What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

I’m thinking the 2.5 10” with reservoirs.

 

With new OEM or poly's? FWIW I bought a brand new Toyota rack with brand new OEM bushings and needed to replace the bushings at 5k. Regretted not putting the bushings in from the start.

 

Not sure I ever wrote a review. And I’m not one to ask anyways because I don’t know shit about valving and how well it COULD ride. I have also never ridden any other truck with race shocks so I have no idea how others preform to compare.

I will say this about my setup. I switched to 550lb coils and it rides MUCH better than 600s (on my toytec boss) or the stock 650s on the ADS. This is on a stock bumper, stock skid, 2wd. I also don’t drive fast off-road so hard bottom outs aren’t a concern.

Over the years I’ve learned a few things based on my preferences.

1. I want a soft ride so sway bar is needed. This probably wouldn’t suit most people here.

2. The rear end is probably the biggest determining factor in comfort. So J59s and softer than 5100 valved Bilsteins on the back. But again I don’t haul heavy loads often unlike many here either.

The rear end still needs work. I have a DIY ladder/traction bar I need to weld in and a rear sway bar or more finely tuned shocks are in order. I’m leaning towards shocks so that I can play around with the tuning a bit myself. But I can’t help but think that you can’t have it all when it comes to shocks. Since I prefer a soft shock that will soak up anything I probably need sway bars to help tune that low speed valving.

 

It may have been @austinmtb you were thinking of. He's been running the ADS COs with clickers for a while and is one of the reasons I went this route.

Not a lot more details to relate as yet. I am still learning them and making small adjustments on both the fronts and the rear bypasses.

I was out on an adventure over the weekend and I can say I thoroughly enjoyed the new setup. And with some feedback from a friend who drove my truck, we made some adjustments that seemed to improve things further. I am sure it'll be a while longer before I feel like they are close to 'dialed in".

I do not know yet what the specifics are for the shim stack in the COs other than what Matt at MCMFab has told me. That is, within the last year, ADS made some changes to their shim package based on feedback they'd received from their 1st gen customers. The current package has added rebound dampening and an added flutter stack on the compression side.

Will you be mounting them inboard of the leaf springs? If so, I would recommend the version with welded rod ends so the compressed length is ~15" and the extended length is ~25".

I am sure you'll enjoy those. I know several people who are running them and seem very happy with them.

 

Thanks @Shortman5- I haven't ridden other race shocks either, and don't know the internal styles of valving that makes Icon work a certain way and that there is NO way to tune/revalve them to be linear. There is different valving- not meaning different settings, but totally different fundamentals/design, like there are two stroke motors, rotory motors etc, there are totally different valve styles that play a role. I don't know the details of any of that, just that its a magical art that some have mastered. As a user of street oriented sport compact car systems, and having gotten to ride in a wide array of friends autox builds, street cars etc I may have developed a butt dyno pallet of decent caliber- like a wine taster that can be pretty accurate in tasting, but can't make good wine themselves I guess haha.

I think the big popular coil over brands here are in a whole nother league vs. the more affordable spring/shock combos available. When I go to the desert out there to pew-pew with friends and they want a ride, the Icons convert them. Two have since ditched their setups to go Icon. I argue Fox, Kind, Icon, your brand, would all have had that effect on them since they were coming from either OEM or spring/shock combos. But the nuances between those big brands are interesting. I'm with the camp here that there isn't a "better" big brand here, but like your post gets into, there is what fits your particular taste/use-case better.

How would you go about tuning the rear shocks? Is that brand as easy as Kings to take apart and play around with washers or whatever it is they seem to get to play mix and match with to get the dynamics they are aiming for? I have Icon's CDC up front, LOVE it (LOVE any adjustability options) but unfortunately it would be a costly custom project to get CDC in the back. Have Tein with the EDFC system on my car, and the bike's Ohlins are rebound/compression independent adjustable. I can't imagine buying a shock without adjustment but with my rears I didn't want to spend the extra money, but thats not to say there are not bolt-on options that come nearly perfectly dialed in.

Man there is just so much nuance. I feel my Icons slow speed stack is stiff, then my buddies Icon's without CDC (but basically the same product) for his GX(V8 4runner) were insanely dialed in. Throw on some bumpers and it got stuff (had to pre-load to get the ride height back)- but then I pre-loaded some to get some height after my bumpers and the ride got better- I might have been sitting too low and by pre-loading some my shocks are back in a good zone, so despite more spring rate, the ride still improved. So many variables...

Oh then there is Fox DSC I recently learned about. IMO it's epic. Usually shocks are dual compression/rebound single adjustment. Then more premium are independent compression/rebound. Sometimes some are just compression adjustable. Fox comes along and DSC is slow speed and high speed adjustable.

I love my 1st gen but one of the things I envy with the newer gens is off-the-shelf bolt-on PNP offerings like those Fox, cause I'm 100% sure they won't make that for the 1st gen. On that note 1st gens do not get Icon's intro level bypass tech either...

 

I’d love to get my tears outside of the frame, but I know it’s tough on our trucks

 

They are OEM bushings, my dealer wouldn't install anything aftermarket during the frame swap. I asked too, because I got new cab mount bushings as well and the OEM ones were way more expensive than aftermarket. I'll probably roll the dice and hope the OEM bushings hold up. Really don't want to make this job any more painful than it is already.

 

Well color me surprised-
https://accutuneoffroad.com/product...2-5-series-remote-reservoir-4-9-0-2-lift-dsc/

DSC for 1st gens. Way to go Fox.

 

Those are what i'm running on my truck, but the extended travel version. They're great shocks and got the custom tune that accutune did has been great so far.

 

So, Accutune off-road has great resources for all of this. But keep in mind they’re mostly talking about fully custom shocks for long travel. So it’s related to us but our OEM setups can’t do everything with the limited travel you can do with a longer struts so you kind of have to take ignore some of it. This is why I mentioned I use a sway bar.

All of these shocks are similar in the way they’re rebuilt and internally. The differences are pretty subtle and you it’s mostly in the piston shape that determines the curve. I don’t think it would be an issue to revalue any shock to give it the characteristics you’re looking for. But you’re probably not going to get much factory support swapping pistons around.


I may be off but I’m pretty sure that you just a adding more weight offset the spring weight enough to more accurately “tune” those springs for your liking. I, personally, want to run the lightest spring then tune the shock via shim stack and sway bars. But that’s just me. I don’t have a whole lot of experience really.

Good to hear about the updates. I may have to call ADS and ask them to send me all the updated intervals when I rebuild. It’s probably time for at least new oil and o-rings.

 

Find yourself adjusting from time to time? For me with CDC, I go soft for street driving, stay that way for slow fire road stuff (Icon's slow speed stiffness- when its time for rebuild I think I'm doing the "slow speed stack" people talk about to make that softer) full stiff for high-speed off-road.

Why you gotta live so far away? I'm soooooo curious about these shocks lol

 

The Polly bushings are a very quick job on that steering rack. If you have it unbolted, I bet it takes you an extra 10-15 minutes to swap them

 

Initially I did, and every now and then I do. But I leave them where they are for the most part. A bit tighter on the high speed comp and I think like 1 or 2 clicks tighter on the low speed. I swapped from the OEM 600lb springs to 650 and that helped a lot with the weight I have on the front end and not diving so much. Helped with sway at high speeds a lot too
When I eventually do a rear shock relocate, I'll be going with the same DSC reservoir smoothie shocks for the rear. Tuned from Accutune as well.

Haha make a trip out and we'll go for a rip!

 

Yeah if I could do it again I’d go that route. I’m not really interested in playing with In depth tuning anymore so something simple to dial it in would be nice.

I would like to see how slow/fast damping would effect everything. It would probably be a great way to get to Understand what it all means and really feel the changes. Right now just reading a tutorial and Then driving around trying to feel what was described does not translate like you think it would.

 

I need to get some 650 springs, well I’ll wait to get different coilovers, but I put 700s on my icons and they are a bit tooo stuff.

 

I’m sure someone else already has this

it look like I mounted it correctly?

 

Take my money


Got a link?

 

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Thanks bud. Damn 40 bucks for something that wont be functional....hmmm

I cut all my antenna stuff off one day after many beers and tequila. Lol

 

Fuck it, why not. Lol. Looks pretty dope