I won't say too
much else here as people are understandably looking for other opinions, but I do have some additional usage experience beyond my ROTW writeup. One thing that has really caught my attention recently is this whole "stinkbug" issue. I saw CDAN's stripped rig for his paint job and the comment on gaining 2" of lift and how jacked up the rear end was...and it just hits home to me again and again that my suspension doesn't act like that.
For the last 2 weeks, I have been hauling mulch/compost from our "slash and mulch" recycling program with a 6x12 open U-hual trailer. The trailer is 2,485 lbs unloaded, and I am hauling about 1,500 lbs of material in each load (fun on 35's on stock gears at 7,500 ft. elevation
). We could call it 1,000 lbs to be conservative.
So a tongue weight of 350 - 400 lbs on the rear hitch (I have Slee's receiver mounted in the stock rear bumper/crossmember, which miraculously has yet to rip my frame from the truck
). I have the 3rd row seats installed, 120 lbs of 7 and 8 year old boy installed in those seats, my hi-lift and tools behind the 3rd row, and my 35" Interco spare on the roof centered about over the axle. So let's call this 300 lbs in the cargo area and at least 300 leveraged back off the hitch. This is at least as much as a rear bumper/tire/carrier and storage drawers full of crap.
I don't get this "ass dragging" look under all of this load. The rear is compressing as it should through the entire range of loading, but the lines of the truck stay level without needing a pronounced stinkbug setup unloaded. I am hauling again this weekend and will take a picture of my 80 with and without trailer so people can see exactly how this looks so you can compare to pics you can find of OME loaded and unloaded. No matter what I say here, the pics are the pics and you can make up your mind for yourself.
I'm not affiliated with FOR, so I can only repeat my understanding of the suspension design. The FOR springs have a very small progressive rate wind. So when completely unloaded, you get a very soft ride of the lower rate. Add load and you quickly compress the little bit of progressive wind to the higher rate, so in seat of the pants, the ride never changes loaded vs. unloaded. It always feels about the same.
The springs are designed for a +/- .5% (1/2 of one percent) variance maximum in spring rate over the entire load and compression cycle. I watch all of these posts about going to 300 lb/in OME competition springs with shock valving in the 400/100 range, and it is a total contrast to the FOR suspension. The valving on my shocks is 168/73. The final production system has customized valving, so I don't even have the fine tuned version.
This is quite a contrast to the stiff coil/stiff shock valving approach. My 80 doesn't ride like a truck, loaded or unloaded, and it doesn't suffer from stinkbug or excessive ass dragging loaded or unloaded within what I would consider a normal usage range. As to whether others report the same results...we'll have to see. I'm just one guy and I got the suspension that I wanted
The bottom line is you are buying much higher end spring in this kit, and that is the premium over OME. In my experience, Bilstein is also a more supple shock than OME in delivering the necessary damping without harshness. OME is a good shock - I've run both on two different rigs and I like Bilstein better paired up with a very high end spring.
Do a search on all of the posts about trying to keep OME level and consider why that seems to be such a day in/day out topic on this board. What is it that you do to keep a top heavy quad coil rig from acting so much like a slinky without turning it into a brick? One might be stiffen the spring rate and add a lot of armor/gear weight to address stinkbug and ride harshness, another is the approach FOR has taken.
I don't like the heavy suspension, heavy armor approach unless I've got coin for engine mods (now only turbo is an option on the 80). I'll be interested to hear the feedback as more of these hit the road.
