Long Travel BS Thread

Thats bizarre, interesting

 

Nice! Yeah that bypass mount is pretty beefy. Using the bypass with an integrated bump zone works fine too! I just hadn't seen that because most of the kits I've seen retain that bump mount and you can run replacement bumps. I wonder why they do that, I'm sure theres a reason. Maybe better mounting angle on the bypass? or it pulls more travel? I don't know haha just thinking out loud. I guess that little piece holding the stock bumps isn't structural anyway

 

Damn man @erok81 dove in feet first with his build, lightheartedly and never claiming to be a long travel guru type or even to know jack sh#t. But he went for it like we all wish we had or could. His question is legit and every single member in this thread asked it at one point. Everyone wants the best of both worlds and learns along the way that you must choose one. Imagine if we all got a lame response like this one. C'mon now, lighten up you were that guy, we all were, and that's OK...

 

Lol dude it's just valving. Just learn how to rebuild your shocks (or if you already even better) and start to play with stacks. It will take time but nothing out of the box will work perfect. Gotta tailor it for your truck.

Deep breath, get a nitrogen tank and a vise and go to town. You will get it

 

Well, like multiple people have said, you need to get it valved/tuned correctly. None of us know what it was valved as. So far I haven't heard about you doing a tuning session on your bypasses. And also, your idea of riding rough may be different than everyone else's idea of riding rough. Maybe take a video of you going up these wash boards? Remember, this suspension doesn't really shine until about 45+ or so. Are you sure the shocks are all charged right and oiled up? (just trying to narrow down possible issues). I know you were talking about weight carrying capacity, are you going offroad with an empty bed? Even my DMZ kit rides pretty badly when I take my full size spare out. It rode amazingly when I had my RTT on the back with the full size spare in the bed, even though I lost about an inch of lift.

I know you appreciate my offer and all, but if you come out I can take a ride with you and tell you if your truck is riding like shit or if its all in your head lol. We can also take video of you going up and down sections to see how its riding and see what valving needs to be adjusted.Mine rides like garbage at low speed, and when I first picked it up even highway handling and ride was pretty crap. Once I got a good alignment and a couple runs in Pismo I was able to tune the shocks a little finer and the performance improved a bunch. Remember, trophy trucks ride great on and off road because they have their weight and shocks 100% dialed in perfectly, and spent hundred of hours doing that, and thousands of dollars designing and testing it all. Asking the same out of Tacoma you just welded up, is a bit much.

 

You've gotta remember that have twice the travel you do. They can afford to be softer. When you have less than 8" or uptravel it has to be stiff enough to only use that full 8" in extreme conditions. If it was soft enough for comfort on the street it wouldn't handle anything in the dirt. I'm sure calving will make it ride better off road but if it drives like an mt truck on the road be happy. Once you've driven a truck with zero road manners you'll enjoy the predictability and crispness of a truck that doesn't feel like it's gonna lay over on you in every turn

 

Yeah also like you said, let your springs/coils break in...it'll ride alot better once that happens, combined with a couple tuning runs and you'll enjoy the truck alot more.

 

@erok81 this needs to happen. I think it is safe to say that any perspective you can get at this point will give you some direction. Whether that means you have someone ride with you and tackle some speed bumps or you get in their LT ride...either way you need someone who has LT to ride with you and vice versa to reach a common ground. Also, feeling the suspension cycle on a valved ride will surely give you more closure about if that is worth staying the course to achieve. Shit I would take up Volcom's offer if I was local just to see how a DMZ pack/set up rear feels like so I could have some sort of expectation. Im sure at this point, any clarity on this situation is well worth it to get you more educated on your current dilemma.

 

I miss the days when @jberry813 would call people out in here for stupid questions, now he's too busy modding or whatever those ban hammer wielding yahoos do.





















Make LTBS great again!

 

idk what those expo guys do.. too much RTT setting up.. i member when he called people out haha

 

Probably too stiff. Maybe 12/08 would help out.

 

@erok81

I think you can valve your rear bypasses way softer and it will feel great.

You have an air bump plus your shocks bump zone after the bypass tubes.

You are close to a 1:1 ratio giving your shocks a lot of leverage for damping.

Also your shocks are prerun series with small diameter bypass tubes that flow less than other shocks.

I would definitely run thinner shims. Maybe 10/08

If that isn't soft enough you could try and flutter the big diameter comp shim with a single smallest diameter 8 shim for a light crack pressure and widen/shorten the shim fulcrum width and height (removing some of the small diameter shims and any small diameter spacers from the base of the stack) and use a rate plate (wide/thick diameter washer between the shock shaft and comp valve stack) if you needed any help on the big hits/high shaft speed stuff.

Long comp tube fully open
Short comp tube start with half open
Rebound tube start close to fully open

Read up on valving on desert rangers. Good thread over there, can't remember the name or link though.

A flutter is putting a small diameter shim between two big diameter shims so one can flex a little and let a small amount of oil flow till it hits the next big diameter shim down and now the whole shim stack needs to flex to allow more oil flow.

Good for chatter washboard and low shaft speed stuff.

 

10 on compression with a flutter and tubes open is gonna be very soft, he will probably like it for the street, but that's way soft for off roading.
I do agree with everything else, I guess it just depends how soft he wants to go

 

If I remember correctly I think as a baseline fox usually sends them out at 12/10. Can someone confirm that as the baseline? Having trouble remembering between the front coilovers and bypasses. But yeah 15/10 seems a bit stuff I had my bypasses valved at the baseline to start out as tim at dmz recommended. It was decent with no tuning (obviously not perfect, but not horrible).

 

My buddy is running 15/10 in his 2nd gen dmz rear, but he caged.
Does pretty well in the desert.

Kinda fun to watch around the 2 minute mark if you are bored. GoPro really flattens the terrain. Sound is garbage FYI
https://youtu.be/2YbAuVODwAw

 

I'm suggesting that soft because of king prerun small tubes and start-stop-start tube layout unlike fox/saw dual running comp tubes plus he has an air bump.

Going from full stacks of 15/12 to full stacks of 12/08 won't feel that different.

There is not enough bypass in the single small diameter bypass tube for a 1:1 ratio so you have to help it out on the piston, hurts the bump zone a little but pulling the small diameter shims and using a rate plate to limit port flow on big hits and the fact that he has an air bump, it should work fine.

Tubes can be closed up for off-road or carrying more cargo if needed and fully open for street

We aren't talking about a dedicated caged off road truck here, no bedcaged daily driver truck with a bolt on front kit is gonna be hitting 3 foot whoops at 70 mph no matter how you valve it.

A leaf sprung race truck is a whole different animal.

That being said, everyone has there own opinion and ideas on valving, I like trucks to feel as smooth as possible, some people like to valve stiff so they can hit the gnarliest sections they can find.

 

Brand and tube layout is everything here.

15/12 on fox triples Vs the same on king prerun shocks can yield a completely different ride quality.

Not because of the shims and we aren't even getting into piston design and port size but because of the amount of bypass available on the parallel running fox bypass tubes versus the start stop start king tube layout.

The fox piston can be valved a lot stiffer but still be soft in the middle of travel because of the amount of bypass having two tubes flowing instead of just the one. As a result it could feel softer than the king with stiffer piston valving.

I'm not interested in saying one style tube layout is superior to the other, just that valving is done a little differently depending on tube layout style.

 

I tuned mine on fence line in Pismo. Not anything gnarly by any means, but a decent whup section sometimes. Took me the better part of an afternoon just running up and down, watching video or feeling it. I too do not know what King valved all my shocks as, they are due for a rebuild and I was just going to ask to up compression a little bit, as the front end bottoms out a little to easily and my long compression tubes are about 3/4 of the way closed up front. It rides tons better than when I first picked it up, and driving on the highway it's pretty smooth. Maybe someone with more experience would ride in my truck and tell me its garbage and help tune my truck even better, perhaps! But for me I'm pretty happy. I'd say it's tuned pretty well as all my Go Pro footage mounted to my sliders is butter smooth but the wheels are bouncing around like crazy.