Need some info on 5100's

Very fitting for your sig.

I can't provide mechanical reasoning but I have done enough research to eliminate the 885/5100 combo. That conclusion is based on a compilation of hundreds of posts on TW and TTORA.
HOWEVER, many many many have used this combo and are satisfied.

What always bothers me is that anyone is going to say "it rides great". But they usually never have anything to compare that to. I want to compile information and determine what rides BETTER. Not easy to do!

 

Ok, so I believe I have a handle on the whole travel thing (mt biking is good for the mind).

If you had your truck on jack stands and coil overs removed and then you had lower and upper control arms attached to the spindle, you could move the unit up and down being limited by the bump stops. This would be all the travel your truck is going to get without changing these components, thats it no more no less.

Now if you installed the strut without spring it should not change the travel. the job of the strut is to control rebound and dampening, the strut should have nothing to do with travel.

now on to the spring, this could get a little more complex.
the job of the spring is to support the weight of the vehicle, it should not change the travel.

On a stock truck, lets say the weight of the truck compressed the spring by 6" and say you had 10" (arbitrary numbers)of travel. so if you preload the spring to raise the truck 2", the weight of the truck is only compressing the spring 4". The travel has not changed. You are just starting higher up in the travel and have less top out and more bottom out, hopefully this is within a reasonable amount.

So any factory replacement shock should work fine, choose what works best for you in ride and handling or adjust ability.

As for spring choice, when you change the ride height, a couple factors come into play. Installed height, spring rate and coil bind. when you preload a spring you are changing it's installed height and increasing its starting rate and bringing it closer to coil bind, does coil bind happen before you hit the bump stops. I hope not but this does concern me.

Also a concern is how far the truck is setting in the travel, in MT biking we call this sag and we want about 25% sag.
so when the truck is un wheighted you do not top out to soon, bad feeling and probably some knocking and what not.
Also it allows the suspension to follow rougher terrain with better control.

Please, speak up, agree or disagree, maybe just full of hot air and over thinking all of this. maybe OCD