LORENZindustries.com Suspension Group Buy

[MSLiechty]

Question for Sean....

Sean you mentioned your mini packs are not a good choice for soemone with a 2000# slide in. How about someone like me who has a Leer topper and custom made Truck Vault type box inside the bed. I think fully loaded for hunting camp I may be around 800-1000# of weight in the bed. I'm looking for a setup to level out the front end, without a large amount of lift or travel. Something along the lines of 1-2" in the front with good shocks to soak up fire/ logging roads, the truck sees during hunting season.



Michael

 

[ohnoitsyu]

Kudos to Sean for being able to quickly update his website (got rid of the photos of the old towers). Okay, so it's not that big of deal, but at least he responds to input.



I'm also curious about MSL's question.



Hey Carli, do you have a website?



Those Thuren mounts at $160 seem reasonably priced:

http://www.thurenfabrication.com/dodgeshockmts.html

 

[THUREN]

Hi there...



Was pokin' around on TDR, as I just got back from my honeymoon, and found a nice post!!!!



Anyway, cool stuff...



I don't have too much to say besides hi, as I make some products similar to yours, and have a similar background racing intermediate motocross/DH mtb in so. cal... I choose to not really judge your products as they are very new, and future updates should be more realistic, and exciting...



I will say that shock valving, suspension design and engineering, is my passion and I do my own valving specific to each vehicle's intended terrain. Lately i've started consulting shock valving and spring rates for 30k long travel buggies... . If I read your post correctly you do things different than me when it comes to valving so it will be interesting to see the feedback from your shocks... I'll help give some friendly feedback if I can and nice to see you in the market!!!



Don Thuren. .



Ps... . messed with flutter-stacks yet?

 

[Lorenz]

MSLiechty Sean you mentioned your mini packs are not a good choice for soemone with a 2000# slide in. How about someone like me who has a Leer topper and custom made Truck Vault type box inside the bed. I think fully loaded for hunting camp I may be around 800-1000# of weight in the bed. I'm looking for a setup to level out the front end, without a large amount of lift or travel. Something along the lines of 1-2" in the front with good shocks to soak up fire/ logging roads, the truck sees during hunting season.



Michael



Sounds like we have the right ticket for you. Understand 2000lb+ is pushing the 3/4 ton rating. Add my full water tanks, propane, gray, and black tanks, along side of a full tank of diesel and our camping equipment and im sure im over 2500lb on the rear axel. Im overloaded according to Dodge specs with my camper! Our mini pack are not ment for this. According to Dodge, my 3/4 ton truck isn't ment for this either?...



LORENZ coils are designed to be 2. 5 inches of lift over the stockers. I had Snow Plow springs from the factory and I only saw 1/2 to 3/4 inch lift over these factory coils compared to the LORENZ 580#. With LORENZ coils and stock leafs my truck will ride level. LORENZ mini packs kick up the truck about 1/2" in the rear. It's not a noticable amount until you take out the tape measure.





THUREN Hi there...

I don't have too much to say besides hi, as I make some products similar to yours, and have a similar background racing intermediate motocross/DH mtb in so. cal... I choose to not really judge your products as they are very new, and future updates should be more realistic, and exciting...



Congradulations on getting hitched. I can say marriage has been great for us. Well for me anyways, She hasn't complained much so I guess she's alright with the situation Me and my wife are still in the honeymoon stage with 1Yr+ under our belts. I heard year 3 is the big test? I also heard thing are soooo different and "awsome" after you start living together... . Well I guess some pple must have married crack pots or don't have a handle on life, things didn't change much for us after the big day? I knew Suzy before and after we signed the papers. Life didn't change too much after we started living under the same roof. Go figure...



It looks like you googled my name. I enjoyed 4 cross racing 200% more than that DH race. I wish I wouldve started competing earlier in life, I think I could've done alot better with a bigger investment in time and training. It's hard to do with a regular job and going after a degree on the side. So goes life...





ohnoitsyu

I am not intimidated by valving. I've spent a lot of time setting up downhill mountain bike suspension as well as desert motorcycles. While the terminology of the valves varies from shock to shock, those numbers are simply used to identify various valves or combination of valves.



In my valving experience (which I'm sure as a whole is considerably less than yours, and it does not include any valving on automotive shocks), I've learned that it can be quite time consuming.



Also in my experience on downhill bikes and dirt bikes, I've found some bad combinations. It can be really scary when a bike starts swapping at 70+ mph due to a bad setup. Granted, worse case with the truck is that it would just not handle well (thereby forcing the driver to reduce speeds), but there are many cases where the poor handling vehicle can get you into trouble (e. g. , the Goat trail, as I mentioned).



I've had my experiences with bad valving on Mountain bikes, and dirt bikes. I seperated my shoulder when my cheap shock faded and rebound left. With out any rebound on the rear of a bike you end up over the bars. I now use Fox air shox exclusively on all of my Mountain Bikes.



If you loose rebound compression on a truck you get the rear end to kick under normal driving conditions. Our trucks under normal driving don't end up on thier lids if things aren't correct. If your hitting whoops in the desert at 40mph and you don't have things set up correctly you probibly will end up on your lid. Bottom line, If your going to be Racer Joe and into taking your $40K truck into racing conditions you better know what your doing and be very confident about your set up. If your Racing around in your truck I personally wouldn't trust anybody with your valving except yourself. Only you know your driving style and only you will know the limits of you particular set up.



With this said I have personally run w/o shocks front an back for 2 wks of daily driving. I wanted to see what it would do and I wanted to break in the coils a bit before I set up the valving. In those 2 weeks I never ran into an out of control situation. Granted I did get some funny looks going down the freeway because it looked like a gangster driving a Hoopty on hydrolics.

I DONT NOT RECCOMEND DOING THIS FOR OBVIOUS REASONS!!!

Yet I know there are plenty of folks running around with blown shocks and don't even know it! My ranchos 9000 had blown compression in both rears before I decided to do somthing about it. Thus LORENZindustries. I knew I could put together a better suspension package for alot less $, and still be reliable enough to outlast the Cummins.



sean

 

[Lorenz]

Ps... . messed with flutter-stacks yet?

Teach us.



Standard valve stacks or splitting stacks by using half of a 10 and half of a 12 has worked for me so far. Then again I haven't found a need to get into as much detail as splitting stacks. Full stack have worked for me, your Average Joe.



For those following the tread and wondering what a stack is, It's basicly 5 thin washers that are held onto the piston of a shock that lets oil flow by. Using a thinner stack, say a . 010, compared to a . 012, or a . 015 would bend out of the way more, allowing more oil to pass through. If a this 10 stack was placed on the top of the piston we would have a "rebound 10 stack". If it were on the bottom of the piston it would be a "compression 10 stack". Simple as that.



I think Dodge Cummings owners would be playing with mostly 10, 12, and 15 stacks for compression and rebound. Only three combinations. Maybe an 8 stack if you want the caddy ride, but remember its a comprimise. I'm still running through the combinations for the rear loaded and unloaded. Like I said before KING set me up with a 12/15 stack in the front and this combo has worked loaded and unloaded.

 

[Lorenz]

Del Mar Tuff Trucks

Ok let me first say I feel a bit wierd putting a picture up strickly for bragging rights, and posting 3 times in 1 day. But, It's an honest 5 foot pushing 6'. Notice the flag man. My tires are drooped out at his head, so, it would depend on how tall that guy was.



It wasn't such a hot landing. I was a bit nose first and a flat lander. I pinned it, and way overshot the back end of the table top. I broke the spare tire mount off the truck that go around. The Toyota is currently under the knife for a full make over. I removed the Deaver leafs, added a Four link, added a trussed 9" Ford rear end, and a full cage front to rear. I'm about 3/4 done and it has taken 2yrs. Needless to say it's not on the top of the priority list.



Im debating a Toyota Supra inline 6 twin turbo and running in the 1450 MDR Races but time is tight. Racing takes huge amounts of $ and time after each race for prep. I just don't have the time to invest. And, if I go that far with a motor swap, I might as well just start another project from the ground up and set the In-line 6 back into the cab for better weight distribution. It never ends...



It's not the 7000# Dodge but it's a start. Time my friends time...

 

[THUREN]

It looks like you googled my name. I enjoyed 4 cross racing 200% more than that DH race. I wish I wouldve started competing earlier in life, I think I could've done alot better with a bigger investment in time and training. It's hard to do with a regular job and going after a degree on the side. So goes life...



sean

Oooops... I didn't Googe your name but when reading an above post about moto racing I thought it was yours... Sorry... lucky guess... .



Don

 

[THUREN]

Teach us.



Standard valve stacks or splitting stacks by using half of a 10 and half of a 12 has worked for me so far. Then again I haven't found a need to get into as much detail as splitting stacks. Full stack have worked for me, your Average Joe.



For those following the tread and wondering what a stack is, It's basicly 5 thin washers that are held onto the piston of a shock that lets oil flow by. Using a thinner stack, say a . 010, compared to a . 012, or a . 015 would bend out of the way more, allowing more oil to pass through. If a this 10 stack was placed on the top of the piston we would have a "rebound 10 stack". If it were on the bottom of the piston it would be a "compression 10 stack". Simple as that.



I think Dodge Cummings owners would be playing with mostly 10, 12, and 15 stacks for compression and rebound. Only three combinations. Maybe an 8 stack if you want the caddy ride, but remember its a comprimise. I'm still running through the combinations for the rear loaded and unloaded. Like I said before KING set me up with a 12/15 stack in the front and this combo has worked loaded and unloaded.

I'll come back in a bit and explain in some more detail... It will help explain what I do as my findings on this type of valving works AWESOME!!!



Gotta make a deadline... . I'll be back!!



Don

 

[Hohn]

Don, you never did post on the flutter stacks.

 

[CATwrench]

Maybe one of you guys could post a pic of a disassembled shock to take the mystery out of it for the guys that are intimidated to try re-valving themselves? I would assume it's just a piston w/a disc valve toward the rod end, not quite sure where the shims go though? I rebuild shocks for rock trucks and hydraulic accumulators for scrapers and would be curious of the difference. How 'bout it??

 

[Lorenz]

Here's a direct link to a Full Rebuild of a Sway-a-Way (SAW) shock. Scroll to the bottom of my site and click on the "TLT" rebuild link at the bottom of the page for the same article.



TLT rebuild article



LORENZindustries shock page, Scroll down to same TLT link



These are a shot of a SAW piston and valve shims. The small disc/washers that are on top and bottom of the piston are the valves. Putting on thicker washers on top of the piston (Nut side of piston) = harder rebound dampening. The washers on the bottom of the piston control the compression dampening of the shock.

 

[Lorenz]

Here's a shot of the SAW piston with out any valves on it.



A shot of a SAW that has the piston near the nut, shaft, internal limiting spacer, shaft guide and rod end with hiem joint attached.



The third is a shot of a cut away Fox shock. The cut away is a internal bybass shock. The piston is inside the smaller inner tube. The pistons and valves look relitively the same as the others.

 

[SConklin]

What if a 6" lift or so were previously installed on a truck, and one wanted to use higher quality shocks (i. e. SAW, King, Bilst. , Fox). What kind of shock travel/size would be best for a previously lifted truck that wanted to use your mounts or shocks? Prerunning is great, but rockcrawling and stuff often needs a lift above what you guys (the race suspension companies) offer, not to mention, it's just personal preference. My first truck had 6" of lift on it, and just barely had enough clearance (often within a fraction of an inch) to get over some rocks and trails that I took it on in Arizona. I personally like a good sized lift, but I would also like to use the best shocks/suspension available for that particular height. What do you suggest?
Skyler

 

[Lorenz]

Here's the problems I run into when lifting a truck more than 2. 5". 1) The shocks get to long and you have to limit the up travel thus limit the total travel so the shocks don't go metal to metal at full bump. 2) By lifting the truck more than 2. 5" (which is the OEM snow plow prep height) the shocks start to move further to the back of the coil bucket because the trailing arms get deeper into thier cycle and pulls the axel back and to the side.



You would have to drop the mounting point of the shock down below the 5. 25" I use. I can NOT squeeze a true 2. 5 Fox (10" travel) or a 2. 5 series King (10" travel) in there with out the shock bodies hitting the rear of the coil buckets at full droop. A (true 10" travel) 2. 5 series SAW shock and a 2. 5" lift coil is all you can get to fit with out limiting up travel and/or cutting the coil bucket



The lift companies use longer bump stops to prevent a longer shock from bottoming out on itself. They use a smaller diameter shock as well as mounting them shaft side up. You've seen the big clumsy bump stop extensions right? They have to use that to prevent the longer travel shock from bottoming out on its. I've personally witnessed some of those bump stop extensions fail after a medium sized hit while playing in the mud in a Toyota.



So your options are limited when you want to fit a longer shock to 1) cut the coil bucket, 2) use a smaller 2. 0 shock, or 3) mount the shock upside down. There's a couple of guys trying it, but understand I can't recommend doing any of this at this point.

 

[SConklin]

With regard to the control arms pulling, I know this is the case, because I have experienced it on my second ram that I only lifted a couple inches. However, there are kits out there (i. e. cepek) that include longer control arms to maintain the same geometry at higher lifts. What about in this case, where the 4-link suspension "triangle" maintains the same angles, but simply increases the lengths?

 

[Lorenz]

Photo 1 is the clearance at the back of the coil bucket, looking up, between a true 10" travel 2. 5 series Sway-a-way Shock.





Second shot is self explanitory. ****Notice I DO NOT****** count the extra 1/2" of travel that the small bump stop on the shock shaft takes up. There is an honest 10" of travel left on the shock shaft, limited only by the OEM bump stops and OEM geometry.



Sean

 

[Lorenz]

With regard to the control arms pulling, I know this is the case, because I have experienced it on my second ram that I only lifted a couple inches. However, there are kits out there (i. e. cepek) that include longer control arms to maintain the same geometry at higher lifts. What about in this case, where the 4-link suspension "triangle" maintains the same angles, but simply increases the lengths?

At full bump your geometry is now off will longer arm, and in some cases the bumpstops no longer hit the axel bump stop pads. OEM geometry is very hard to make better. Chrystler is probably in the millions of $, with who know how many engineers working on the project just in the suspension alone. I'm not confident enough to mess with those kind of man hours and that kind of R&D money to change things.

 

[CATwrench]

Thanks, Sean. Looks good, Stealth Black.

 

[rivercat]

2) Allow me to say that from my amatuer perspective, the appearance of the welding on the shock towers looks pretty bad. I'd show something that's finished (ground, painted, whatever) if it was MY website.


Justin

Just one question what pic are we talking about? The pic in the home page looks good0-good tig welds to me. I would perfer a big hot mig weave for strenth instead of cosmetic beauty. They definitly could use some powdercoating cause any high carbon steel is prone to rust quickly.

 

[mhuggler]

Quick question for Lorenz: You mentioned earlier that the oem snow plow prep package springs were 2. 5" of lift. Since these are the springs I have, does this mean I won't gain any lift by switching to another 2. 5" spring such as Kore's?