Everything Elka and How They Compare

I wrote this over on Tundras.com, but the vast majority of it is completely applicable to Tacomas, I figured I'd post it here on TW as well. Been getting quite a few PMs across several of @tcBob sites asking about Elkas, so I figured I would throw this together as a one-stop-shop. For those that don't know, I am currently running Elkas front and rear on my 2015 Tundra. Prior to the Elkas I had OE Kings. I mention that only because you'll see some side by side comparison between Elka and King and how it relates specifically to Toyota OE suspension and mount points. I ran the Kings from June 2015 to September 2018. The Elkas have been on since September 2018 and I feel like I have enough ass-to-seat time to make a fair assessment. For those of you that know me, know I'm a huge King fanboy and a shock snob. But in my younger days, I was big into quads and moto-x and I ran Elkas on all my competition bikes. Naturally it piqued my interest when I heard Elka was branching into the passenger vehicle market.



First off, if you greater plan is to go long travel or any kind of rear shock relocate, you can stop reading now. Elkas are designed to be a drop in coilover and shock replacement with all factory hardware, geometry, and mount points. The fronts are a traditional adjustable coilover with a preload collar one can adjust to add preload to change the ride height. How much lift is entirely up to the owner. I set mine about 2" to be mostly level with the rear. The rear Elka shocks are intended for 0-1" of lift in the rear. So those of you with plans for a drop bracket lift or a massive amounts of lift in the rear, not going to work. On the flip side, if you are just trying to level out your truck and only using an AAL, 1" block, or 0-1" extended shackle, these are ideal. But for the record, this is the exact same restriction that Kings have. Also to set some expectations, you are gonna see the Kings that came off my truck. And they look exactly that, fresh off a truck that they have been on for 2.5 years and 25,000 miles and living in an area that has snow on the ground 3-5 months out of the year. Didn't even bother cleaning them up yet. So take that into consideration.

You will see a common theme with the Elkas throughout this post. And that is their fit and finish and attention to details is astonishing. Elka uses an all aluminum shock body vs. the majority of the competition. King, Fox, Icon, ADS, etc all use steel shock bodies. There are different schools of though when it comes to what material to use. Steel is, without a doubt, stronger than aluminum. It also has a smaller thermal expansion coefficient. Pretty much all manufactures use an aluminum pistons. What this translates to is, as the shocks heat up, the piston and IFP will expand at a faster rate than the steel shock body. This in turn makes a tighter seal for the IFP and wear band around the main piston. But the thermal expansion is so minute, it's only a very minimal difference. On the other hand, steel shock bodies come with steel problems (corrosion and rust). Each brand has their own way to combat it. IMO ADS has by far the best finish on the market. They do cadmium plating on the bodies followed up with a ceramic clear coat. King is similar. Fox and SAW literally have the worst finish on the market. So if you live in the salt belt or near the ocean or anything salty in general, I would strongly advise against Fox or SAW. Some manufactures (Elka included) have moved to aluminum for shock bodies as well, but it depends on the shock diameter. Most the aluminum bodies on the market are below 2.5" diameter shocks. The nice part about aluminum is...you don't have to worry about rust.

Let's start with the rear (only because that's the order the pictures uploaded). Right off the bat you can see what I mean by the attention to detail and fit/finish. The Elka shocks really are a work of art. You'll notice they are a tad bit longer than the Kings. This is actually a good thing for those of you with a small amount of lift in the back. I'm only running Total Chaos 3/4" lift shackles on the stock leaf pack on my truck, and at full droop, the shocks ended up being the limiter when topped out. Not by much, just barely. Since moving over to Elka, I don't hear the rears top out anymore.



You'll notice Elka was smart about their research and development as they include a shaft boot with the rear shocks. Anyone who's owned a Tundra or Tacoma knows that the rear shocks are angled opposite. Meaning the passenger rear shock is angled backwards while the driver rear shock is angled forward. The shaft on the forward facing shock gets beat to shit with rock debris and ricochets. Elka included shock boots to protect the shafts for this very reason. The vast majority of the time it's irrelevant and you'll just have some minor pits that clean up with steel wool. But with chrome plated shafts like King uses, it can look kind of gross in between car washes. Also a nice touch, Elka includes a flexible internal rubber bump inside the boot on the shock shaft.



Elka uses a threaded rod end while King uses a welded rod end. The welded rod end is shorter than a threaded and typically used in scenarios where you are trying to get more bump travel. Also the misalignment spacers around the spherical bearing are beefy as all hell on the Elka shocks. Some comparison shots.







I will say this next bit is a bit disappointing. Elka decided to use only 3/4" shock shafts. In terms of equivalent aftermarket shock companies on the market (including King), most use 7/8" shafts. In fact the only aftermarket shock in this shock tier I can think of that uses 3/4" shafts are the OME BP-51. For most this won't matter one bit. For those that are actually putting their rig through the paces off-road, I've already seen two separate instances of BP-51s where the coilover shaft folded.




Again more attention to detail. The top stud bushings on the Elkas have a taper that fits inside the hole on the upper frame mounting point. Kings use just a sammich method.




The remote reservoir brackets are downright awesome. Most manufactures just use a simple bracket that uses factory hardware somewhere and holds the resi in place with two hose clamps. Not Elka! They came up with a really trick bracket with hinges. Is it necessary? Not at all. Hose clamps work just fine. But I dame sure don't wanna give them up! They also center the resi exactly where it needs to be so you don't have to move the resi around trying to get it in the right spot so it doesn't contact anything else. The drawback with the Elka brackets is they are not as low-pro and flush as the King ones. Again this will all depend on your setup, but with my truck sitting on 35x12.5x18 on SCS Ray 10s with 6" backspacing, I barely rub the bracket at full lock if the tire is stuffed a bit. I did not have this problem with the Kings.





The resis come with dual compression clickers. You have a low speed and a high speed clickers that function independently. I personally am not a huge fan of clickers. On all of my rigs I do my own shock tuning, valving, rebuilds, etc. And a single clicker never did the job for me. I would always feel like it was restricting too much or too little oil through the adjust orifice, but dependent on speed. So what felt and performed well at a high speed, was uncomfortable at a low speed and vice-versa. The dual clickers on the Elka are very similar to the dual clickers that Fox offers. And I gotta say it's a huge improvement having the ability to tune two different speed zones. For my play trucks, I'll stick with tuning with the bypasses. But for a daily driver weekend warrior, I'll admit the dual clickers have their place. Keep in mind these are compression clickers only. There is no rebound adjustment like there is with Elka's powersports lineup. Elka includes a tag for each shock letting you know which shock it is and the factory settings they set the shock up at.




Remember that fit/finish I mentioned before? Here's another one. After looking at the resi a few minutes wondering how the hell I can check nitrogen pressure, I figured out the decorative end cap is actually the schrader valve cap and spins directly onto the valve. Bonus points in the clever and clean departments.




And that final product installed looks awesome. The black and red color scheme works really well on my truck.



On to the front coilovers. Pretty much same design as the rear. Something to note. They come with 12.5 x 408 springs. Elka is based in Canada, so for those that refuse to learn the metric system, that's a 700 lb/in x 16 inch spring. King ships with a 600x16 with an option to substitute for a 700x16. I had the 600 lb on my Kings. IMO, the 600 is too light and the 700 is too heavy. Unfortunately nobody makes a 650x16 coil spring, so it's going to be a decision you have to make. If you're not running any extra weight, just looking for a little bit of lift up front (0-2") I would recommend 600 lb. If you have added front weight (bumper, winch, skids, dual batteries, etc.) or looking to get that full 3" of lift up front, I would recommend the 700 lb springs.




Here's a side-by-side shot. One thing I really do like about the Elka vs King is the preload collar. Kind of hard to tell with this photo, but the preload collar on the Elkas have more holes than the Kings. Anyone who's ever adjusted preload on a King coilover without removing it from the vehicle knows where I'm going with this. If you try to add preload with the coilover installed on the truck, you'll run out of holes you can stick the punch into because the resi hose, UCA, or coil bucket will get in the way. You have to use a spanner wrench (or get really creative) to get a hole father back. Well Elka thought of this and they actually have more holes in the preload collar for you to stick the punch in. So you can add preload with the coilover still installed on the vehicle,without getting creative, and only need one tool for the job. <Insert manufacture CYA clause to only adjust preload with coilover removed from vehicle here.>

You'll also notice right away that OAL is basically identical when compared side by side to the Kings. However, if you look closer, the Kings have a visibly longer shock body with a tapered lower spring retainer. This allows the shock body to recessed inside the lower retainer so you don't sacrifice bump travel. When i see something like this, I instinctively grab the tape measure to find out actual travel numbers.



And the numbers don't lie. Kings have a total shaft travel of 7 inches while Elkas have a total shaft travel of 6.5 inches. Now keep in mind this is shaft travel, not suspension travel. The factory geometry on our trucks is a little bit shy of a 2:1 ratio. So that 1/2" less shaft travel equates to a little over 3/4" less wheel travel. Keep that in mind in your decision making.




Just like the rears, a tag is included on every shock letting you know which shock it is and the factory settings. I will say it looked like someone was in a bit of a rush to get these out the door. You'll notice the tag for the coilover (which is obviously the front) was highlighted "Rear." The slash and circled "Front" are my scribbles. Both front coilovers were mislabeled "Rear." Obviously not a big deal. Not like I needed the instructions or labels anyway, but certainly something that could cause confusion for the rookies.



And fully installed. Again I'm a big fan of the Elka aesthetics.



Small nuisance. Not sure if Elka's jig wasn't setup correctly or they were not anticipating aftermarket UCAs. But at full droop, both the passenger and driver side resi hose/fittings off the shock body were coming into contact with the UCA. I had to loosen the compression fitting and rotate the hose inwards towards the frame.



Below is the preload adjustment punches that come with King (left) and Elka (right). I'll be the first one to say it. The one that comes with Elka is complete garbage. I didn't even add a single complete turn of preload before I threw the damn thing out of the garage, bounced off the retaining wall, and landed in my neighbors yard. It has almost zero leverage...and that's something you're going to need with a 700# spring. The good news is the King punch is the same diameter and my King spanner wrench fit as well.



So before anyone else gets the chance to ask me, what did jberry decide to keep and why? We all build and use our trucks differently. For me, the Tundra is my tow pig, out of town trip vehicle, and grocery getter. I wouldn't even call it a weekend warrior, more of an occasional warrior. Sure it sees dirt. Its fun to take out in the desert when I go shooting hitting g-outs and wash. But I'm not crawling Rubicon with it. For what I use my truck for, the Elkas are the better choice. I've got more tunability to make the ride comfort around town really nice but still have the shocks perform in the desert without having to make adjustments. All aluminum certainly helps me out with the winters in Tahoe. And damn they just look really sexy. However, if I were shopping for shocks on a rig I plan on beating on, I would stick with King. The larger shaft diameter and more travel are a no-brainer if you're beating on your truck and putting it through it's paces. If you're an "Overlander," which as I understand it means you're just driving out to Alabama Hills to take some drone footage of you parked on a 6" tall rock, the Elkas will work excellent for you too.

 

Yep. Completely true. Mountain life isn't nice on bling bling parts.

 

You are talking about an extra 1.11 cubic inches of oil volume on a 7” shaft. That isn’t going to make one damn bit of difference. And there have been plenty of documented BP-51 guys folding a shaft on fire roads. While the shear force of a 7/8 shaft is roughly 33% stronger than the shear force on a 3/4” shaft.

 

There is 39.27 cubic inches of volume in a 2.5x8” cylinder not counting fluid displaced by the shaft and piston, but also not including the fluid inside the resi and resi hose. You are literally talking about less than 1% more fluid.

And sheer force is sheer force. Apples to apples, everything else being a constant, shaft diameter is ballpark 1/3 stronger with a 7/8” vs 3/4” shaft.

Look I ran Elkas on all my competition quads. And I’m running them on my Tundra today. I am a fan. But I’m also a realist who knows how to math.