King 2.5s or Fox 2.5s

True, guess ima just have to find out for my self lol

 

Interesting and good to know. Thanks!

 

I've got the Fox 2.5 with DSC. I also had Accutune adjust them for me. This was after I had them on the truck for about a week. When people say firm or soft out of context its hard to know what's what. So maybe this will help:

Out of the box with the adjusters on full soft, rolling bumps feel very plush but also very supported. The truck doesn't wallow around or bounce or vibrate. Sucks up whoop type bumps really well. The part that made me send them for a tune was when driving on cement freeways with a ton of junction chatter (60mph+). Then it felt super harsh. After the tune they were better at sucking up freeway chop but didn't cut it out 100%.

As for the DSC, I feel the adjustments right away. When off-roading with an empty truck in the so-cal desert, I go up one click on the front and two in the back from full soft. That keeps me at a reasonable speed... haha. There are more clicks and more speed but there is only so much you can do with the stock travel front and rear when you come up on a freak whoop at high speed.

That being said, Im really happy with the Fox setup for on and off road. I tend to drive open highway roads out in the desert pretty quickly and when you hit a bump or big g-out the suspension just sucks it up in situations where the stock OR suspension would bottom out like crazy.

 

Thanks for the compare and contrast! So many questions, hope you can give insight into some of them..

How close or far stock is your truck?
How's the junction chatter compared to the stock OR suspension?
Have you played with both the high speed and low speed adjusters?
How many clicks are there in the adjusters? Sounds like you stay towards the softest settings.

 

My truck:
2020 double cab long bed OR
285/70 17" BFG's
SRS Ray 10 wheels
Total Chaos upper control arms
Icon RXT leaf pack. The secondary leaf is not installed.

Other than that its stock. No armor or bumpers.

Compared to stock on the freeway at 70+mpg with an empty bed, the truck feels a lot more planted when hitting any kind of bump. With the stock suspension I felt a vibration through the truck when hitting bumps at high speed. Now those same bumps happen but they are muted and dampened. That being said, the stock suspension is so much softer that the freeway chatter was smoothed out much more than with the Fox setup. HOWEVER, that's the only scenario where the stock setup soaks up the road "better". In any other case the Fox setup blows it away. Keep in mind this is with an empty bed. With a few hundred lbs back there it smooths out a lot on the small chatter.

Im not sure on the number of clicks. I want to say like 12-15. I can't imagine turning mine up past 3-4 though. It would be pretty stiff. Ive not messed with the adjusters separately but will on the next outings.

 

Cool, thanks for the further info.

I'm looking forward to getting a set next year. Was on the fence about the DSC, if for nothing else I'll buy-once cry-once.

Did you get the adventure / on-road tune?

 

Anyone go from 2.0 to 2.5?

 

I never understood these shock debates. They are all essentially the same. ALL rebuildable shocks are intended to be torn open and tuned to your specific needs (maybe 3 times or more before you get it right). I’ve revalved my icons 2 times thus far so they act more like linear valved shocks while keeping body roll down and mid speed bumps softer. It’s also possible to swap out main pistons or even drill/mill the OEM piston for your needs. You can definitely tune the shock at the resi with the “clicker “ shocks but this is only one small level of adjustment. Even external bypass shocks need to be revalved in order to get it with in tunable range. Nobody over the phone is going to know your shocks needs with out physically ridding in the car under the conditions you want.


Take a lot of videos of the truck from the outside thrashing and send it to your shock tuner if you don’t know how to work on shocks. Then repeat this process many times lol.

It’s a night a day difference once you have a properly tuned shock working it’s magic.

 

You've in a way answered your own question and brought up some important topics. Although the concept behind shocks is the same, the way each company achieves those results is very different. It's up to the users/potential buyer to compare their options and see what best fits their goals. Although most performance shocks are rebuildable and can be tuned, not everyone wants to go through the process of installing/removing the shocks from the truck and going through that process. Additionally, not everyone has the knowledge, tools, resources, etc to do so so they have to pay for it to be done.

For example, you have Icons that you've altered to make more linear. So why didn't you buy a Fox/King? Sure, there are pros/cons to each but not everyone wants to endure that process or incur the cost. They'd rather get it right, or close to it, the first time. I personally am not an Icon fan due to some of their design features. These are not things that you can change or alter during a rebuild so although I agree with some of your statement, I don't agree with it all.

 

Yeah sorry for the late response. What specifically are you wondering about the on road experience?

How do they compare to stock on road? Well...I'd say they're very different. Aftermarket shocks pretty much always ride "stiffer" or "firmer" than stock setups. This is why there's generally less brake dive and body roll with an aftermarket kit. This is because you want them to be able to take more of a beating offroad without bottoming out and blowing through the travel. This equates to a what some describe as a "stiffer" on road feel. However if I hit a speed bump at speed with the stock bilsteins I would feel that in the bones of the truck. Now I hit a speed bump and the truck feels like it was meant to hit it. It's really hard to describe in words but basically think "stiffer" on the small stuff but more forgiving on the harder, faster hits. Of course you can play with the adjusters to fine tune this a bit as well.

If you are wondering about how they feel on washboard type roads they don't feel that different. For washboard stuff your best friend is airing down. That will make a big difference. Your tires and their air pressure are always part of your suspension system, a lot of people forget that.

 

That sums it up pretty well. The majority of my off roading is on the beach and slower (under 20mph) trails. The beach can be unforgiving and i've definitely bounced pretty hard in the whoops. Is that what everyone is calling washboard?

 

No. Washboard is the small bumps that make your teeth chatter. Whoops are larger rounded off bunps. Upgraded suspension like the fox/kings handle the whoops many times better than stock suspension.

The challenge for tuning shocks is to get a tune that can smooth out chatter/washboard and soak up the big hits like a set of whoops.

 

LOL. I like the blue color

 

I don't think you can go wrong with either. I run Kings and have zero complaints. They have been great!

 

cuz I got them used for cheap. If they were any of the other major brands it would have been the same shit, new seals , oil and valving to get them to work.


Also true , with out skill or knowledge life’s gonna be bit harder or more expensive....

 

I have been doing a bunch of reading about the topic and didn’t want to create a new thread. I am still undecided if I want to go King, Fox or Bilstein 8100 series for a “mid-travel”.
@AccuTune Offroad for a daily driver that is also used for off-roading, which would you recommend. Not interested in heavy rock crawling.
Truck is a TRD Pro with Retrax bed cover, UpTop Truss rack and CBI rear skid-aluminum and MovTown HD sliders. Potentially adding bed-rack tent (maybe, just ground tent for now).

 

I went with the Accutune Fox 2.5 stage 4 kit with DSC. Chose Fox mainly due to the article Accutune put out on Fox vs King. Completely different truck from when I started. But I upgraded from worst case scenario.

History: Bought a 2020 DCSB OR brand new from the dealer already outfitted with a 3" spacer lift and 33" KO2s. Looked great but off road performance was not good. Bouncy as hell, and bottomed out pretty easily. Only thing that would help is airing down, especially since they are E load tires.

Over the course of last year I added a shit ton of weight. Front & rear steel bumpers (rear is a Mobtown swingout w/ full size spare tire & 2 jerry cans), winch, full RCI steel skid package, Diamondback HD cover, etc. All in all roughly 800 extra pounds of weight fully loaded. Off road handling was abysmal, I mean can't even describe how bad it was. I suffered for months waiting for the Fox kit to get in. I actually put off riding certain trails just because I was afraid of the damage I could do with that spacer setup + all the weight. I kept speeds as low as I possibly could.

Fast forward to installing the stage 4 kit and night and day difference. Soaks up washboards & whoops and stays planted vs bouncing around crazily. My routine is this now: If I'm just going down fire roads or not wheeling hard, I leave it at the softest setting and don't touch the tires. If I'm going balls out across the desert and expect bumpy terrain, I air down to 18psi and go 1 click up on the low speed compression, and 2 clicks up on the high speed compression. That seems to work best for my setup.

Pics just because







Good times:

 

What spring length and rate did you end up going with?

 

14" 600# Coilover springs in front. Adventure tune. RXT leaf pack came assembled as stage 1, and had some rear end sag when I initially installed it. Added a leaf to get to stage 2 and that worked without being too stiff. Never tried stage 3

I was really surprised by this at first as I assumed with all the weight I would go with 700# springs and a dual sport tune. They strongly suggested the 600lb springs and adventure tune though and so I went with their recommendations. I'm assuming they must get complaints about being too stiff. I guess that's the advantage of the adjusters, can stiffen up when needed.

 

Thanks. I have a similar setup but with 700lb springs. It’s very stiff up front, but I’m STILL waiting for my front bumper nearly 8 months later, so I don’t have the weight of the bumper+winch I was anticipating yet. Starting to wonder if that’s really going to make the difference or not.