What I did was show that the KYB perch-top length must be about the same as the stock shock and also the 5100 at the lowest perch. Since the 5100 has no problems with the Eibach coil on this setting, the KYB won't either. Since the KYB has nearly an inch less travel it'd be nowhere near binding at max compression. A 1" spacer *under* the tophat on the KYB would achieve the same maximum spring compression as the 5100 on the bottom perch.

 

This is getting good.

 

My first lift (2005) was taller or stiffer springs on OEM shocks. Cornered great. The front rode a bit like a track car - in other words, rode like shit.
I have 5100's top perch on the 4R, very fun to drive.
My tundra has Kings on it now. Those things are fairly serious.
But I think my first lift is exactly what you want to do. Springs aren't that expensive, give it a whirl.

 

Thanks, glad you replied... the peanut gallery was getting kinda extreme.

Up travel should be ok because I'm hoping to end up with a 1.5-2" lift. Down travel will be reduced but nothing extreme compared to other lifts. If the spring gives 2.5" with no extra load, and the load takes more than an 1" of that (will probably be closer to 2"), I'll need to add top spacers also. I could add up to .5" (which would add ~.85" of lift) and still have a shorter shock than the 5100. .85" of lift from the spacer and .85" from the spring would leave me a decent amount of travel in both directions.

 

ok so there is a hiccup with the Eibach springs... the top hat ID for the tundra is 3.5" vs the eibach spring is 3.0"...

TUNDRA spring ID is 3.0" on the bottom and ID 3.5 on the top.

 

You are talking about your 6112 springs right (not the same as stock Tundras)? Bilstein recommended Eibach springs but didn't mention this? Have you looked into getting tophat bushings that will fit?

 

yeah the 6112. though the 6112 reuses the stock top hats

 

need to do more research on that since noone mentioned that to me either...

 

I guess by "peanut gallery" you mean everyone who doesn't agree with your premise. Yet you asked for ideas, thoughts and experience, and people helped out. Then you go all Brad and keep throwing numbers that support your premise and ignore the ones that don't. Please put those springs on and prove just about everyone else wrong.

 

Besides memario1214, what I got was a lot of "opinions", from people who were unwilling or unable to think about the issue long enough to understand it. It isn't rocket science, but it is science... with some math and geometry. Opinions with no basis in anything real ain't worth squat. I thought about making diagrams and pictures... but that would have taken a lot of time, and I realized not a single person showed any indication that they wanted to understand. Just lots of snark.

 

You are right, there wasn't a lot of responders. Just 3 that put in a lot of work to explain shocks. When you say "people who were unwilling or unable to think about the issue long enough to understand it", what you really mean is, "don't support my premise so I disregard them". You are further proving my point and you don't even know it. Please put those springs on, you know they will work, you've proven it to yourself on paper. The fact that I did the same exact thing and can tell you it sucks is irrelevant. You know better. Do it.

 

Well if the stock springs are the same as the stock springs I had then it wont fit anyway due to the 3.5" id top hat and bushing.

 

^ not you @SAGE63

 

Here reminds me of the guys back in the low rider days. Let’s cut the springs to lower the car or clamp the springs. Looks good to me, who cares how it rides and it was cheap. And he’s right it isn’t rock science. I guess every performance shock company didn’t pay for the scientific technology to make a OEM shock that adds lift without any compromise. Instead they just made them longer to achieve it. Could have saved them millions on R&D.

 

I'm not disregarding, I'm refuting and trying to explain... but it's damn hard to do well without diagrams and numbers (work). That was not why I started this thread, so it was frustrating. I'm not disagreeing just because "I don't like the answer"; I've thought about this stuff quite a bit. And most of the disagreements *can* be resolved technically. Regarding the "snark" (that I want shitty oversprung and underdamped OEMs)... I suppose your impression of how this has gone has been about the same as mine. Sorry I came off like an ass. Peace?

If memario1214's numbers are correct, and Eibach hasn't changed these coils since they were introduced, then it has been "proven" that they will fit on the KYBs and should give ~2.5" of lift (maybe a little less), with no load and no spacers. That's what I wanted to know at the start.

So now it comes down to will it "ride like shit" in my application? KYB's marketing and customer reviews claim that they are designed for heavy loads, so I expect on the rear at least the damping will probably be greater than any other stock 2" monotube I could buy; which is good. The front typically isn't as affected by a load, so probably not much difference there vs a 5100.

Regarding down travel and up travel, if I end up with ~.85" due to the spring (vs 2.5" unloaded), and use a top spacer for another .85", what will the up/down be vs a stock truck? What will it be vs a 5100? I'll take a look at that later, but you are welcome to take a stab at it if you like!

 

This thread has seen various tones, but peace it is. I want you to be successful and I want your set up to work. I know I've come off bitchy, but I only joined in this thread to make sure bad information wasn't passed on. Like compression and pre-load are the same. they are not. I use math but I visualize concepts. Maybe you visualize the math. But, friends...do us proud.

 

The spring compression/preload comment was only in relation how much the spring is compressed vs it's free length when it's installed in the shock, as a means of creating lift. What would you call that?

The worst thing about the KYBs fronts is the short travel. If the damping is no higher than the 5100s, the 5100s would be a better choice (with the Eibach springs) for that reason. Would I put silver shocks on the front and red ones on the back? Ya, absolutely...

Still wonder if these little shocks will hold up... and I should spend the money on custom valved 2.5s. Guess I could get a storage unit somewhere in the middle of my route and keep tools and stuff in there for doing rebuilds...

 

So this is where people get messed up. Not you necessarily, but in general. Me at one point.

Coilovers - OEM, Bilstein Fox/King all need some spring compression to be assembled. The spring is still loaded at full shock extension once assembled. Otherwise it would flop around at full extension.

I have Kings so I will talk about adjustable coilovers. But, it's all kind of the same. I have a collar that is a big spinning nut, Bilstein has perches for adjustment, and OEM is not adjustable - unless you start changing springs.

My Kings allow the spring to extend when I jack up the truck, to the point of full shock extension. The spring gets compressed when I lower the truck to a "fixed spring height" regardless of where I have adjusted my collar. It's compressed because of the truck weight, and let's say the spring sits 10" inches tall under the weight of the truck. I can adjust preload way up or way down, affecting my ride height using that same spring. I think I can see 3+" of difference in truck height. It doesn't matter, the spring is still 10" tall under the weight of the truck. Preload doesn't compress the spring. it changes where the spring sits on the shock and that adjusts the ride height. More importantly, preload determines how compressed or extended the shock is under weight. If I adjusted my kings to a 4"+ lift, the shock would only have the ability to compress, not extend. May as well run solid tube and skip the shock.

The part that gets many people scratching their head, is that with all weight off the shock, and when you adjust the collar tighter, you are making the spring compress, get shorter. But it doesn't mean adjusting preload is compressing the spring. The spring is going back to that 10" height once you drop the jack. It's just the design of the thing that takes a 14" spring, constrains it to less than 14" by assembling it into a coil over, constrains it further by adding preload, but when you put the weight of the truck on the whole thing - the spring is still 10" tall.

 

I think we are in agreement, I'd just explain it a little differently...

Let's say your spring is 14" long and you preload it 2" in the shock (because your perch-tophat distance is 12"), and then you install it in the truck and weight it and it compresses another 2" for 4" total. If you have the stock King springs I think they are 600 lb/in, so the spring is exerting 2400 lbs of force to to hold up that corner of the truck. No matter what your lift is, that won't change. If you put in a 700 lb 14" spring you'd still end up with 2400 lbs of force, it would just happen with 3.43" (2400/700) of total spring compression instead of 4". If you didn't move the adjuster, you'd have .57" less sag (1.43") and .57" more lift (at the shock). If you wanted the same amount of lift as the initial case, you'd dial the adjuster down .57" so you had 1.43" of preload and the same 2" of sag.

But getting back to the 600 lb 14" springs, if you want more lift you can adjust your perch up say 1", so the initial distance is 11" and you have 3" of preload. Then when you install it in your truck you'll only get 1" of additional compression... because that 4" of total spring compression (2400 lbs) is what is needed to hold up your truck. If the ratio of shock travel to wheel travel is ~1.7 at typical ride height, then you've lifted it 1.7" higher than it was before. And as you said you'll also have 1.7" less down travel to full extension. What you gain in one direction you lose in the other... and if you move the perch up another inch, it won't sag at all! You want the spring to sag closer to the middle of the shock's range when the truck's weight is on it, so the wheel has good travel in both directions.

The reason why this isn't a problem in my application is that I'm looking at less than 1" of lift from the longer and stiffer spring, because it will be heavily loaded. So it would still be near the middle of the shock's range.

This would be a lot better with diagrams, geometry, and precise numbers. We could calculate anything we wanted to know about lift, up travel and down travel, max droop, etc... with any spring and shock and weight.

 

Very well explained. My kings have about 4" of travel at the shock for 1st gen. 1" of adjustment up at the shock is about 2" of overall lift. With 4" of shock travel, 1" at he shock is a lot of adjustment from baseline. That goes from 50-50 to 75-25 percent/ up travel -down travel. Just within the bounds of acceptable, but at the end of OK. Is your lift overall or at the shock? If your result is 70-30, I think you are fine. It depends on how you drive.

 

I guess there is still a potential problem with using taller springs or stiffer springs under the same truck weight for added lift. That doesn't really change. If the truck weight hasn't changed and the springs are heavier, the ride is heavier.

 

The numbers I've seen for 2nd Gen front shock travel are:

OEM: 5.93
5100: 6.35
OME: 6.89
Rancho 9000: 5.63
KYB Monomax: 5.38
Fox 2.0: 5.93
Fox 2.5: 6.67
King 2.5: 7.18

Wish I knew exactly what the ratio of wheel travel to shock length was at normal ride height. It might be 2:1... that's what coachbuilder claims for their shims. I'd been using 1.7:1.

If it's 2:1 and I'm getting 1" (or less) of lift from spring compression, that's only .5" at the shock itself. But were does the stock shock sit in its travel? The shorter travel of the KYB relative to OEM is all on the up side... it bottoms out sooner on compression. I'm guessing they get away with that because the Tundra bumpstops seem to stop the uptravel early. I have 35s that stick out past the fender slightly and no lift, and there is no contact even when hitting a ditch at a good clip. When it's just sitting there is a 5" gap there... so there is <5" of up. Don't know how much it droops with no load, but a comment that I wouldn't rely on said Tundras have ~9" of travel stock.

If it is 9", the stock shock would be right around the middle I think... ~4.5" up and down. If you lifted it 3" all with the spring, you'd have 7.5" up and 1.5" down, which I don't think would be good at all. But if I get 1" of spring lift it would be 5.5" up and 3.5" down. I'd get another 1" from length (.5" top spacer).

The 5100 and OME are both ~.5 longer than stock, so they are getting around 1" of lift from length. The 5100 on the top clip would then be getting ~1.3" of lift from the spring, and the OME set for a 3" lift would be getting 2"... or ~6.5 up and ~2.5 down. I think it was on the Ironman site where they stated you should have at least 60mm of down travel (2.36").

Very ballpark... need precise measurements.

Get this... the King 2.5 is a whopping 25.33" long... 1.78" longer than stock! I'm surprised that the CVs don't bind, but I bet they are right at the limit... and you'd need UCAs that can handle that droop. But if that's true they can get 3" of lift with less than stock spring compression, which is pretty cool.

 

It seems clear that those Kings and Fox setups are engineered right. Others as well, I just notice them less. I've had my Kings rebuilt and have adjusted them enough times to need maybe 5 alignments in the last year. But I'm almost done messing with stuff. Most of the adjustments were for added weight, one or two for shock travel. I'm dealing with less travel in comparison, so my adjustments are more critical. We haven't even covered bump stops or straps.

 

Do people use straps for the stock 2.5 Kings in mid travel setups?

 

no, lol. I was just adding other variables because like you, I think about this stuff. I have changes my bumps 5 times.

 

Yes, it might be time to find something new to obsess about.

I know when I finally hit the road I won't give a shit about anything... so long as it doesn't break...

 

Same. I was just thinking that I'm almost there. Need to install a few things and acquire a few things, but the truck is ready, need to break in the gears, though.

 

What are the #s for the 6112...