Rear Shock Question

I'm new here and have been doing a lot of reading and think it's put me too deep in the weeds.

I just bought my first Tacoma (22' Crew Cab, LB, SR5, 4x4, 3.5L) and would like to put a mild lift on it. I put a 2" lift on my last truck using the Eibach stage 2 and was very satisfied with it but was running lift blocks and shock extenders in the rear to maintain the factory rake. I would like to duplicate that look on the Tacoma but this time using a new Deaver leaf pack on the rear, probably the U402 stage 1 or 2. My question is what do I do for rear shocks. I don't want to go back with shock extenders this time and Eibach only offers a 0-1.5 rear shock and I'm looking to try and reach 3" in the rear to help with the sagging long bed appearance. Any suggestions would be great.

I guess I should have mentioned that this is a daily driver for work (light to medium hauling) and occasional farm off road.

 

Bilstein 5125. Or Fox 2.0 (985-24-118).

Both are a bit longer shock than OEM, but not too long where you run into problems at full compression. You will still want to check that you are hitting bumps before you bottom out the shock though. The added height of the Deavers helps with this but you might still need new bump stops.

Fox's are a resi shock and can be rebuilt and re-valved (order these from Accutune). More expensive but will ride significantly better (especially when re-valved). 5125 are cheaper but not repairable or able to be re-valved.

 

Thanks Saskabush for your response.

I have a few questions. How do you determine the correct height of a replacement bump stop? Does bump stop length increase proportionate to the height of the lift or do you use the WAG method? Second, you mentioned re-valving the Fox shocks. How do you determine the correct valving for your application? It looks like the Fox 985-24-118 is rated for a 3.5-5" lift. Would it not be more appropriate to use the

$282 985-24-117 Reservoir Shock CD Adjuster

985-24-117 which is rated for a 2-3" lift?

Thanks

 

The height of the bump stop is related to the compressed length of the shock. There is only so much room between the shock mounts, and the only thing keeping that distance to a minimum is the bump stop. So if you put a longer shock in, you would make sure the bump stop is tall enough to be the limiting factor (a taller leaf pack helps too because the bumps sit on top the leafs), rather than that be the shock which will damage it.

You won't be able to determine what changes need to be made for a re-valve. You need to find a shop that knows how to do it. That's why I mention Accutune. They have been re-valving Fox (and others) for years for Tacomas, and already know exactly what to do. They will even re-valve them for free before shipping if you buy from them.

And sorry I mistyped that. It is the 117s you'd want. https://accutuneoffroad.com/product...remote-reservoir-05-tacoma-rear-9-1-2-3-lift/ Though the 118's would also work, they are only 1/2" taller shock (when compressed). And they give more droop because they are 1" longer at full extension. I ran 118's with a 2.5" lift for years without issue.

 

What is your opinion, if you have one, of the Fox front coil over assemblies? I usually like to stick with one manufacturer if possible.

 

So that's a bit of a loaded question... The answer changes depending on if you are getting the shocks tuned or not. Pretty much everything Fox makes is decent stuff. However the factory tuning is often less than ideal. But the options for custom tuning and pricing kinda make this a complicated answer.

I'm assuming you like to stick with one manufacturer so that the performance matches all around. But since the performance of shocks is basically dictated by the tuning of the valve stacks, and if you have someone like Accutune re-tune the rear shocks to ride better on a Tacoma, you will want to get the front shocks re-tuned to match. Unfortunately neither the 2.0 coilovers or the 2.5 IFP coilovers from Fox can be re-valved. You have to go all the way up to the 2.5 remote resi versions to be able to get them tuned. At that point, you're into the same top of the line price point as King, ADS, Elka, Ride, Dirt King, etc. So while they are great shocks, it's a lot to pay for something that matches the custom tuned 2.0 rears. And then either the 2.5 resi front shocks will be overkill for you, or the 2.0 rear shocks will be under-spec'd. I really wish Fox would make a 2.0 resi coilover so that they could be tuned, but unfortunately not a thing yet.

Now, if you were wanting to stick to a 2.0 setup (likely since you don't need the extra cooling ability from a 2.5) Dirt King now makes their own shocks which are kinda like you bought someone's already custom tuned setup. They basically took Elka's and completely redesigned the internals to work best with a Tacoma (more than you'd get with a custom tune on Elka's) then stuck their logo on them. Might be worth looking into those. I'm not sure how long the rear shocks are though, so you'd have to ask them if they would work with what you are planning. But I would say those will be even better than and cheaper than the tuned 2.0 rear/2.5 front combo you'd need from Fox.

 

Now I know I'm deep in the weeds. Makes me wish for the days of going down to the parts store and buying a pair of Monroe Gas Magnums. The fact is, this is a 90-95% street truck that I'm raising for appearance, not off road performance. Maybe I'd be better off with the Bilsteins, I was never fond of the ride they gave me on my 07 Sierra. Wish like hell Eibach would offer a slightly longer shock. I got away with them on my 18 Silverado by using shock extenders.

 

lol yeah suspension is quite the rabbit hole these days. And unfortunately the same shocks ride very differently from vehicle to vehicle, so what worked on your previous trucks won't help you much now. Bilstein 5100/5125 is the budget go-to. It will ride very similar to the factory shocks on the Tacoma. That's basically what they were designed for, factory ride with the ability for a lift. Eibachs tend to ride on the stiff side for Tacoma's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s271Ln-6QI&t=4s start here for a good blind comparison of popular budget options. Spoiler, 5100s win. The same guys also do a mid-budget comparison as well if you wanna see how popular 2.0 shocks compare.

 

Yeah, I watched that video the other day along with a couple more. I think those guys have taken too many hard bumps but videos sure were informative.

 

I checked out Icon's website today and saw that they make a 2.0 monotube rear shock that will allow for +1.5 - 3.0" lift which on it's face seems to work for what I'm wanting to do in the rear. While there, I also checked out their RXT leaf pack which would seem to have the real world benefit of allowing the end user to change the spring pack based on the need. Any comment on either of these two products?

 

Well first, I really hate how companies market their shocks these days. Saying "allows for X amount of lift" tells us nothing and is borderline useless info. So don't get too caught up on that number. What you really need to worry about is compressed and extended lengths of the shock. And unfortunately Icon won't tell you those numbers. So I honestly can't say if the shocks will be good for you or not.

Icon makes decent stuff. But Icon has been know to have bad or even non-existent customer service though... So up to you if that matters or not.

RXTs are a good leaf. But if you are trying to get closer to 3" in the rear, you are not going to like how stiff the RXT's will ride in order to get that amount of lift. Again, their marketing kinda sucks on this as well. They show 3 options and give an unloaded lift height for each one, 2.625" being the highest. What they don't tell you is that is also the highest spring rate configuration and it will ride like absolute shit when the box is empty lol. And if you add weight to help the ride, you lose lift. The only option I would ever run with a stock weight truck is option 1, and that's going to be 1.5"-2" of lift. And to change the spring pack requires complete disassembly of them. So not the most practical feature unless you are constantly changing your truck setup.

Without writing you a novel on leaf springs options and why most of them suck with a stock weight truck, you are on the right track with Deaver stage 1. If you can afford them, don't even waste time considering anything else. They say 2" but you'll get at least that. I got closer to 3" with mine on my DCLB. Basically you can't guarantee rear lift numbers. You get what you get, and rarely it is ever the exact number that the companies state online. So it's kinda hard to know exactly what you need for shocks. But unless you are trying to get the absolute most travel or droop possible, the shocks honestly don't matter that much. I've ran Fox 118's (which say for 3.5-5") with 1.5" of lift, and am now running shocks that say for 1-2" of lift with leafs that give closer to 3". I have never once had problems. Worse case scenario with shocks that are too short is it just limits down travel. But the factory shocks already do that so you aren't really making anything worse.

 

Thanks again for the detailed response, and don't worry about writing a novel, I'm not noted for brevity either and details are what matters. So it looks like I'm back to the 5125s or the 117s. I'm leaning towards the 5125s due to the reviews I'm reading regarding their durability during tow/haul given this is basically a work truck, and only an occasional off road truck during deer season. Sounds like I need to be more concerned with the shocks compression than extension for those reasons. This leads me back to using the Eibach +0-1.5 and a shock extender. Just for my own bank of knowledge, how do you properly measure desired shock length on a leaf sprung suspension?

 

Manufacturer lift recs for rear shocks are based on leaf sprung lift, i.e. new rear lift height from stock height and which will maintain or increase uptravel from new ride height. Only lifted leaf springs create more bump stop space from the frame, to enable more uptravel.

 

I don't believe I understand your response. Are you saying that adding spring height (lifting the truck) I only need to be worried about the increasing shock extension? Additionally, I ultimately control over travel in shock compression by adding an appropriate amount of bump stop length?

 

So going back to the compressed and extended lengths of the shock. With the new leafs on the truck, you want to compress the suspension all the way until you touch and compress the bump stops (you can stick a jack under the axle on one side and jack it up, or use tall ramps), then measure the distance between the lower and upper shock mount. That's your max compressed length. You do not want to buy a shock that is longer than that when fully compressed. That's the most important part. If your shock is taller than that, you need to either get taller bump stops or install shock relocation brackets (requires welding) to move the upper mount higher.

If the shock you want/have is shorter than that length, that's fine. But usually that means that you will be limited in down travel because the shock can only extend so much. This is how it works from factory. A longer shock will allow for more down travel. But you have to keep in mind the total compressed length as I mentioned above. Depending on what leaf springs you go with, they will often have more droop than any factory length shock allows. And if the shock isn't the limiting factor, the factory brake lines will be. So if you go with shocks that allow all the travel that leafs can handle, you will also need longer brake lines. You can measure max extension the same way, just on the other side of the truck. Or jack under the frame of the truck on one side, letting the wheel droop. You often need to remove the shock though, and keep an eye on the brake lines.

If you want to know how much rear lift your truck has, @ARCHIVE has a great video showing how to best measure that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9_Vd9VHt04&t=5s

 

When putting extended rear shocks in stock mounts, 15" collapsed length is about all you can fit before shock will start bottoming out.
A thicker leaf pack starts to increase the allowable collapsed length slightly
Of course, you also need around 3" down travel just to be proper operation even on the street, so you want 9-10" travel.
But you don't want to space your bumps either because the Tacoma is so lacking there, you need to GAIN bump travel.

This is why a shock relocation becomes very attractive, because you get to keep full bump travel and gain a lot of down travel as well

 

Additional uptravel obtainable from lifted leaf springs = amount of lift gained through increased leaf arc (creating additional bump space) minus amount of lift through increase in pack thickness (no additional bump space).

Example: 2" lift leaf pack where pack thickness is 3/4" thicker than stock pack, means the additional lift through leaf arc is 1.25". It also means there is 1.25" more space over the stock bump stop.

As you install longer and longer compressed length shocks for those 2" lift leaf springs, you reach a point where the stock bump stop isn't long enough.
At that point every 1/2" of additional bump stop length installed decreases uptravel by 1/2". In the example, your additional uptravel would now be down to 3/4" from 1.25".

 

Well here it is, worked on it all weekend. Thanks for all the input!

Eibach Pro-Truck Stage 2
Sway Bar Relocation Blocks
ECGS Clamshell Bushing
Archive Garage "Erikson" Medium Duty Springs Opt 3
Bilstein 5125
Nitto Terra Grapplers G3 265/75R16

 

Hows the ride with those leafs? Do you have any weight in the box?

 

Oddly enough, I was expecting a lot of rear end hop with the leafs especially paired with the 5125s, but I haven't experienced any so far. The ride from in the rear is surprisingly smooth without weight (as pictured). What is surprising is the stiffness of the coilovers. I ran both the Eibach stage 1 and 2 setup on an '18 Silverado for over 5 years and they were silky smooth. Hoping these mellow out a little with time. Truck feels much more sure footed than before and probably will even more once I get it re-aligned.