Let's talk Shocks- for the Leveled Truck

[GaryCarter]

You can see from my sig what I'm running. I'm sorry to say the Bilsteins have disappointed me. They're OK for highway use, or maybe crawling around off road, but they are a long way from having enough damping for the weight of the CTD.

My negative experiences have been on sandy roads where they get 'whooped' out... talking 4" or so waves about 10' apart. This sets up a resonance that gets the truck bouncing like granny's Caddy if you try to exceed a crawl. The suspension hits the bump stops AND tops out. Not what I expected.



Has anyone had luck with Rancho's etc, or do I have to shell out for the big buck remote reservoir shocks?

Suggestions?



Thanks,

Gary

 

[jtnm]

I don't think Rancho would not hold up any better than the Bilsteins. I used to run Rancho 9000's usually would get around 16,000 out of them. Then buy another set. As you can tell from Sig. I am looking elsewhere also.

 

[Regcabguy]

I'm running Bilstein 7100's and the passenger side is leaking bookoo and driver side beginning to do the same. :{ You might try Sean Lorenz's site. He offers Fox and Sway-a-Way products. I'm pleased with the dampening of the Bilstein 7100's but dissappointed with leakage@8,000 easy miles.

 

[Huskerman]

I have heard really good things about the Edelbrock shocks but I don't know if I can get them for my leveled truck.



Huskerman

 

[480RUGER]

Don’t bother. The ISA Edelbrocks don’t do any better then the Bilsteins. But they do send you a replacement shock before you have to send them the core when needed so no down time. My . 02

 

[Nate]

I like the Bilstiens... either way though the truck rides like the axles are welded to the frame off road compared to my Jeep, which is setup for that stuff.

 

[CumminsBu]

My guess you have the Kore Pace/Recon, why not up grade to the Fox stocks that are in the newer Kore Chase system. Thats would be my next step.

 

[Diesel Power]

Don’t bother. The ISA Edelbrocks don’t do any better then the Bilsteins. But they do send you a replacement shock before you have to send them the core when needed so no down time. My . 02

but do they ride better than stock? if so how are they better. thanks

 

[Briman]

Don Thuren sells a nice set of King 2. 5" for what I consider a reasonable price.

 

[GaryCarter]

Bumping back to the top- any new suggestions? Hunting season is here and it's time to do something.

I'm not looking for a race truck here, it doesn't seem like it should take a thousand bucks+ in shocks just to get a decent off-road ride.



Thanks-

Gary

 

[Regcabguy]

Shocks

Bumping back to the top- any new suggestions? Hunting season is here and it's time to do something.

I'm not looking for a race truck here, it doesn't seem like it should take a thousand bucks+ in shocks just to get a decent off-road ride.



Thanks-

Gary

Contact Sean Lorenz or Sage Carli. Good guys with competent products who listen. Do a search for reputation and contact address or ph#

 

[Lorenz]

We have new line of 2. 25 Series Sway-a-Ways (SAW's) coming into production. Were going to run Internal Reservoirs with them to help cut down on cost while still carrying a little more oil compared to the 2. 0 Fox's with remote reservoirs that we also sell. The 2. 25 Series SAW's have 30% more piston area when compared to the 2. 0 Fox's for better dampening qualities and heat disapation, along with Hiem Joints top and bottom vs eurothane bushings.



Now that the sales pitch is out of the way. Here's the skinny. Your looking for control. Control is had through dampening the "up and down" energy at the correct times. This is done with pistons, valving and Oil. The oil takes most abuse, so in order to dampen a lot of weight, you need a lot of oil in comparison.



Bilstien 5100's are not going to have the dampening control/valving for medium off road use that you described. They'll work on a maintained washboard fire road, but there's no way they'll keep up with the 5000# Cummins pogo stick. The Bilstien 5100's can only carry so much oil, (smaller diameter bodies, with no Remote Reservoirs) thus, they're only going to last so long before they over heat and fail under the weight of the Cummins while off road. To avoid failure through over heating, Bilstien valved these shocks on the lighter side. They still perform well, I'll add that they're better than any other off the self OEM replacement shock, but they don't carry enough oil/dampening for 4" whoops.



You'll need to step up to a Race Quality, user valvable shocks that carry more oil. This sounds like it may not be the answer your looking for, but there isn't an OEM replacement shock that will keep up with the off roading you discribed.



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[GaryCarter]

Thanks, Sean. As usual, there's a gap between the what we want and what we need.



I'll be phoning you soon.



Gary

 

[obie1]

I'm running Bilstein 7100's and the passenger side is leaking bookoo and driver side beginning to do the same. :{ You might try Sean Lorenz's site. He offers Fox and Sway-a-Way products. I'm pleased with the dampening of the Bilstein 7100's but dissappointed with leakage@8,000 easy miles.

Did you send them back for warranty? By chance did you get these from Geno's? Geno's worked with Bilstein and Kent Kroeker (Kroeker Off road engineering) for some specially valved Shox. Unfortunately/Fortunately they are always on back order but I can't wait till they do show up.



As I understand these are 7100 series but specially valved. My 2003 2WD had Rancho 9000's but they were miserable, went back to factory (since nothing else is available for 2WD 03 models)

 

[GaryCarter]

Another comment re Bilsteins- I've been happy with these before on both half ton Chevy's (yes a lighter truck) with torsion front suspension, and also on F-350's PSD's with leaf fronts.

Maybe this is related to the Dodge coil front end, or maybe it's just a side effect of the increase wheel travel from the lift.



Gary

 

[Lorenz]

Bajabob has 7100 Bilstein Remote Reservoirs that he purchased with his KORE Chase kit. I revalved the *REARS* for him to better suit his rig. Here's a rebuild article on my website for inquiring minds.

http://lorenzindustries.com/media_july.html





5100's#ad






7100's#ad

 

[THUREN]

Just a few notes..

Hey guys...



One thing to really keep in mind is that these trucks are heavy, and they have heavy rate springs to compliment this. Without running a soft(er) rate spring, you will NEVER get one to ride like a Caddy, as it's just not physically possible for a stiff spring to soak up the very fine hits. To relate this to Garys concerns, he is having the rebound-bounce, which as mentioned by Sean is from much too light of rebound dampening in the shock. Cheap shocks can actually do a pretty good job of providing good rebound dampening but will quickly fail under all the heat generated, so the Mfg's don't set the shocks up that way. If Garys truck was driven on 99% street, you could go with a lower spring rate and the "Caddy-feel" could start to be realized, but then without a good shock upgrade compression would suffer...



What it comes down to is that if you want to have it ALL, you pretty much can't get there without a softer rate spring, and a high quality shock.



For Garys truck to take long whoops at speed, much more rebound dampening MUST be had, and there is no way to reliably do this without going to a reservoir shock. .



Don

 

[mhachez]

I run BDS 9500 series on mine for about 10000 miles. They give a smoother ride with less dive on braking and less nose lift when taking off.