ADS Off-Road Racing Shocks - Information, Pictures, & BS Thread

Anyone from @ADS that can clarify this?


Well, no, you got way better shocks in your coilovers. They will be more capable than stock, but with less travel. You can go down washboard roads at 50mph for more than 5 miles without your shock oil "boiling"/melting seals/changing its oil viscosity and destroying your shock.

I have no doubt that ADS is more robust than a stock shock.

But if you were told extended travel has more travel than a stock suspension, more precisely more droop travel, you were lied to. The person that told you was probably a salesman and not an engineer, they were just regurgitating what they heard without understanding the how's or why's, so you can't really blame them, or can you?

 

I know I can be a stubborn contrary ass, sorry if anyone has taken it personally, but I'm me, I want the facts and for them to be here for others to find.

So that I'm not all doom and gloom, here's a pretty picture of front end stuff that I put on hold and didn't install this weekend. Till I figure this out.

 

Im not going to place any blame here on anyone until someone with super shock knowledge chimes in. I don't understand the full function of these shocks and maybe just measuring from one point to another isn't enough. Numbers need to be revealed on what standard vs extended are. I have been trying to find collapsed and extended lengths on all the big name companies for our Tacomas. Its not just readily published on most sites. The PDF list we have a page back does not include an extended version leaving us in need of the numbers

 

Y'all should call ADS and ask for Tyler or Karl. They got all the info and neither checks this forum that I have seen

 

Well most of their products are mainly built and valved towards go fast rather than straight crawling so they probably are going for more of a caddy ride while offroading.
I can't really say for sure the negligible effects of the top out spring since i have no idea what materials are used or the specifics of how it works; not all springs are strictly made for strictly producing rebound and i'd like to think the spring is made to fit it's application.
Also note that the 'extended travel' comes from uniball UCAs and the small amount of pivot in the top cap to achieve mid-travel as well, not just the shock travel. But yea you might be onto something idk i never made any measurements

 

From the animation, and if it's to scale, it looks like an over sized valve spring with a lot of coils. The more coils you have the softer a spring is. It should get overwhelmed by the main coil spring. From an engineering standpoint, I'm a little surprised that they didn't use some kind of elastometer material that would reach gradual infinite resistance as it's compressed like a bump stop does rather than pushing a coilspring into complete collapse and the sudden infinite resistance when that happens. But then you probably would have particles floating in the shock oil as it degrades. I don't see a reason for them other than not using limit straps and trading capability for ride quality. They seem like they would keep your tires from being forced downwards as quickly into the ground on the backside of a bump to maintain traction while still having an inch or two of down travel left.

 

Maybe, but ADS are racing shocks, not crawling shocks. They ride best with the throttle wide open. ADS says they are valved with progressive compression and some sort of hybrid rebound...after talking with the guys there they say they have pretty much nailed it for the trail rider going above 20 mph

 

True.

That's exactly what I'm saying, they should have a bit less capability doing 50mph over washboard roads or whoops where the main spring is fighting to get the tire planted to the ground as quickly as possible and using the full extension of the shock on the back side of the bump to maintain tire contact vs the same shock without them.

 

My post above yours should clarify that in rock crawling situations, the little internal spring should be overwhelmed by the main spring and completely smashed flat. Maybe I should edit what you quoted after having a better look at the animation.

 

I'm not doubting that the valving in the shocks work great. My issue is on travel length.

The digressive rebound has been disproved earlier in this thread if I read correctly.

 

Hard to measure on the truck, but mine sure looks like it’s in the 4.5” range and was measuring around 22.5" of extended length. I had mine side by side with my buddy’s truck that has fox 2.5 DSC extended travel. His is also in that ball park. He looked up the specs and the difference between the standard travel and extended travel on the shocks is 3/8". If ADS has an extended travel option, then it's probably in the same range.

Anyway, I turned my coilovers down a couple of turns and that seems to have largely resolved my topping out problem which really only happened when I was mobbing over speed humps or when I hit pot holes. I measured 1/78" of down travel at the coilover before I did that. Now I'm guessing I'm around 2 1/8" of down travel. That lowered me from a about 2 5/8-2 3/4" of "lift" (using 20" hub to fender as stock) to 2 3/8-2 1/2".

Overall I'm still super pumped on these coilovers and shocks. If you're looking to be up around 3" of lift then I think your best bet is long travel. If you're happy in the 2 to 2 1/2" range, as so many people on here have said, you shouldn't really ever top out with normal driving. I do wish Headstrong and ADS were a bit more transparent with this whole "extended travel" thing because I felt like I could comfortably be north of 2.5" of lift but maybe that's just what I wanted to hear. But definitely if there is no extended travel option, they shouldn't sell one.

 

Thats what clickers are for. When going slow, crank soft. When going fast, crank them firmer. I don’t think ADS would do something that didn’t make sense, but the stroke length does seem odd if it is indeed less than stock

 

22.25" overall and 4.5" travel is what is on the ADS line sheet for a stock length coilover, really close to your measurements. I was expecting mid travel to be .5-1" of extra shock length over stock. I was not expecting an aftermarket extended travel coilover to be .5" shorter than stock, like you're saying yours are.

I'm planning for about 1.5" of lift.

By topping out, do you mean that the shocks compress till they hit the end of travel or they extend till hitting the end of travel? It seems like you are trying to say that they compress till hitting the top/bumpstops but lowering the static lift height should make that worse if that's the case.

I'm sure that anyone would be super happy with these compared to a stock shock.

Hell, if they had a 3" travel (4"-4.5" less wheel travel than stock) I'd expect them to be more capable in highway and mid speed desert conditions and people to prefer them over stock.

 

Topping out meaning the shock reaches full extension and limits further travel. Before this I had Billy 5100's with OME888's and was also topping those out. Actually those were topping out worse than these were at 2.75" of lift. Not sure where they fall in the realm of stroke length.

I'm not positive, but I think that the stock UCA will limit your travel before your stock shock does. It may be worth trying to measure your stock strut at full droop on the truck if you have access to it and care enough.

 

Are the clickers only for compression, or compression and rebound both?

Mine take a surprisingly different amount of force to turn. One moved easily from the beginning with fingertips. The other took me wrapping my fist around it to move it at all initially. It loosened a bit after 4-5 cycles of 0-full and back, but they are definitely different.

 

That's what I thought you were saying originally, but the description of hitting a speed bump hard seems like it would be bottoming out (shock going to the top of travel) or not having enough shock dampening for the spring rate if bottoming out.

I just measured my stock shock and got just over 5" of piston length exposed at full droop. Everything stock. The UCA balljoint seems to be bound up at that point, or close to it. I think the last time I caught air in the back 40 hooning around scaring the shit out of a friend I nuked one of the UCA ball joints. Which prompted this whole front end rebuild.

 

They just make the suspension from soft to firm and back with 20 clicks between the max of each. Cranking them up firmer 10+clicks while going faster on the trails is quite nice.

 

Yes they do change the firmness.

Mine only have 19 detents though. The one you start on and then you can add 18 clicks.

 

Yep, you’re right. It’s pretty impressive how sensitive they are. I can feel the difference in 2 clicks

 

Yeah sorry for the confusion. I was talking about the big, wide speed humps that they have in residential neighborhoods. The small speed bumps like you have in a parking lot it just eats up no problem.