Coilover lift and ride quality questions

So I have heard of people getting coilover lifts and making comments like "it improved ride quality" or even more specific, "it rides like a cadillac now" and this just does not compute for me. Unless I am not understanding something, an increased ride height requires more spring pressure. More spring pressure = harsher ride. Am I wrong here and ust not understanding something? How can someone claim "cadillac ride" when they LIFT a Tacoma and did not get some reengineered suspension like a long arm and just got a coil over lift? Id love to get a nicer ride AND lift the truck a couple of inches... is that even possible? Is the ride quality controlled by shock dampning or something that improves ride quality? Please help me understand.

 

Most coilover lift are designed to give lift but not sacrifice ride quality both on and offroad. The spring rate and shock work together to give lift, and yet give you a better ride. Spacer lifts and even 5100's will compress your stock spring and give a perty harsh ride.
I went from spacer's to a adjustable coilover and it rides way better. If your looking for an in-exspensive lift that will give you a great ride, I would suggest the OME kit. But if you adjustability, then go for either Toytec's coilovers or even King or Icon's, If you really want a high performance coilover.

 

So HOW exactly would a King coil over suspension lift give me a more plush ride? I would like to understand the physics and engineering involved. A friend who is much more experinced building rock crawling rigs and is an engineer convinced me to get a Tacoma but insists short of a long travel suspension it is IMPOSSIBLE to get an increase in ride height without increasing spring weight and thus making the ride firmer. He is telling me that you CANNOT increase ride height and decrease ride firmness at the same time. He says the longer coilover will still have to have increased spring stiffness to sit at a higher ride height with the factory arms.

 

True, all coilover's will give a firmer ride, but not nearly as bad as a spacer lift. Like I said, it has to do with the spring Rate, and the shock dampening. They all have a higher spring rate then OEM's. There for you wont have to compress the spring as much to gain lift. Therefore your ride will be slight stiffer but not as bad as If you were compressing the stock spring to gain lift. Hope that kinda helps ya... Sorry, I just haven't been in this lifting game for very long, and Im sure someone else will chime in who knows a bit more.

 

I put toytec coil overs on my taco and to be honest it does ride a lot harder then with the stock setup. You have a lot less wheel travel when you put a 3 inch lift on these things. So when you hit a hard bump you'll always be fully extending your shocks more often. With the 5100's it only takes about 1inch to jack the front tire off the ground compared to about 3 inches when i had my stock set up. Go for a long travel kit, that will help but no matter what anyone says the stock set up is going to be the smoothest. All a coilover is doing for you is compressing the spring to lift the truck higher. The harder the compression of the spring the less give the spring will have and will lead to a harder ride. Same thing as a spacer lift!

 

So even a long travel suspension lift will result in a harsher ride? Thats sucks. I have to wonder why people pay so much for say a King Coilover 2.5" lift vs some cheaper option if they are not prerunning the desert or something. Would say, an OME also lifting 2.5" provide the same ride quality, suspension travel, and driving characteristics as a King Coilover that proveds the identical lift if you are not blasting throgh the desert? The OME is MUCH less expenisve.

Also, do the drop bracket 6" lifts result in better on road ride quality than the 2.5-3" coil over lifts?

 

um, i beg to differ. my LT kit rides much smoother than my truck did stock.

you can swap out your stock parts for a race style CO (king, fox, SAW...) and not compress the springs at all and the truck will ride far better than stock, but you wont gain any lift.

you can run a LT kit w/ no preload on the coils as well and will gain some lift but that is pointless unless you plan on using the truck for what you have just built it for.

 

I am no expert in suspension systems, but in general:

Spring force F=kx.
k is the spring constant for a given spring, and x is the displacement distance.

Coilover springs work on mostly torsional deflection. If you "unravelled" the coil, you would get a long torsion rod. Hence the longer the "torsion rod" (ie larger outside diameter of the coil and more number of coils) allows more overall displacement with less force (so less harsh ride). The "k" is influenced by the material stiffness and diameter of spring material, and a spring designer would "tune" this with the coilover geometry (outside diameter, number of coils), and with the weight of the truck and ride height, to the type of ride characteristics desired.

If you add a block to compress an existing spring, you will lift it but it will ride rougher because you increase "x" (ie F=kx means more force).

If you DESIGN a spring to ride at a higher height, you can have it ride however you want (as is the case with aftermarket coilovers). From this new baseline point, more compression (more lift) will cause stiffer ride, and less compression (lowering) will cause looser ride.

Hope this provides the more technical explanation you wanted.