80 series Slinky/ICON Long Travel Suspension officially coming to the U.S.A.

[baldilocks]

Will most who run a "long travel" spring and shock combination ever realize a real world difference with a vehicle like the 80 series? With suspension links and bushings like the 80 series? Will oem bushings be over flexed into an early demise?

Soaking up the bumps better is always a welcome trait but I'm not so sure any of us will benefit from more suspension travel than has long been available to us.

Take H1's for example. They are large and heavy yet very capable but not due to incredible suspension travel, rather, ground clearance through design and tire size and traction. One tire in the air isn't so bad when you have lockers.

I'm not advocating stiff, low travel suspension or discouraging whatever it is you want to accomplish with your rig. I run Rubicon more than any other trail,perhaps 4 times a year, and I havn't really wanted for anything to be honest.

I think @ericb1 makes a good point about the cost of the slinky/icon set up vs. what the 80 was designed to do best vs. age of the model and the myriad other things that WILL need attention to keep my rig fully operational. This is a situation where ignorance really is bliss. I wheeled the same trails for 15 years on some old, stiff ass leaf springs that were in my last rig and never thought anything of it. Needless to say, moving into a fully locked 80 has been like wheeling in a Caddy so far.

 

[HDJdreams]

I am not as concerned about getting a bit more droop as I am the "slow" ride over uneven trails. To tame the hard pitching side to side the passengers experience when we are doing trails at Moab. (Currently an OME medium with old shocks.)

It won't really make a difference on what the 80 CAN do, I.e. What obstacles, just how comfortable we are doing it. I figure a smoother ride is not only better for passengers but also less abuse on the equipment too.

Lurking around the forum, I am trying to figure out what set up will ride best on the trail, first being able to minimize the hard pitching on uneven trails, second soak up washboards smoothly while being able to provide tight handling on the highway without making me feel every expansion joint.

It seems the current 2 flagship suspensions for the 80 are Slinky and ICON. Slinky has more max travel, but costs $1000 more over the ICON kit with the same shocks. I am trying to figure out how the two actually compare in ride on the trail and road.

Lots of Slinky fans and that's great, but has anyone ridden in BOTH ICON and Slinky rigs over similar terrain?

 

[Nay]

Will most who run a "long travel" spring and shock combination ever realize a real world difference with a vehicle like the 80 series? With suspension links and bushings like the 80 series? Will oem bushings be over flexed into an early demise?

Soaking up the bumps better is always a welcome trait but I'm not so sure any of us will benefit from more suspension travel than has long been available to us.

This is a 10" travel shock on a 4" lift with pin to eye mount adapters. Shock travel is close to 50/50 up and down. No front swaybar.

So I don't think it's a travel issue for the general user. Suspension balance is another story.

 

[baldilocks]

This is a 10" travel shock on a 4" lift with pin to eye mount adapters. Shock travel is close to 50/50 up and down. No front swaybar.

View attachment 1432473

So I don't think it's a travel issue for the general user. Suspension balance is another story.

You have spoken of the importance of suspension balance many times on Mud. What, exactly, do you mean?

 

[GW Nugget]

You have spoken of the importance of suspension balance many times on Mud. What, exactly, do you mean?

He means that the front flexes as good as the rear... they work together. Infact it would be better if the front flexes just a little better than rear. So if a fork lift picked up a front tire say, 2' both the front and rear would take 1' of deflection rather than front or rear taking most of the flex. On a typical 80 series the rear does most of the work. This is why removing the front sway bar helps flex. Keeping the sway bar on the rear is good because it forces the front to work sooner.

 

[baldilocks]

He means that the front flexes as good as the rear... they work together. Infact it would be better if the front flexes just a little better than rear. So if a fork lift picked up a front tire say, 2' both the front and rear would take 1' of deflection rather than front or rear taking most of the flex. On a typical 80 series the rear does most of the work. This is why removing the front sway bar helps flex. Keeping the sway bar on the rear is good because it forces the front to work sooner.

This balance can't happen with front radius arms, so we deal with it, or switch to a 3 or 4 link that incorporates an anti-sway bar in order to retain road manners unless you are building a rig that rarely sees pavement.

I wonder what the next "best" solution product to come in the market will be. In a few years the current "long travel " suspension offerings will be "garbage" because sales in that market will have dropped off and someone will start selling the new dream suspension. Thus, the story continues.

Having said that, I do realize that the 5"comps under the front of my rig are a bit overkill for the weight of my 80. I'm unsure whether to purchase something different now or wait a year to see what the new fad will be. I want to be one of the cool kids too.

 

[Nay]

This balance can't happen with front radius arms, so we deal with it, or switch to a 3 or 4 link that incorporates an anti-sway bar in order to retain road manners unless you are building a rig that rarely sees pavement.

You can have balance with the front radius arms. What you can't have is long travel. That's precisely why this solid axle rig will happily wear 37's at 70 mph across an angled interstate expansion joint without risking your life.

It's my view that it is nearly impossible to balance a heavy SUV if you unleash all four corners, where it tends to be an actual slinky. So if you 3-link the front, the rear becomes the "stabilizer" and now the front does all the work. Or it appears to, if you assume that the end that isn't currently flexing isn't performing. That's the problem with "long travel" as an isolated design goal. If somebody wants to test this out, 3-link both ends and see what happens.

So if you look at the tipping point, which is where the base vehicle is not designed for the terrain you intend to travel, then the vehicle itself is no longer in balance. That angled expansion joint is forever the test, because that's what gets you to sell the rig. Or put it on a trailer.

So back to this thread, the coil design that stacks coils below the load bearing of the vehicle has a "balance" design premise, because it enables the available suspension travel to stay within the sweet spot of the spring without making it overly soft at static load bearing. Dropping coils off the tower doesn't just risk fully unseating them, it means the suspension is unloaded. Since the 80 can't use a ton of droop in the front, dialing in that balance including limiting excessive down travel is a good design goal.

Having close to 50/50 up/down travel ratio means through that range of travel one end is not hitting its limiter while the other is still moving. When the limiter is reached, the body starts to interact with the suspension. 4" is an incredible sweet spot where caster aligns to pinion angle for a DC front driveshaft, a higher end 10" shock can be balanced with eye adapters at a sub $200 price, and the springs can be designed across a reasonable range of load bearing.

There's seemingly little market for this for 80's, because most people begin their designs by adding weight and robbing clearance for a vehicle that is already very heavy and suffers major approach, departure, and crossover angle issues. But it can be very balanced in terms of optimizing what the 80 excels at out of the box.

37's
5.29
4" lift (balanced)
DC front driveshaft
No front swaybar
Adjustable panhards
Trim front and rear for high clearance, low weight bumpers

The end result is in geometry spec of the base vehicle, where the major achilles heel remains that which is next to impossible to address: the poor crossover angle. I still get 13-14 mpg on the highway. There is nothing special needed to make this happen except for design intention.

Both of these videos demostrate that clearance comes into play as the core limitation before the suspension.





No tires in the air, no approach or departure contact, plenty of crossover contact. You ultimately fix that by changing the vehicle.

 

[baldilocks]

You can have balance with the front radius arms. What you can't have is long travel. That's precisely why this solid axle rig will happily wear 37's at 70 mph across an angled interstate expansion joint without risking your life.

It's my view that it is nearly impossible to balance a heavy SUV if you unleash all four corners, were it tends to be an actual slinky. So if you 3-link the front, the rear becomes the "stabilizer" and now the front does all the work. Or it appears to, if you assume that the end that isn't currently flexing isn't performing. That's the problem with "long travel" as an isolated design goal. If somebody wants to test this out, 3-link both ends and see what happens.

So if you look at the tipping point, which is where the base vehicle is not designed for the terrain you intend to travel, then the vehicle itself is no longer in balance. That angled expansion joint is forever the test, because that's what gets you to sell the rig. Or put it on a trailer.

So back to this thread, the coil design that stacks coils below the load bearing of the vehicle has a "balance" design premise, because it enables the available suspension travel to stay within the sweet spot of the spring without making it overly soft at static load bearing. Dropping coils off the tower doesn't just risk fully unseating them, it means the suspension is unloaded. Since the 80 can't use a ton of droop in the front, dialing in that balance including limiting excessive down travel is a good design goal.

Having close to 50/50 up/down travel ratio means through that range of travel one end is not hitting its limiter while the other is still moving. When the limiter is reached, the body starts to interact with the suspension. 4" is an incredible sweet spot where caster aligns to pinion angle for a DC front driveshaft, a higher end 10" shock can be balanced with eye adapters at a sub $200 price, and the springs can be designed across a reasonable range of load bearing.

There's seemingly little market for this for 80's, because most people begin their designs by adding weight and robbing clearance for a vehicle that is already very heavy and suffers major approach, departure, and crossover angle issues. But it can be very balanced in terms of optimizing what the 80 excels at out of the box.

37's
5.29
4" lift (balanced)
DC front driveshaft
No front swaybar
Adjustable panhards
Trim front and rear for high clearance, low weight bumpers

The end result is in geometry spec of the base vehicle, where the major achilles heel remains that which is next to impossible to address: the poor crossover angle. I still get 13-14 mpg on the highway. There is nothing special needed to make this happen except for design intention.

Both of these videos demostrate that clearance comes into play as the core limitation before the suspension.





No tires in the air, no approach or departure contact, plenty of crossover contact. You ultimately fix that by changing the vehicle.

All truth which I agree with. I appreciate the time you took to write that.

As for changes to the vehicle, there becomes a point where what you get out does not equal what you put in due simply to the inherent limitations of the platform until one has entered the world of a fully custom build which, most here in our midst are not capable of or interested in. I fall into that category. However, it seems we are on a constant quest to squeeze more and more out of the same platform no matter the cost.

You have been around for a long time (longer than me) and what you say always has common sense attatched to it. Anyone who views those videos stands to learn something about what's at play here. P

 

[Smaddox]

This is probably already been mentioned.. I've been running the Icon stage 1 for a little while now. Been a great suspension for the price. Adding more travel to the coils and shocks than there is already would mean spending 2x3 times more with all the other items that would need to be swapped out. Not sure you're really getting much bang for you buck at that point.

 

[Box Rocket]

are they selling just the springs yet? or do you have to buy a whole kit?

he did not say, but a phone call would get you an answer.

 

[Box Rocket]

I am not as concerned about getting a bit more droop as I am the "slow" ride over uneven trails. To tame the hard pitching side to side the passengers experience when we are doing trails at Moab. (Currently an OME medium with old shocks.)

It won't really make a difference on what the 80 CAN do, I.e. What obstacles, just how comfortable we are doing it. I figure a smoother ride is not only better for passengers but also less abuse on the equipment too.

Lurking around the forum, I am trying to figure out what set up will ride best on the trail, first being able to minimize the hard pitching on uneven trails, second soak up washboards smoothly while being able to provide tight handling on the highway without making me feel every expansion joint.

It seems the current 2 flagship suspensions for the 80 are Slinky and ICON. Slinky has more max travel, but costs $1000 more over the ICON kit with the same shocks. I am trying to figure out how the two actually compare in ride on the trail and road.

Lots of Slinky fans and that's great, but has anyone ridden in BOTH ICON and Slinky rigs over similar terrain?

it's a mistake to say the Slinky and Icon shocks are the same. Yes, they are both built by Icon but to quite different specs, and as a result will perform differently. I don't have first hand experience with the Icon kit yet, but I've been really impressed with the performance of the Slinky Icons. You can tell there has been a lot of time and experience with the 80 series that has gone into the tuning of those shocks. I know there are differences in the coils too but I think the knowledge and experience with the 80 series specifically is a factor in the cost of the Slinky parts, and it's not a bad thing.

I've mentioned it before that I was coming from 15+ years of OME suspensions in my 80s and someone mentioned how "ignorance is bliss". I suppose that may be true to a point. I had no idea how much better my 80 could perform until I got the Slinky kit. Now that I've got it, I'd have a very difficult time going back to anything that isn't as good.

 

[GW Nugget]

You can have balance with the front radius arms. What you can't have is long travel. That's precisely why this solid axle rig will happily wear 37's at 70 mph across an angled interstate expansion joint without risking your life.

It's my view that it is nearly impossible to balance a heavy SUV if you unleash all four corners, where it tends to be an actual slinky. So if you 3-link the front, the rear becomes the "stabilizer" and now the front does all the work. Or it appears to, if you assume that the end that isn't currently flexing isn't performing. That's the problem with "long travel" as an isolated design goal. If somebody wants to test this out, 3-link both ends and see what happens.

So if you look at the tipping point, which is where the base vehicle is not designed for the terrain you intend to travel, then the vehicle itself is no longer in balance. That angled expansion joint is forever the test, because that's what gets you to sell the rig. Or put it on a trailer.

So back to this thread, the coil design that stacks coils below the load bearing of the vehicle has a "balance" design premise, because it enables the available suspension travel to stay within the sweet spot of the spring without making it overly soft at static load bearing. Dropping coils off the tower doesn't just risk fully unseating them, it means the suspension is unloaded. Since the 80 can't use a ton of droop in the front, dialing in that balance including limiting excessive down travel is a good design goal.

Having close to 50/50 up/down travel ratio means through that range of travel one end is not hitting its limiter while the other is still moving. When the limiter is reached, the body starts to interact with the suspension. 4" is an incredible sweet spot where caster aligns to pinion angle for a DC front driveshaft, a higher end 10" shock can be balanced with eye adapters at a sub $200 price, and the springs can be designed across a reasonable range of load bearing.

There's seemingly little market for this for 80's, because most people begin their designs by adding weight and robbing clearance for a vehicle that is already very heavy and suffers major approach, departure, and crossover angle issues. But it can be very balanced in terms of optimizing what the 80 excels at out of the box.

37's
5.29
4" lift (balanced)
DC front driveshaft
No front swaybar
Adjustable panhards
Trim front and rear for high clearance, low weight bumpers

The end result is in geometry spec of the base vehicle, where the major achilles heel remains that which is next to impossible to address: the poor crossover angle. I still get 13-14 mpg on the highway. There is nothing special needed to make this happen except for design intention.

Both of these videos demostrate that clearance comes into play as the core limitation before the suspension.





No tires in the air, no approach or departure contact, plenty of crossover contact. You ultimately fix that by changing the vehicle.

I agree with all what you have written here, but the 10" of stroke staitment. When you purchased your shocks there was not any other pin to pin options other than OME Ls. Fox only had eye to eye shocks with the U bracket one will loose approx 1.5" per side. Now there are other pin to pin options that offer 11" to even 12" of travel within the confines of stock bump stops. So as long as the front & rear can travel the same amount they also can be balanced. Now one will argue the front of a 80 can not use all of the stroke of a long travel shock, but I have shown that my rigs front end can fully compress & exstended a 28.25" shock.

@Nay what does you 10" double eye to eye shocks compress & exstend to mount to mount? Mine are 19" to 30" Also do you have bump stops up front? @Box Rocket has stock bump stops up front & my rig has .5" for the 37"s. We both run the same 2.0 AC Slinky spec Icon shocks.

 

[Box Rocket]

Woodys 80 has impressed me with it's balance. He's running the Stage4 Slinky kit and I've seen it perform incredibly well on the trails and show loads of balanced flex, and I've seen him rally it too at speeds that most 80 would only dream of keeping up with.




Good time to remind everyone of this review article I wrote that was in the fall issue of TCT magazine last year.

 

[Nay]

I agree with all what you have written here, but the 10" of stroke staitment. When you purchased your shocks there was not any other pin to pin options other than OME Ls. Fox only had eye to eye shocks with the U bracket one will loose approx 1.5" per side. Now there are other pin to pin options that offer 11" to even 12" of travel within the confines of stock bump stops. So as long as the front & rear can travel the same amount they also can be balanced. Now one will argue the front of a 80 can not use all of the stroke of a long travel shock, but I have shown that my rigs front end can fully compress & exstended a 28.25" shock.

@Nay what does you 10" double eye to eye shocks compress & exstend to mount to mount? Mine are 19" to 30" Also do you have bump stops up front? @Box Rocket has stock bump stops up front & my rig has .5" for the 37"s. We both run the same 2.0 AC Slinky spec Icon shocks.

16.1" to 26.1". I have front bumpstop extensions, although they were a late addition and not sure they really do anything.

I'm not being critical of the slinky approach. It's simply that certain things drive more cost, and increasing shock travel proportionately to lift is usually one of those things. The question of diminishing returns is here, too.

Having said this, part of arguing that you can't do all that much to fix the core issue of a low hanging frame (crossover) means that putting money towards high end suspension components has a real return in daily use.

However, the problem of how bad OME is on an 80 never had to be addressed with $400 shocks. I have OME 862's on my Sequoia now (giving a 2.5" lift) with OME 100 series shocks (medium duty). That's a really nice modern spring like we are taking about here (assuming spring travel is optimized to your use, not usually much concern on a Sequoia), and the shock ruins it unless it's fully loaded. I knew better, but I just needed a better bolt on shock than the horrid no damping Bilstein option. A big part of what people respond to when they finally switch is how bad the OME standard is. It's based on doing everything wrong with your 80 .

Same ole story, and the whole point of eye adapters and the 4" sweet spot is that you fix a bunch of problems practically for free given OME stuff isn't super cheap, so if I can fix 90% of the problem at very little cost, and the last 10% costs thousands of dollars, I sure wish that 90% was on the market.

Again, I'd go with a super premium 2.5" shock in a heartbeat wallet aside, but in my case that's really a solution looking for a problem.

In do need to pull my shocks and rebuild them. Should cost about $50 after about 80,000 miles. That's a pretty good price.

 

[Lumpskie]

@Box Rocket Is Woody running the 50mm kit?

 

[richardlillard1]

He means that the front flexes as good as the rear... they work together. Infact it would be better if the front flexes just a little better than rear. So if a fork lift picked up a front tire say, 2' both the front and rear would take 1' of deflection rather than front or rear taking most of the flex. On a typical 80 series the rear does most of the work. This is why removing the front sway bar helps flex. Keeping the sway bar on the rear is good because it forces the front to work sooner.

Explain to me why having the front more free than the rear is good without using a forklift, but with real-world examples like one would see on a trail.

Just because it's a byproduct of re-linking the front end, does not mean it is best or the only way.

 

[megolfer]

This is how mine currently sits. 75mm intermediate

 

[Box Rocket]

@Box Rocket Is Woody running the 50mm kit?

I believe he has the 75mm intermediate kit.

 

[GW Nugget]

Explain to me why having the front more free than the rear is good without using a forklift, but with real-world examples like one would see on a trail.

Just because it's a byproduct of re-linking the front end, does not mean it is best or the only way.

I believe your rig is a perfect example of what a 80 series can do without a 3link. I believe you would be better at showing us what a balanced rig looks like.

 

[Box Rocket]

I have found with my truck that it performs much more balanced and predictable with the Slinkys. I'm not able to pinpoint exactly the reasons other that the design of the coils. Having the extra length in the coils and the longer shocks (compared to the OME J's and L shocks) is the main reason. The OME L shocks would limit travel at full droop and the springs would unload and cause the truck to pitch at unexpected times. Also the OME suspension would rebound harshly when traveling faster through whoops and bumpy tracks. It would compress and then spring back sharply and toss the body of the truck side to side. It wasn't anything I would call dangerous exactly but noticeable and unsettling. I forced me to be more cautious when traveling faster. That was primarily an issue with the shocks.
With the Slinkys the coil and shock length are better matched to range of motion that the factory control arms are capable of with or without swaybars attached. The shocks are tuned to control compression and rebound so much better. There is no more unpredictable behavior or weird pitching of the truck through bumps.
I have never had either swaybar detached (yet) but the front end seems to have better movement than with the OME so front to rear movement is more balanced. Cruise Moab will probably be the first real test for me with the front swaybar detached using LCP's brackets. I'm very curious to see and feel the difference that comes with that.

My point is that I feel much more confident in how I can drive my cruiser with the Slinkys. The balance combined with excellent shock tuning and no strange unpredictable behavior allows me to be more relaxed when driving and I'm going faster. This is good on those longer offroad trips because I can cover more ground and get to camp locations earlier instead of after dark, and be less tired when I get there.