Plush Daily Driver Suspension Dream

Whats up everyone! I bought myself a low mileage 2004 DC Prerunner for a Christmas present to myself. Love the truck but I would like to make it a bit more my own

Ill shed some brief light on my background. I'm a pretty handy dude and have had a fair share of modified cars. Mildly lifted XJ Jeep, IS300 with a single turbo Supra motor swap, and a bagged G37s. Safe to say I have wrenched on and driven some pretty cool cars. I've never owned a truck but my wife recently got a Highlander and my Acura CL-S needed some serious work.

Over the holiday I have none stop read about suspension setups. Coilovers, spacers, OME setups, Billys, etc. I keep bouncing back and forth on what setup would work best for me. I'm pretty familiar with a harsh ride is. Most of my car have been lowered and on low profile tires.

I'm using the truck for commuting to work up and down the highway. Its about a 20 mile trip one way. I'm looking for a suspension setup that is comfortable. I wont be chucking this thing off dunes or crawling offroad. Id rather not spray coffee all over myself every time I hit a bump in the road. With that said, I am pretty confident in understanding the difference between a firm ride and a harsh shitty ride.

I originally had settled on OME 881s, 5100s, and OME Dakar leaf pack. After doing some reading steered me towards FOX, Kings, and some Icon setups. The reasons behind even going down this road were there serviceability, adjust-ability if I ever were to get a bumper/winch. I am in Florida and this will be a beach vehicle so salt is a concern.

The million dollar question here is do I REALLY need a fully adjustable coilover setup for a daily driver that has about 1% chance of ever doing any serious offroading...?

If anyone has had both setups and prefer one to another, your opinion would be appreciated!



tldr; Im a bitch and want a plushy suspension setup that wont spill my coffee. I understand the difference between firm, harsh and soft. Firm is ok; harsh and oversprung is not. Budget is not really that much of a concern but I am conscious of it. Buy once, cry once right?

 

Kings if you can afford it and want the best ride out of the box. I had 5100s/881s before my Kings on my 04...they were great for what they were but 881s don't support much aftermarket weight and will sag if you do add weight. 5100s are considerably cheaper but not serviceable or capable of handling the same kind of abuse that Kings/Icons can.

Basically if you can afford it, go with Kings (or Icons but IMO you hear of more people having issues with Icons)...if you need to stay on a budget then 5100s will do fine

 

I had OME nitrochargers and 880’s (same sprint rate as the 881’s) on my old truck and they rode great - firm, but not harsh. I’d consider the nitrochargers as well as the 5100’s - but I have no experience with the 5100’s with this setup so I can’t say which is better.

I’m putting kings on my new truck whenever I get around to installing them, and I’ll report back if I remember to haha.

 

I'd go with OME personally. Since you're not seeing miles of dirt roads. They make decent shocks and are designed to be coupled with their springs. A smaller wheel and a larger tire side wall can help ride comfort if you keep the psi on the lower side..

A thing to think about about serviceable shocks: paying someone to rebuild them costs $100-$150 (same price or more than a non-rebuildable shock), a NR (non-rebuildable) shock ideally will last through two rebuildable shock rebuild cycles.
If you decide to rebuild them yourself it's easily a 6 hour job pulling them off, rebuilding them then reinstalling them. Then $20-$150 per shock in seals, bearings, oil and other parts needing to be replaced later in the shocks life or simply from neglect or the elements... Then you need to refill them with nitrogen gas.

FWIW, I had full OME and loved it. Now I have Icon's with a custom Dakar pack. I won't mind if I have to rebuild them once a year, because I spend a lot of time in the dirt. But my suspension handles like a dream, and I'd never go back to NR shocks.

 

KINGS

 

Thanks man! This is good info. This makes me lean pretty far towards a NR shock. Ive wrenched on a lot of cars and its not really something I want to mess with anymore. I wont be spending a lot of time at all in the dirt. If so it may be some back fire roads headed to a mountain bike trail but nothing more significant than that. I used to be into going out wheeling and camping but the Misses isn't so found of it anymore. Plus, Florida isnt really the most offroading friendly state, unless you're mudding; and thats not my cup of tea.

I have been bouncing between the Billys and OME. Ill give the nitrochargers a look. My Wheelers carts has about every suspension setup you can think of in it right now.

 

I did a ton of offroading with my 5100s/881s before I switched to Kings, to be honest I thought they performed great...the only thing I was limited to was speed (and travel). You don't want to do any "go fast" offroading without performance shocks/coilovers or they'll likely get damaged from the heat and abuse. But I still took them on some pretty gnarly climbing trails and they worked well for me at the time. I think you'll be happy with either those or the Nitrocharger shocks; if you find yourself wanting to speed down the trails without breaking your back or your suspension, then it's time to look into Kings. But for mostly street use and some leisurely trail rides, 5100s or NRs will be more than adequate.

 

Yeah rust issues (Florida?) may be another reason to stay away from adjustable coilovers.

I originally went with rebuildable because I didn't feel great about replacing/throwing my shocks out every 4-5 years. So I figured rebuildable was the way to go. But for the performance comes a cost. Rebuilds for me are necessary every one to two years. They're more finicky and need more attention than a slap-it-on-&-forget-it NR shock.

Had I known all that it might have swayed my option on not going rebuildable.
Now having a personal nitro fill station, I guess I'm in it for the long haul. Lol.

 

5100s will be stiff if you preload them, if you want lift and a comfy ride then it's best to get taller aftermarket coils (like 881s - 883s) and keep the billies set to 0.

 

My icon coils ride pretty rough and this was at the factory set height and when i cranked them up a little. I always liked the idea of being able to adjust them to level out my truck and make up for the lean my truck has from mainly me just riding in it all the time. Also you can rebuild them as any shock doesn't last forever so that was why I went coilover.

If you do buy coilovers you might want to think about the rear suspension since the front is getting a refresh.

 

Ha! Definitely sounds like you're in it now! Rust here isn't awful but driving on the beach is definitely a way to get it started. Think I am steering towards OME Nitrochargers..

 

I voted for Kings before reading through this - rebuildable shocks would kind of be overkill if you're going to stay on pavement - I have a better street ride with my oem front suspension than my previous lt / mt setup on my 2nd gen with 8" Kings. Granted I sold my kit before revalving them or changing out springs (which were admittedly too stiff anyway). You can swap springs and valve rebuildable coilovers, but if you don't want much lift and stay on pavement, you can get a better or same street ride for much less money and headache.

 

What's the spring rate on the kings? I know icon uses a 650# spring and it's way to stiff for a dd, really offroad to unless you have a massive bumper and winch hanging off the front. I'd like to get a set of 550# springs from eibach and swap out the 650's on mine.

 

Kings all the way! everthing else can be a bear to setup correctly, and what was said bout icon is true, they need servicing alot, had a few friends offer to trade for my kings and they had icon, that would never happen. Icon does make the sweetest looking uca but I dont trust aluminum for that part. Break in youre kings for real before the trash talk because mine are eight years old and look and ride better than any bilstein shock, unless you have ten thousand dollar bilstein shocks LT like Ivan Ironman Stewart. The cool combo is extended kings in front w/total chaos uca's, in the back extended kings on Deaver j59 leafs, and lose the sway bar and get used to it that way!, my truck can corner like my Subaru but take whoops quickly too, all while handling like a boss on streets, but gentle enough to take your lady out. Kings are on mostly every badass vehicle that goes offroad like Monster trucks, Short course trucks, Tatum's, Sand rails on and on, not to mention the ones made for the filthy rich like gold plated quad bypass shocks for dudes that own oil fields or live in Dubia. They were and still are loved by me after years of abuse. The cool thing is these have great resale value too!

 

I would vote for fox, out of the box they are on the softer side. Almost to soft for my taste. The rear will be depended on your leaf spring you get.

 

Most are 600lbs for the kings. You can also order them in the 700lbs/in version from Downsouth Motorsports

 

I've thought Icon aren't the most comfortable road shocks out there. Never owned them personally, just from riding in other people's trucks. To me OME (which I have owned several variations) ride better, although they are also relatively firm. Even with a torsion bar IFS I thought OME still felt more comfortable than Icons. Just my $0.02, Icon surely must come into their own when you get up to speed on washboard because I don't see them being what I'd go to for pavement. The FOX extended travel I have now are easily the most Cadillac riding shocks I've ever had. But they are also way overkill for a street truck. I run 650# coils with a fairly heavy front end. To me it would be hard to pay for them again, some OME or/and Bilstein combination is the most bang for the buck. But if I had the money I'd have zero hesitation to do FOX again (or King).