Are kings/Icon/Fox really worth it?

I'm not sure you understand how suspensipn struts/shocks and springs/coils work. You should probably read up about how it works because you're trying to determine whats best by pictures of the exterior of shocks and springs...

 

5100<6112<fox/king/icon
For a daily driver with mild dirt trails 5100s are perfect. A little more involved off-roading but nothing too fast or too gnarly 6112 is the way to go unless you want to spend more and get a "brand name". But for fast or technical off roading the big name brand guys are superior with their valving and adjustability. Sounds like for your truck the bilsteins were and are a better route to go. No need to spend more money unless you want the bling.

 

Unless it's a 5100 shock

 

You have not asked or do not understand anything about the damper, you only appear to know or care about the static height of the vehicle.

Let's start at the beginning; A shock absorber's job is not to absorb shocks. Feel better already don't you? Not.

Springs absorb the energy that is transferred to the wheel (Ignoring the cushion effect from the tire) when it hits a bump, rock, hole etc. or at least it tries to. The shock (damper) then dampens the energy that was transferred to the spring by hydraulic resistance. The sophistication or lack there of is why 5100s are $250 and FOX 3.0 Bypass are $2500

There are a few ways to design a shock but the basic versions are emulsion, decarbon style and cartridge or bypass system

5100s are emulsion shocks, the King OEM and FOX 2.0 are decarbon style, the high end FOX and King are cartridge/bypass style.
There's the rub. They all do the same thing, just by crude or somewhat refined or sophisticated method.

Emulsion shocks are a tube filled with oil and gas (usually just air) with a piston on the end of a rod. When the shock moves, the piston pushes the gas/oil mixture through a hole. The size of the hole determines the rate of damping. That's it. It's crude but somewhat effective. It also is extremely uncontrolled in that the damping effect changes greatly depending on the viscosity and temperature of the oil. They are rough as a cob when the shock oil is cold and are almost useless when they heat up from heavy use.

DeCarbon shocks are the same basic design with a simple but significant difference. It's still a tube with a piston on a rod, but the oil and gas are separated into two different chambers. The two fluids (oil and nitrogen) are separated by a floating piston as the shock compresses it pushes the piston which pushes the oil through a passage on the other side the nitrogen gas is being compressed acting as another spring. Decarbon style shocks can be simple units or have adjustable valving to control the oils movement (compression damping) or the nitrogen movement (rebound damping) They can be tuned by valving/orifice adjustments, gas pressure charge, changing the weight of the oil and to a lesser degree the fill level of the oil. The weak point is still heat generated loss of performance, it just has more resistance before they suffer.

Cartridge/Bypass shocks owe a lot to Moto-X bike fork development. It takes the DeCarbon system to a new level, it's a tube with a piston and oil and gas but way more involved. The original idea was that compression and rebound damping was good, but there is only so much you can do with oil weight, gas pressure, orifices and needle valves. Adjust one and it screws up what you did on another. On a DeCarbon shock it's easy to dial in a setting that works well if the shock is compressing at a steady speed, i.e. rock crawling but if the shock is moving very quickly like when you hit a 12" deep pothole at 75 mph a completely different "tune" is required. A cartridge or bypass shock has low speed compression damping, high speed compression damping, low speed rebound damping and high speed rebound damping. Cartridges use stacks of thin flexible wafers of varying thickness with holes in them to compensate for shock travel speed if the shock is traveling slowly, the oil pressure will flex 2 or 3 of the wafers scrubbing of travel speed, if the shock moves very fast it will flex 4, 5, 6 wafers. Additionally there is a disc with various sized holes for finer tuning. Rebounding is controlled with gas pressure and jetting not unlike a carburetor. The cost of bypass shocks is determined by how complex the design is. The bypass shock is similar in theory, it just uses check valves located throughout the shock body that react to travel speed by how far each check valve moves before the piston reaches the next bypass.

Confused yet?

 

You are way too kind to OP. He's just gonna end up buying whatever he thinks looks cooler because thats how suspension works, duh.

 

In addition to what everyone else has said, higher end kings/fox/icon shocks are much beefier than the typical bilsteins, and are rebuildable and customizable.
I went from fox coilovers to Kings. I have installed many lifts of all three of those brands on friends trucks in my garage, and was most impressed with the Kings. Wife wanted them on her 4Runner, now I'm putting them on my taco. The foxes rusted pretty bad here.

 

Distributing information is "too kind"? Jesus this board is an all time low.

 

Writing all that was too kind. It's much easier to passive aggressively troll the OP instead.

 

Thank you. This was helpful.

 

I'm not that conceited and materialistic. Just very curious as to the differences between $2,000 shocks and $800.

 

We're just poking fun at you for not asking the right questions. It's fine if you're not aware how suspension works, but it's hard to answer your question(s) in a serious and accurate response when you're not even asking the right questions or attempting to ask them correctly.

 

They're not.

But ADS is.

 

IMO, one of the best parts about the shocks are they can be rebuilt and customized. I bought a used pair of icons and had them rebuilt. Saved me a bunch of money over buying new.

 

Holy, mother..

 

I learned something today

 

This is what i was looking for. Thank you for you input. I will be googling all these terms! So with replacing my OEM spring with the bilstein 6112's 650lb coil, the truck has more resistance to energy because it is a beefier spring, right?. So does "pre-loading" the spring create a rougher ride?

I understand now that the shock itself is different between king and the Bil 6112's, but when it comes to pre-loading and the spring they are the same, right? Like say the 6112 coil is 650lbs and so is the king coil, they both lift the front of the vehicle the same way, but the king shock dampens the energy more effectively, creating a smoother ride correct?

Coming to the conclusion that I went the right route for the type of driving i do.

 

Basically Bilsteins are the first 2 cars and Kings are like the last car.

https://youtu.be/3KPYIaks1UY?t=1m6s

 

Google can be of good assistance. This is lengthy but great for someone working to understand the basic comparisons on a technical level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MsKf1lIYI

 

You should see the $4000 shocks (Ohlins) and $8000 shock (Multimatic).

 

He should be confused, with your blatant limited understanding of shocks. You threw a lot of words out with very little meaning.
I made an account just for this.

The amount of misinformation in this post is astounding and you are simply misleading other members. Please read at least wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_absorber , before you spout off information.

Springs store and release energy. They have no way to appreciably dissipate any energy. Thats where a shock absorber comes in. Shock absorbers, no matter the construction, dissipate energy in the form of heat.

As to the 3 types of shock absorbers you listed, only emulsion shocks can be described as an actual type of shock absorber and even that is a stretch. The two most prevalent types of shock absorbers are twin-tube and monotube. You can read about the differences in the wikipedia link above. I dont need to explain what is easily approachable on wikipedia. But i will shed further light on your "3 types of shocks".

Emulsion shocks refer to a shock that has no separation between the gas and oil. There is no dividing piston between the gas and oil, like in a monotube. Take a King 2.5in shock and remove the dividing piston, now you have an emulsion shock. Who makes Emulsion shocks you might ask? King, Fox, Bilstein, you name it and they probably make an emulsion shock somewhere in the catalog. There are some off road race classes that specify an emulsion shock. Otherwise they are not widely used at all. None of these brands are selling you an emulsion shock that fits on your tacoma, end of story. None of these brands are selling you anything except deflective disk valving either even in emulsion shocks, ill get to that later.

DeCarbon is a brand name and thats it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Carbon . When it was released in 1953 it was a combination of existing technologies into a single shock.

"Cartridge shocks" are not a type of shock. This is a packaging scheme that is commonly used in motorcycle and mtn bike forks. The basic construction of this package is to take a sealed damper, either monotube or twin-tube, and shove it into a larger package. This larger package takes the side loads and leaves the "cartridge" to do its job and damp suspension motion. The stanchions on a moto fork are the larger package for example. I can take any shock and make it a "cartidge".

Bypass shocks. These are either twin-tube or monotube shocks where fluid flow is allowed to "bypass" the piston. Fluid that bypasses the piston does not have to go through the damping circuit. If fluid doesnt go through the damping circuit then it doesnt create damping forces. This is one of the ways to create a position sensitive shock. You can place the bypass passages anywhere along the shock body you want. More bypass around the piston = less damping force. Conversely, less bypass around the piston = more damping force.

So, who makes twin-tube and who makes monotube shocks? Off the top of my head here's the list of major brands:

Twin-tube: kyb, tokico, BWI, Delphi, OME, Bilstein (low end B4 product line), Fox (internal bypass shock is technically a twin tube), Ohlins, Monroe, Rancho.

Monotube: Fox, King, Icon, Bilstein, Ohlins, sway-a-way

You also described two different ways of achieving damping forces, which can be used in any type of shock construction: Both of these types have low/high speed compression and rebound damping.

1. Orifice damping (very rarely used as the primary damping circuit in cars and trucks, i dont know of a single company using this off the top of my head as the primary circuit) Basicaly, how it works is that holes are drilled into a piston, fluid is forced through the wholes which creates damping force. Higher shaft velocities create higher damping forces. These types of shocks can be tuned by oil viscosity, and hole size/number of holes. Shape of the damping curve is hard to alter. Holes can be rebound, compression or active on both strokes depending on the check valve configuration.
2. Deflective disc (Every single brand on the planet uses deflective disc valving no matter the type of shock.) Found in both twin-tubes and monotubes. The quoted post does a decent job of describing this in the "cartridge/bypass" section so i wont repeat it. This is what is inside every Bilstein, King, Fox, and Icon shock. No matter whether its a 5100 or 6112 or 2.0 or 2.5.




So to answer the OP's question what is the real difference between King, Fox, Icon, Bilstein?
This all comes down to what product lines you are looking at.

All of these shocks in each category are equally effective at damping. What one user calls a smooth ride another might find harsh. This comes down to tuning philosophies of each company. I dont think there is a single person on this forum who has tested all 4 of these brands on the same exact truck. This means same exact wheels, tires, cab configuration, rear leaf pack.

For 2in non reservoir shocks you have:
5100s
Fox 2.0
king oem
icon 2.0
Whats the difference between these shocks? Tuning and assembly differences.Tuning differences between companies, Icon/Bilstein tend to be digressive, Fox/king tend to be linear valving. The tuning difference does nothing to change the price of the shock. This is simply a preference that each company has. Note:digressive vs linear valving is not always cut and dry. Some products from Icon and Bilstein actually use linear valving.
Assembly differences: Why are bilsteins so much cheaper? Bilsteins use a welded steel body. Welded steel body's are cheap to make. Fox/King/Icon make their shocks from screw together assemblies. These are more expensive to build due to both assembly time and the individual components. The price difference comes down completely to aesthetics, you can have bland looking shocks, or shiny anodized shocks. Contrary to popular belief most 5100s are rebuildable, you just have to send them to Bilstein. Its usually cheaper to buy new 5100's then get them rebuilt.


For 2.5in non reservoir shocks you have:
6112
king 2.5
fox 2.5
icon 2.5
Same exact differences as in the 2in shocks. It basically comes down to tuning differences and how shiny you want your shock to look. All of these shocks in the 2.5in category are rebuildable.