The Frankenstein Build! LT/Expo/Trail rig..and BS

The trailing arms kit? Hell yea it does. Probably what I'll get...someday...

Sure why not?

I do t follow that thread. Mid travel is for pussies

No really..but I don't follow it either way

 

Ok first of all, thank you all for all your info. Second of all... ugh.

Ok you all make perfect sense. A friend of mine was telling me that expos suck because they go flat and showed me a pic of eddys (SOS Concepts guy) truck. But I bet a big contributing factor to that is the shackle flip. However for the rocks I thought I want more droop even if I lose uptravel... this true?

 

Eh..for a hardcore cawler..yes.

But your still ifs up front. If you have no uptravel out back, then the tire isn't going to stuff. If you can't stuff a tire then it's going to twist the whole truck instead.

So really up travel is underrated in my book. Droop is great and yes more is awesome but uptravel is just as important to keep your rig flat over crazy stuff.

Thanks buddy!

 

pretty sure i drew this up right. just for other people to reference. top picture is inverted shackle, lower flipped.

top line would be up travel with the pack flat. middle at typical ride height (45*) i think thats right? and bottom with shackles at lowest droop before risk of inverting?

 

Alright... wow. Ok guys so it seems like shackle flip is actually detrimental. So in my position. Would you just go with an expo leaf pack or should I build my own? Also, since we're saying screw shackle flip should I still get a shock relocation kit? I suppose it will all be based on me measuring full droop/compression without shocks in...

 

^^^Uptravel is definitely nice for keeping your rig level. I wheeled with Mark a lot in Moab and most things were sketchier for him than they were for me because my extra up travel kept my rig level through everything.

The downside to up travel is that the more up travel you have and use the closer your frame and such get to the ground. I get hung up a lot more than Mark and drag skids, frame, and sliders a ton where others don't.

^^^This picture was one of my big motivators for going SUA in the rear!

 

Here I'm thinking I want more downtravel for flexing through things. It seems to me that more droop would be awesome for trying to get through the cracks at moab.

 

IMO different terrain and types of driving call for different type of suspension setups whether it's biased toward droop or compression. But in any case I think the better balance you can find between droop and compression the better off you'll be.

I agree completely that compression (uptravel) us way underrated. It's also why I don't like to extend bumpstops unless I have to. Bumpstops should be there primarily to keep from bottoming out the shocks, not to keep tires out of the body.

I am not trying to say that Dakars are the ideal spring by any stretch but this is one reason I really like them on my truck. The OME springs are designed to be pretty flat with minimal arch. This not only helps with the ride quality but allows for pretty balanced droop and compression as long as the shocks are set up in a way to lot limit travel in either direction.

Here's some stuff shots of my Dakars when I was tuning the setup to allow as much compression as possible. You can see there is still a little room to go before full stuff and bottoming out of the shock but the spring is allowed to do what it needs to do, and didn't require going SUA. Can more be gained by being SUA, sure if it's set up correctly.


Here's how the tires were fitting with that set up


It also allowed for really acceptable droop IMO.


Sorry Monte if you don't want this in your thread. If you don't, let me know and I'll delete it.

 

Lots of good info here the last couple of pages. Planning on modifying my springs and swapping to shorter shackles in the near future.

 

That's awesome, Box Rocket. I just thought the general idea was to avoid negative arch at full compression. Oh well... I spent a while talking to the SOS Concepts guys and they said I shouldn't lose any uptravel at all and if so not even an inch. They also mentioned something about running it at a 45 degree angle. Much confuse.

 

Damn. Ok so letting it go negative arch is a no no. Wear out springs prematurely - got it. Second of all woah. I thought for sure he was flipped! That's awesome. So basically if I were to go take my shocks off and brake lines and install expos for example, I would be drooping that much? It's all just the shocks being fully extended that's the limiter?? that's no good!

 

Well tits. So the shocks are the limiting factor. If I were to add a shackle flip to that I would have roughly 8 inches more droop to deal with that brings on the following consequences:
Need a way longer shock to utilize that travel.
Need to move the upper shock mount way up so I don't blow out the longer shocks
OR choose to move my bump stop down a ton so I don't wreck the shocks - therefore loosing all my uptravel.

And on top of that if I do make it work then I will be inverting my leafs and wearing them out really fast...

hmmm think you may have talked me out of this one.