King Suspesion performance

Hey guys. Ive been running King 2.5" resi shocks all around for just over a year on my third gen. (15k miles) Overall the ride is pretty rough. It was suggested to me to get the 700 lb springs to offset the weight of my steel bumper and winch (which could be the culprit). They are preloaded to 9 and 11 threads showing above the collar and its lifted roughly 2.5 inches.

Smooth dips in the road and some of the larger bumps at higher speeds feel okay, but most of the wheeling i do is on rocks, and washboard type terrains where the kings feel terrible. Honestly it doesnt eat any of it. Any way i can make the ride on these things a bit smoother for my applications?

Also, is anyone running 650 springs with roughly 200 lbs up front? im wondering if ordering them with 700 lb springs was too much..

Ive tried calling King to find out what shim pack comes standard in their tacoma shocks but they wouldnt give me a straight answer other than "their standard valving". Ive considered running a flutter pack in the shock, but i cant find out what that standard shim pack is or where to start.

Thanks guys!

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/king-c-o-exposed-thread-lift-achieved.501769/page-3

 

I'm working on the same issue with some Foxes albeit on a '96. I installed my coilovers just as they came out of the box but they did generate about 2.5" of lift - which I'd prefer to keep. Here's my thread which includes the compression valve stack Fox says I have. At least they provided that. They went silent when I asked about making adjustments. I've got flutter stack(s) but am leaning more towards thinning up the smaller discs which literature indicates are the high speed. Shims seem to be a mystery science. Too bad King won't tell you what you've got. Maybe you'll just need to bite the bullet and open up and measure. I'm expecting two iterations on install/adjust before I give up. My nitrogen regulator is here and I'm expecting shims any day.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/shock-shim-setup.572636/

 

Thanks for getting back to me. If nothing else it's nice to not be alone. I figure king just doesnt want their customers tinkering with them. Even more frustrating is I've contacted rogue offroad, ORW, and a local 4x4 shop and even they wont help me without knowing what's in there. Idk why king is so secretive about it. I'd like to avoid the long turnaround of having to open them just to order the shims. Did you add the flutter pack or did the fox shocks come like that? I was with the understanding that a flutter pack would clean up the chatter on washboard terrains

 

My shocks came with the apparent double flutter stack listed. It doesn't match any Fox #XX type pyramid stack they chart. I haven't got a clear picture of how these discs interrelate except that they all do work together. My current theory, based on no practical experience, is that for fast moving inputs like a sharp bump, a lot of oil needs to move fast. So, the entire stack needs to open up. This means that the bottom, smaller, discs have to flex. So, my current plan is to make my bottom three discs match a Fox #30 - #35 very light compression stack. Hopefully, keeping the larger discs in place will avoid too much adverse effect for normal driving. Lucky for me, this isn't my DD so it can be on blocks awhile while I play with shims.

Have you looked at the Kartek site? They have pretty good info on King shocks and shim sets which might give you clues. They concur that the smaller shims are the high speed ones but wouldn't go farther in predicting results.

BTW, re adjusting "preload," maybe people get good results, but it might be more from an altered geometry than a spring function change. I was taught in physics that most springs have a constant coefficient in their elastic range. So a 600 lb/in spring stays a 600 lb/in spring until it doesn't. However, changing the coilover height will affect the angle between the lower control arm and the shock. That linkage can have a big effect on leverage.

 

I haven't checked out kartek, but it's going to be worth a look. I'll check it out. To my understanding, preload doesnt actually compress the spring, it just changes the resting position of the shock piston which may change how the oil flows. It certainly changed when I preloaded it with another 6 threads, albeit not much, but it felt a little firmer. Who knows. Maybe I'm just best off getting icon shocks with digressive valving. My friends tacoma rides fantastic on the icons. I dont want to try and rig up progressive kings so hard and end up with a shitty mix of progressive shocks that just get muddy and weird. I'm really curious how 650# springs may help. I may just have too much spring. I dont have skids or sliders. Just the 200 lbs up front. Idk. It sucks how much work it takes to try one idea that may or may not work.