5100s 3rd notch & 1.5” AAL

The 5100s are 3/4" longer than stock shocks so your premise is wrong. The springs do not get compressed by anything other than the weight of the truck. Therefore, the compression is the same unless you add a bumper. There is so much misinformation on this shit it's insane.

 

I am confused on this.

I have the 5100s (not installed yet ) and the instructions seem to follow that they provide lift

 

I did the 2" 5100 on stock coils up front. NO regrets....

 

So 4 or 5th notch?

 

5th = 2"

 

Ok thanks

 

5100 on 4 with Deaver stage one on the rear.
Try not to listen to people that say the ride gets worse when you go up on the perch.
Also people are correct that the 5100s are designed to be used with the stock springs. I also confirmed this with Bilstein myself. It doesn’t mean you can’t use a different spring but you may or may not get the quality of performance that the Bilstein‘s are designed for and/or the ride that you so much would like to change.

 

They do provide lift. The springs are set to a higher perch, so the truck sits higher in the air. But this does not compress the spring more!

The spring is compressed by the weight of the truck, nothing else. So if you lower the position of the spring, the truck sits lower. Raise the spring, the truck sits higher.

Now when you raise the spring relative to the shock, you are losing down travel in the arm as it extends downward to fill a gap in the pavement/dirt. They made the 5100 longer than the 4600/stock so that some of that down travel is mitigated. You are still losing more down travel the higher the notch you use, but it's at least better than if the 5100 was not made a little longer.

 

That makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

 

Check out my post #32.

 

Installing 5100s and a single Torch AAL this weekend. I'm torn on which notch to use. I'd like to remove any and all rake. I do run a shell 100% of the time.

The AAL says 1.5" to 2"... so with a shell, should I assume 1.5" and therefore use the 4th notch instead of the 5th? I'm also not in love with maxing out the notch, as that does limit the down travel more than other options. Would love to hear from you guys who have installed this setup and what your rake/reverse-rake situation is like.

 

Update...

I ended up not getting 5100s. I like the factory ride of my truck and since it only sees the occasional dirt road and some snow in the winter, I really didn’t want to spend $250 on brand new shocks for just a 1” lift. My OEM shocks have 8500 miles on them and still ride great. So I decided to keep them and bought some Streetrays .5” thick aluminum top plate spacers (for 1” lift) for $35. They come with new nylon lock nuts that are about 2/3 as tall as the OEM nuts, so you use your existing upper shock bolts, and you don’t have to compress the springs to take the coilover assembly apart, etc...

So today was lift day! Took me about 6 hours to knock out the front and rear by myself... and that was taking my sweet time with a couple beers involved. I can confirm the OEM front upper shock bolts are long enough to get these spacers in, and install the supplied lock nuts on safely. I’m not usually a fan of spacer lifts, but I’m ok with this one for a super cheap and super easy 1” lift that works. I saved over $200 not getting new shocks and I’m happy. I would not go any more than a .5” though personally. Anyway I ended up getting 1.1” of front lift out of the spacers, as measured right before and after install.

I also installed a 1.5” Headstrong 3 leaf progressive add-a-leaf today. Headstrong’s design is pretty nice, you don’t need to cut the rear shackle off the stock leaf pack with this AAL. Install went nice and easy. I ended up with 1.6” of lift in the back, so I have a 1.5” rake now and that’s good for me. I’m getting a camper shell put on in about a month that weighs like 200 lbs. So that’ll probably sag the rear ~.5”, and put me back to about a factory rake with the 1” lift all the way around, and the shell on. And then I’ll be able to still haul a couple hundred lbs. of work gear around without the bro lean.

I took one pic today while I was installing everything...


And here’s a pic of the truck bone stock with the cheap OEM Goodyears (top), and after the lift w/ 265/75/16 Wildpeaks. I’ll update the thread again when I get the camper on...

 

Nice work OP!

 

Looks great! How is the ride quality with the 3 leaf aal vs. stock?

 

Thanks! I can’t tell much of a difference with the AAL as far as ride quality. It seems like it’s just as smooth to me as before. I’ve hit some dirt roads around my house going pretty fast and it soaked up the bumps nicely too (if anything better than before). I’ve about 400# of gear back there a few times now and it was nice to not have the bro lean! I’d definitely recommend the Headstrong 3 leaf AAL to anyone looking to get a true 1.5” lift back there (that’s without the overload leaves in there).

 

That’s great to hear! Just ordered the 3 leaf aal to replace my single aal which has a really harsh and bouncy ride. Hope to have a similar ride to stock, which sounds like what you have!

 

4th notch with 1.5 AAL, 265/70/17. Gonna go 275 next time around

 

SPC upper control arms, Front 5100s set on 4th notch, rear Icon add a leaf pack and removed the over load spring, 17 x 9
Fuel wheels, 275 70 17 Wildpeaks

 

Curious, what is the rationale for removing the overload spring?

 

I do not carry heavy loads and I like my truck level. The shop said if I left it in I would have more of a rake that
I do not want.