ICON coilovers TOO STIFF

can you please let me know how you achieved the ride quality as i am about to remove my Icons have my originals reistallled , have a wheel alignment done , Drive across the border form Baja mexico to ship my coilovers back to Icon and have them re valved and heavier coils installed then drive back up to san Diego and take them back to mexico have the reinstalled and have another alignment done .So before i go through all the expence and time maybe you could give me soem advice .Thanks

 

Wait, so you're saying you have a harsh ride and are close to rebuilding the coilovers with heavier springs? that's going to have the opposite effect of softening up your suspension. A heavier spring, without adding any additional weight to the vehicle, is going to have less compression or give to it. Are you running any additional weight, how much preload is currently on the spring, and are you at the ride height that you want? Need more info to give accurate advice.

 

Don’t do that. Pm me.

 

Preload made 0 difference. I had it as low as possible and it still rode like crap. I have now had king for 8 months and haven’t even thought of switching back to icon.

 

This is what i have

2017 Tacome sports
Tyres Ko2 275/70/R17
Slimline winch bar with winch 56Lbs
ARE Fiberglass Rear Canopy

Rear Suspension
Front Icon non adjaustable
Full ICON XRT Leaf pack
Icon 2.5 Adjustable shocks

Center of hub to Fender Loaded
Driver Front 21, 7/8 inches
Passenger Front 22, 1/2 inches
Driver Rear 24 inches
Passenger Rear24 inches
Thread Showing above coil loaded
Driver 1, 7/8 inches
Passenger 1, 5/8 inches

At Highway speed the the truck feels nice and smooth as soon as i am driving in town or off road i fell every bump
Icon said they need to revalve the front shock and add heavier springs to bring the front up more and reduce pre laod .
also they want me to take one of the leaf's out of the rear

 

Revalving will do nothing, I promise you that. I had mine revalved for a “softer” ride and it was a waste of time and money because I had to get the truck re-aligned. Make the switch to fox or king and call it a day.

 

That information is not accurate.

 

I'm having mad anxiety reading these posts! I was pretty dead set on Icon as I love the color scheme (I know stupid). Coming from a 2002 solid axle tacoma i think anything will ride better, but I'm definitely looking for that "Cadilac" ride. Offroading will for sure be a thing but I do put atleast 2K miles a month just pounding pavement driving to and from work. Any locals in the AZ area that wouldn't mind showing me some ride quality? I'm pretty new the the 2nd gens, know first gens like the back of my hand. Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

From my personal experience:
Icon can be smooth if you wanna go 50mph + thru any terrain, other than that, it rides STIFF. Unless you air down to 10-15 psi. On the other hand, King is a lot smoother at slower speeds & when you air down to 15-20psi it’s amazing. A lot of people can vouch for kings including myself, I highly recommend test driving peoples trucks with king, fox or icons so you can have an idea of what you want. All 3 are roughly around the same price range.

 

Definitely appreciated your thread. While mistakes were made, which you noted, it gave alot of good info with trial and error. It actually pushed me away from the icons lol. I just cant stand the blue, dont get me wrong it's a sick color. I just want a black and white build. That being said ride quality wont be sacraficed for color!

 

I actually dig the blue, I never found out why people disliked it haha I think it looks super cool. Also, King offers custom powder coating for extra money of course. Maybe something you should look into

 

Yea man granted I’m LT but most of my crew run kings and wheel all over the place. Out of ten guys, none of us have icons unfortunately for you to compare though.

Icons are digressive and kings are progressive. Digressive are stiffer at slower speeds and progressive is the opposite. Many prefer progressive for this reason as it’s nicer on terrain in general regardless of speed.

 

@Carl_z33 I really do like the blue I just wanted to keep things clean with the black and white look that's all. The anodized blue looks pretty good though, I will have to look into the custom color option though.

@Coot83 Maybe if you ever get some free time I could check out your build, if you don't mind of course. I live in Surprise AZ but work in Chandler so with that much driving I definitely want something with good road manners. Anyone you run with have experience with Fox?

 

King and Fox are both progressive and are similar in a lot of ways. Kings tend to ride "softer" out of the box but there are reasons for that. You can make a few changes and have a Fox ride the same/similar.

 

@desertjunkie760 What type of changes are you talking about? Curious if the Fox might be a good solution.

 

That's trade secrets my friend.

 

Guess I'll have to learn some new trades!! Any experience with ADS? Doing some digging now to see what I can't figure out. The Solid Axle world is so much different than the IFS world lol. I have limited experience on build a nice all around IFS truck.

 

Yeah, I've played with them. Not as impressed as the TW mob is but I still have yet to find anyone that will let me tear into a set to really understand the hype.

 

I don't know much about them to be honest. We ran them on an old KOH 4400 class rig when I used to work for an offroad shop but they ended up going to Kings. That's my only limited experience with them. What are you running on your truck?

 

Measurement of preload does not equal measurement of lift

Matt