King Shocks - Remove internal spacer?

"You should NOT remove that spacer, it's designed to have that in there for added strength to the piston rod. Without it, your shock would extend an extra .5" longer, roughly 1" more at the wheel and could damage your upper control arm or other components pretty bad."

Please don't assume what we do or don't know, you could simply just ask. We have in fact done this, very recently actually, and no it will not work with the specific application we were testing on. The balljoint will bind with that additional shock travel. Have we tried every upper control out there, definitely not.

If it was ok to run a .5" longer shock, don't you think Fox or King would do that? .5" may not seem like a lot, but when combined with the motion ratio on the front of a Tacoma, it does matter.

 

That spacer already just flops around in there. It's free to move around independent of the seal head. Plus, the rears don't have it and I'm gonna guess the generic 2.5x6" king coilovers don't have it.

The only way it would be for strength is at top out to distribute the load across a larger surface area of the steel top out washer. But again... The generic catalog shocks likely don't have it. Maybe the assumption is that a custom setup would have straps?

Edit to avoid the vultures

 

Not sure why I was quoted in that. I have no doubt you all have fully investigated this topic and all available options. I'm in no position to say otherwise. Just here for the conversation.

 

Because your response is also helping answer these questions, thank you.

 

Do generic, catalog, non-OEM (2.5x6, for example) king shocks have that spacer?

Awesome, thanks.

... No? they do have a lot of money to defend... *clutches pearls*

Could you image the lawsuit if they DID push the limit?

 

My apologies. I figured if you had actually tested this then you would have said so right off the bat vs. waiting until page 4 to say so.

 

Yeah I remember you saying that a few pages back. Ive been following along with this thread from the get go, just to try and learn something.

I guess I dont fully understand how a spacer can make the rod stronger though. Based on the scope of conversation I think its fairly safe to assume that OP knows enough to know about possible damage to any/all other components of the IFS. So if we dont worry about that, which brings us back around to how does a spacer make the rod stronger? Doesnt really make sense to me.

But again Im 100% a novice when it comes to shocks. I learn by doing, and Ive never had to take one apart so I dont know...

 

Dude just remove it already lol you aren't happy with any of the responses for why you shouldn't do it. If accutune can't convince you not to, then a random TW member isn't going to either

Doooo eeeet

And post pics

 

Allllll the pictures

 

LOL.

I'm good with everyone here, but I don't like asking a technical question and getting 'the mfge said so, don't question it. now sit down and shut up' as an answer. Especially when there is evidence to the contrary.

To be fair, it did take 2 pages for someone with experience to chime in and 4 pages for AccuTune to spill the beans they had actually tried it.

Y'all are gonna have to wait on pictures. I'm waiting on UCAs now.

 

The 0.5” shock spacer is preventing the shock from extending... 0.5” more , which would translate to 1” more travel at the wheel. The shock is acting like a limit strap preventing your inner CV and lower BJ (and even the solid rubber inner lower arm bushings) from binding . If you remove that spacer u will get 1” more travel at the wheel , but need to run uniball upper / lower, heim outer tie rod , and either JD fabs Porsche inner CVs or RCV axles or a diff drop to not bind anything.

I’m sure that 0.5” spacer helps prevent the rod/piston from wobbling inside the shock body ( and thus prevents bending the rod on a fast compression event when at full droop) . But if the upper/lower uniball shock pivot points are not binding (at the top hat or on the lower arm) then it should always be “inline” as it cycles so the risk of bending a rod is probably low especially on such a short shock.

so ya don’t remove that spacer if you are ONLY running an aftermarket control arm ....but if you are down for new Lowers , CV assemblies , tie rod ends then do it.

You could also just do what 7s tucks do .just run a 8” bypass shock body up high in the engine cage with a way longer shaft and just use limit straps.

 

I just want to say that I want to know the outcome. Also, this only has to do with a small portion of the conversation, but the front coilovers definitely see more load than the rear shocks. The rear shocks don't bear any load, the leaf springs do. On the front, the rod end is load bearing due to the weight sitting on the coil which sits on the rod.

Whether removing the spacer makes it weaker or not, I don't know. I just wanted to point that out.

 

Thanks for adding this!

The spacer is significantly smaller in diameter than the seal head, shim stack/piston head and the heavy steel washer under the shim stack/piston assy. It is free to float up/down on the shaft between the heavy washer and the seal head (when not fully extended - when it would be sandwiched between the two)
There is simply no possible way it is providing bending shaft/buckling support.

Fair enough. Good point about the spring load. I meant side/bending loads. The coil overs in the front are subjected to a large load, but only down its length. My point was if the Coilover is subjected to large side loads, there is likely massive mechanical issues in the rest of the suspension components.

... I suppose the rod ends on the rears to mitigate and torque load at the mounting point, so they may not even be subject to too much bending either.

 

The spacers help prevent the shock rod/piston from bending when the shocks are at full droop. The bottom main shock seal is basically a pivot point for this bending to happen. The piston (with has a soft wear band) has some tolerance or play against the inside of the shock body. So when the piston is well inside the shock body (like with a spacer) the play isn’t as bad when you have a longer distance between the two pivot points , being the main seal at the bottom and the piston mid way up. At full droop and no spacer, the distance between these “pivot points” becomes so close it’s now just like 1 pivot point holding the rod in a straight line. Imagine holding a broom stick in front of you with two hands that are touching. Some one can wiggle the broom stick side to side about your grip in the middle. Now grip the broom stick very wide with both hands far apart and try to twist the broom stick. Much harder.. same idea

Most shock companies uses these “spacers” on all lines of their shocks but they are not “essential”. I remember the older Sway away shocks didn’t have these spacers and therefor they had the the shortest extend and collapsed shocks for the travel they pulled. I think that spacer becomes more necessary as you run longer shocks on applications like links(side wobble) or anything which has a wide motion ratio and subjects the rod to steep angles as force is applied in wards.

 

Right, I acknowledged this effect up thread. You're right - this effect is most critical at full droop when the piston head and seal head are closest.

I think the rod end and fully constrained ifs links are mitigating any load except for parallel to the shaft. Any 2 points in space create a line. (ie - the upper and lower rod ends)

Is anyone able to confirm (or deny, for that matter) that standard catalog shocks come with a spacer in this position? Not oem, but just generic, buy-by-the-length shocks?

 

@Arcticelf would probably know. He’s rebuilt some 12” smoothies a few times.

 

My OEM (8"...?) smoothies don't have it.

 

Just to be clear , I think for a Tacoma specific bolt in coil over , the spacer acts like a limit strap for the stock lower arms and inner CV.

For any other general shock they also have the spacers (0.5”-1”) but it’s to prevent that bending rod issue. On my old LT ranger I removed that 1” spacer on my 14” bypass shocks out back to get the most travel out of my national leaf springs. Also on the front extended I beams I ran 12” fox coil overs which also had the spacer removed so I could cycle
More travel while stuffing that shock up in the engine cage. Nothing bent.

 

Nice. This is the first confirmation I have seen that generic/non-oem shocks have this spacer. Our theory on the application makes sense mechanically and physically - limiting the minimum distance between shaft support points.

We'll see what it looks like once I get some UCAs. I might try making a custom, shorter, spacer as a compromise. Maybe 0.25-0.375" (stock is 0.5"). But I also realize this distance-between-supports effect gets worse quicker as the distance (spacer thickness) reduces.

 

I haven't pulled apart a set of buy-by-length coil overs, but on their smooth body shocks there is a spacer there.

The King EXT length shocks will already provide more travel than your UCAs can really handle, and get you close enough to failure on the CV that you can get into trouble. @AccuTune Offroad is right, it's there for a reason, and without some serious math I wouldn't fuck with it.

IF you run a limit strap to protect everything else you can probably get away with removing that spacer. BUT don't blame me when you break something expensive in the name of science. You'll also probably only be able to get 1/2" or so of travel, assuming you have uniball control arms, and custom cut misalignment spacers, before the UCA crashes into the coil.