Long Travel BS Thread

One thing that is very noticeable on lifted street trucks (esp when driven on the street) is that the amount of scrub/in-travel usually increases a bunch when you increase the ride height on an SLA vehicle.
This will effect the wheel rate a bunch, particularly on the street & at lower vehicle speeds, if the track width change/rev of the tire exceeds the amount of slip the tire has, there is a noticeable affect to wheel rate, but on a dirt surface, there will not be a perceivable affect as the amount of slip the tire has is increased.

So the preload won't affect the ride, given the statement above about not hitting any mechanical limits, the spring will compress to a set length based on the weight of the truck... but the higher ride heights on SLA vehicles like our tacos have a big change in track width at the lower limits of travel (and to a lesser extent, the motion ratio of the damper), and you get a mechanical increase in wheel rate that makes trucks lifted "too high" ride much stiffer, and this is attributed to the increase in pre-load, but the source of the wheel rate increase is frequently miss-diagnosed/understood.

 

Absolutely, 'lifting' a vehicle by pushing the ride height up without changing anything else in the geometry has all sorts of negative effects on handling. But that has zero to do with pre-load, and everything to do with suspension geometry.

 

Um...aren't wedge pillows made for a somewhat specific purpose?

Oh man, the Buzz and Woody toys on the back are hilarious!

 

Right, but the discussion was the age old "more pre-load makes it ride stiffer" which is true/not true based on the suspension geometry, which is what I explained. As typically pre-load is increased to increase lift/ride height, but the subsequent affect on wheel rate/ride plushness is not often comprehensively understood or expressed on a technical level.

 

I did fail to mention that pre-load does directly effect wheel rate at the limits of compression travel, but that was touched on in Dalasander's post, although it was not really specified that the effect is only once the spring is compressed further than was possible at the previous(lower) pre-load setting.

 

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

Can't the same be said for stiffer spring rates?

 

Anybody here have experience with Bend-tech software?

 

In what respect?

A stiffer spring rate will affect ride rate at every point in travel, and can also have the same mechanical stiffness increase due lift/geometry.
Usually a stiffer spring is used to run less pre-load and achieve the same ride height.
-> this is usually done because a setup with a lot of pre-load can damage the shock due to hard top-outs (limit straps af tho)
->also, a setup with more pre-load is more challenging to tune the rebound damping on than a setup that nears a lesser spring force value at full droop

 

Stiffer spring rates definitely effect ride characteristics. That's completely unrelated from preload thought.

Of course all the same ride hight dependant factors come into play also.

 

Very true.

The correct comparison is pre-load vs longer spring to achieve the same ride height at a given spring rate. Assuming linear springs, and avoiding the suspension/coil bind limits, those should be interchangeable.

I suppose from a layman's perspective the answer is: no preload doesn't effect ride quality. Fucking around with your suspension effects ride quality.

 

Would you say it's completely unrelated even thought going to a stiffer spring rate will net less preload?

 

Now we need to talk about how much pre-load a truck should have?

 

Max out the threads on the shock body otherwise you aren’t utilizing your suspension to the fullest.

 

I stand corrected - I was thinking about when I'm compressing my springs to remove shocks. I didn't think about the weight of the truck already holding the springs in place. Spring rate will affect the ride - I bought a kit for my regular cab 4 banger prerunner and they gave me the same springs that would be used for a 4x4 DCLB V6 and I noticed the ride was pretty stiff.

 

Pogo world record holder!

 

Pick a spring rate, spring length and desired ride height then determine the required pre-load.

Spring rate directly effects ride characteristics. Ride height indirectly effects ride characteristics (see the above discussions about suspension geometry effects).

Pre-load does not effect ride characteristics.

A 14" long 600# spring will need less pre-load than a 13" long 600# spring to get a 25" of "hub to fender", but the ride will be exactly the same (assuming linear springs). Switching to a 700# spring of any length will require different pre-load settings for the same ride height, but the change in handling comes from the spring rate.

 

I'm glad you said this and not me.

 

looking to get some fab work done on my truck need to pull my shock towers out they got bent in and have a full engine cage done. hit me up on IG:dillon1904

 

Stock boots