Shock Choice

Ok here is my situation guys... Right now I'm currently running Deaver J59 springs with Total Chaos 9" shackles and 16" King smoothies with Resivoirs. I have been using this setup for about 6 months but honestly I don't see a big improvement over my setup on my last tacoma which I had stock springs, and Bilstien 5100's. So I would like to sell my Kings and remove the shock tower to get my bed back and just get some stock location mounting shocks instead. So my question is what is the best and cheapest shocks to use that mount in stock location and what is the longest shock travel I can use so I can get the most out of this setup as possible. Right now with my current setup I'm cycling 15" of travel so hopefully that helps in determining what shock brand and length I can use to Put in the stock mounting location.....

 

Look at my build thread for pics, im running a 12" Short body shock , which does as fast as some Rear LT trucks can go. You can do a 10 mounted under bed easier. But in stock locations kinda suck as there is very little uptravel .

 

So 10" travel shocks are the longest you can put in stock mounting locations?

 

In the stock mouting points the best thing I think for your application would be Bilstein 7100's 10" short bodies in stock points yes. Rebuildable revalvable, with resi and with a tiny mod of the rod ends they bolt right up.

 

When you say tiny mod to the rod ends what is involved and how much work is it? Appreciate the help alot!!!

 

What mod is needed to the rod ends Anthony?

 

The tiny mod is that the Bilstein shocks come with Hiems on the rod ends, and they use a 1/2" bolt as the stock mounts use metric which is close to 5/8" bolt, so you have to remove the hiems off all the shock ends and replace with bushings and then use stock bolts and your good to go. Bushings can be purchased on Amazon or online for cheap.

 

Do you think since I have the J59 deaver's and 9" shackles that I can use a shock with more then 10" of travel on stock mounting points? Just wanna get the longest shock possible that will fit so I can utilize the most travel of rear end possible

 

Yes you will , theres two ways to do that. Either take the leaf pack apart to the main leaf and cycle the suspension to full bump and full droop and the travel is equvalent to what shock size and shock body size. Ideally I would not use stock shock mounts becuase you would have probably a 10" shock max and very little up travel. The other way of determining shock size is measuring at full droop and full bump, but getting it to full bump without taking the leaf pack apart is very hard to do ,so careful measurements are taken. This is the way i set up my truck and i did not take the leaf pack apart and I was off by about 1.125". So best to take the leaf pack apart which is easy but time consuming. If i were you id get a 10-12" Shock 2.0 or 2.5 run it under the bed like how my set up is. Or Put the shock outside the frame on a tube mount then mount to the axle aswell, but this would require a 1.5" wheel spacers, but would make it more stable.