Long Travel BS Thread

Anyone have a clue what valving the aftermarket coilover companies put in OEM replacement shocks? Just put 60/40 comp/reb in my rear Fox 2.0s and the on road ride is getting better. Still have a .015 comp with flutter up front and probably a mix of .008/.010 reb which feels harsh. I’m old and care more about on road performance lol. And I’m sure E range tires don’t help the situation either

 

Id like to hear more about fitting these Live Valve shocks.

 

I've thought about this quite a bit. Would be even better to get a UCA that tucks under a wheel better than stock. With that it would be possible to run wheels with a more negative offset to get a more neutral scrub radius and better aero having the hub/spindle in the wheel more instead of next to it. Offroad community as a whole doesn't seem to be bothered by either of those factors and i don't get why

 

I'm having me a drinkypoo instead of working on my shitbox lol

Do the 1st gen hub splines match 2/3 gen?

Cause I'd try it if it does.
But upper bj wear from cyclic loading from braking in a road car vs a SxS is different by ^4. And to keep a camber curve thru travel required by heavier vehicles to optimize tire wear/contact in cornering is less sensitive to inaccuracies in the spindle than the chassis...

So the advantages are a narrower track width and a smaller scrub radius (effect of which has a decreasing impact on heave motion with wheel speed) at the cost of a higher difficulty to manufacture...

So you definitely see one off rigs that do this, but to make a kit that performs well on a mass manufactured vehicle means it doesn't work well for many customers.

 

It's pretty easy in the rear no matter where you source them from, but the Honda talon units are way too underdamped and long and the raptor shocks seem like they'll work perfectly but are too long lol.

 

There’s also a company called iClick that makes reservoirs that will retrofit onto any brand shock.
You can get a system and brain that basically does the same thing as the live valve on the sxs’s. 3 levels of stiffness + constant monitoring.

 

https://eclikshocks.com/universal/

 

Yeah Mitch Made is who i got mine from. been super great to work with, i did end up having to mount my shocks differently due to using 10" and still having 4wd. And there is a good reason to actually remove the anti dive in the front but i can't remember what the exact reasoning was. I think alot of it was a more linear travel and not having the caster change thru out the travel.

 

Thats them all setup and finished after driving down at KOH.

 

Something more than it just being an excessive amount of anti dive? idk what it is exactly but it looks like 10-15 degrees almost when like 3-5 would be nice. The effects of that are sloppy steering and unsteady(idk not quite the right word) weight transfer when the chassis experiences warp and roll. ...Which definitely shows up in these trucks. Seems plenty enough to justify making it less, especially if bypasses are getting added

 

Yea i've seen some cars that do it well. Still kinda crazy how many trucks run center set or even positive set wheels in the front. Like even most trophy trucks they get their scrub by modifying anything but the wheel offset, which leads to spindles and shocks way out in the open when they don't need to be. Not necessarily bad, more just another way to do it. Meanwhile in most other racing like rally cars and formula1 they've had it figured out for a few decades now that running arguably uglier wheels but getting everything out of the airstream and having less resistance from the steering is more important. Also sacrifices a decent amount of suspension width at any given track width
Must be something to it that i don't know about cause it just seems like a big thing to overlook to me

 

I made my own circuitry originally, but now the SDI system seems like the absolute best one, and using their kit gives you 3 axis accelerometer to tune "smart" modes as well.

I would say for off-roading, the amount of control arm swing (especially on the upper arm) means that point has to be damn near outside the plane of the wheel to not interfere in droop... or you gotta run big ass wheels!

 

https://www.suspensiondirect.com/shop/sdi-ss-21530001 is what I've ordered. (for fitting Raptor Live valve shocks on earlier raptors)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IqqmMUGeoY overview of their system, not on a raptor shock, but the control features are the same.

https://foxacademy.ridefox.com/2021/05/how-live-valve-3-1-shocks-work-on-the-2021-ford-raptor/

For whatever reason when people take these shocks off they are cheap AF for what they are, I got a full vehicles worth for $1200 + a 4 hour road trip.

The Fronts are (apparently) QUADRUPLE bypass plus bottom out zone, the rears are triple bypass... I need to take them apart to measure bypass locations to position them correctly to take advantage properly at rid height still tho.

~8" travel on the fronts (OE Raptor spring rate appears to be 550lb/in)
~12" travel on the rears

I'm gonna be in $3.5k for the full set of shocks + dynamic controller which is about what I'd pay for equivalent bypass shocks for just the rear axle!!

I just need to add turbos to my 3.5 and re-title my build thread to "1st gen Raptor Conversion"











.....good thing I probably have a few years before I get around to installing everything and a few more years before thats done

 

Off road community probably doesn’t try to tuck the spindle/uca inside the wheel because as you get into higher performance cars and bigger travel numbers they usually bump off the spindle/uca

 

How are you planning on tapping into the LV system though? There's no benefit of a semi-active system if you don't have the input sources or use the algorithm that controls the damping.

Edit: I saw this post after I asked.

 

I did figure out how to valve them full soft , full stiff with my own circuit, and even in between, but it wasn't very robust and not stable, so I never got around to even designing a setup for the shock I'd bought a few years ago for the same reasons you're thinking.

but the SDI system is a game changer.

 

not just that but as you get to high travel numbers you won’t have the clearance due to extreme angles on the uca/lca I would imagine. But yeah if you look at 2wd trophy and buggy spindles they aren’t super tall but you do end up with a long hub just due to bearing separation for strength.

 

Did someone mention bearing separation? Working on a kooky double wide unit bearing, separation will increase from roughly 3mm to 54mm. Custom hub required, but already have a CV Joint. Wheel offsets will need to change. Just something I’m throwing around…. don’t know if anything will come of it.

 

Robby Gordon has been running super inset wheels forever as do all the 4wd TT so they can have the longest possible front axles without the trucks being 100” wide