10" or 12" shocks cons/pros?

Hahaha well I didn’t say “fuck you” just yet. But hell maybe guys here are right and I’ll be bolting my bp51s right back on in few month hahaha. I’ll have the hd ome pack and camburg uca to go with them if you are serious about it shoot me an offer in PM

 

If your goal is having “more plus ride” and better travel numbers then you need to actually have your shocks tuned. Just slapping on a set of King shocks or coilovers does not equal “a smooth ride” necessarily. And of course “a smooth ride” is completely subjective. But the POINT HERE is that you can just throw a ton of money at your truck and expect it to perform well, but that may not actually happen. Sounds like you are in an interesting spot there.

 

I’m not even in the realm of shock tuning and SUA setups, I’m a slower crawler type of wheeler, but I know these things. I would encourage you to do a ton of research on the matter. Or I guess if you’re just dying to spend your money then go ahead and do it! You’ll def get some popularity on pictures posted, but you may find the actual performance to require more tuning and work and thought.

 

100% agree. I’ve been there before with my jeep built. this time the shop convinced Me they will actually custom fine tune every single bit of the build to make the most out of it. Will and can it happen ? I don’t know and frankly I’m probably coming off defensive cause yo all got me second guessing the decision and if the shop and few other big name players simply are blowing smoke up my tail

 

Well the guys trying to help you are pretty experienced. I’d trust their judgment over other opinions. They aren’t even selling you anything. I think you had mentioned some things in a wheel thread that had some other people questioning your judgment when it comes to throwing money at a truck or figuring out differences between forged quality parts and cheaper cast parts. It’s a big learning curve but if youre like me, you’ll enjoy immersing yourself in research, reading and video watching on all of these subjects.

 

I think I lost 10 lbs just from doing that in the last 3 month lol. All I do lately is read and watch and rear more. I think my loved ones think they lost me forever )

 

I’m going to go ahead and ask...

What shop are you using?

 

OP knows best. Not sure why he even asked for anyones advice since when it didn’t align with what he wanted to hear it fell on deaf ears anyway.

Always great to see people ready to make the same mistakes others before them have even when well educated people chime in with solid advice to try to help

Go for it OP! Sounds like the salesman found their monthly commission fish.

 

Just putting it out there. Did you know that you can get basically 10” of travel out of a $190 pair of Bilstein b110 shocks? Because you can! Don’t get me wrong, b110 shocks aren’t “go fast” shocks but I’m just saying I have about 10” of travel without cutting anything up in the bed or going SUA. Totally different than your scenario I know. Just saying 10” isn’t that much travel.

 

Thx man again I really do appreciate open conversations I think it’s impossible to tailor a work for all solution when it comes to this for sure. I need to jump on that thread. maybe I missed that post for SoCal if you have the link by chance send it to me, wanted to make sure it’s the same one you’re talking about.

 

That does looks pretty impressive nonetheless

 

You clearly didn’t read all the posts have you ? You know I’m just wasting your time right ? Lol

 

Thank you.

 

Deaver's off the shelf pack will hold a very specific load, however they will make you a pack to whatever your specifications are, SUA or SOA. Lets not forget that an offroad race truck can be 7k lbs and Deaver builds the leaf packs for the leaf spring classes that make those pound whoops all day... I am not for a second saying that anyone should ever take a top heavy overland truck and go fast

However Deaver is only as good as the input provided to them, and leaf packs are not magic. If you provide crappy input you will not get a pack that meets your needs. If you work with Deaver they are very good at getting spring rates right. I've seen them nail it on the first try very often, and the couple times they did not they worked with the customer to change to their liking. Remember we are talking about custom weight specifications. More over if you get a spring pack for a specific weight, then add (or remove) a few thousand lbs you will need to have your springs redone.

Something that I always have to remind myself and my buddies is that we are doing custom modifications to our vehicles, which no manufacturer can duplicate, meaning that each mod requires personal R&D to get "right" to your liking. Even off the shelf parts on your own build are technically custom to that truck and will require their own R&D.

 

I just want to address a reoccurring topic that I continually see. I'm not going to get into the "it won't work bro, it's been attempted before and failed bro, etc." It sounds to me like the OP has desires for his vehicle and a fair amount of play money to try and make it happen so I wish him the best in his endeavors and I hope it works out great.

With that said, we keep using the "race truck" scene as a basis for argument. These are vehicles built for very specific applications, none of which are comfort based. If anyone has had the opportunity to be around, ride in, or understand the purpose of the suspension systems in a vehicle designed to haul ass across the most difficult terrain in the world at any type of speed you would understand this. They are not built for a "plush" ride as the OP has repetitively stated.

Additionally, most of the vehicles that I see with a lot of weight and are considered to be "LT" are linked. I'm not too familiar with the geometry of an SUA or it's capabilities, however I imagine there is a reason that only east county bros use similar setups on a prerunner. No disrespect to the OP but you can't have a truck that does it all well. You will loose in one area or another.

I agree, tuning, customized parts, and lots of time spent setting your vehicle up will allow you to achieve much better ride quality. This is mainly based on the driving style and terrain the vehicle is exposed to and personally, I'm confident that the OP can achieve what he wants with a quality MT setup and some time tuning. Best of luck with the LT setup though. I truly hope all of the haters are wrong and you achieve what you're looking for.

 

Thanks man.

 

So I called deaver directly today. From the looks of it they don’t really make sua that would support weight over 600 lbs. so something is way off I’m calling the shop to clarify this crap. Thank you all that pointed in the right direction. Next question would be if sua is out how do we work around heavier weight and get better up travel numbers ? What options should one start looking at ?

 

linking your truck. lol. Again, SUA is ideally not intended for weight.

 

But wait... I thought “custom parts!?”

You don’t. You stick with SOA, have a custom built leaf pack for your desired weight/ride height, and do a relocation with a 12 or 14” smooth body shock with adjusters like EVERYONE is doing right now.

 

Seems simple enough. So besically with the set up you’re talking about it’s not much performance gain except for a bit more travel and lift from stock :/ any point to even go with hydraulic bumps at this point ?

From the looks of it I’m going to be blowinf up someone’s (specifically shop that quoted this job) phone tomorrow with lots of questions sounds like. Wtf. Guy at deaver was like if I make a leaf under pack that supports 800-1000 lbs it will be dragging on the ground maybe I missed something but this does not add up at this point and if I’m spending that sort of money I certainly not in a position to keep throwing more bags of cash getting it to work