BJ74 Suspension upgrades coming soon - shock lengths? (1 Viewer)

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I'm the final leg of finally having this thing off road ready (I'll update my thread at some point).

Some of the finishing touches include some suspension tweaks. Current set up is an OME 2" with Nitrocharger Sport shocks (I believe we're looking at 13.74x23.18" in the front, 14.05x23.11" in the rear), I've moved the center pin forward and it's sitting on 35x10.50 Kendas on FJ Cruiser steelies with Spidertrax 2" wheel spacers. Drives well, tires actually fit, and it flexes like you might expect. I'm going to add some anti inversion lift shackles for an extra inch of ride height and suspension flex and I'm looking to plug in some adjustable Fox 2.0s, hoping to be able to remove the front sway bar to simplify and gain some wheel travel instead of relying on a quick disconnect mechanism. I also added some really long steel braided brake lines when I redid the brakes, so that's a non issue.

I have worked in marketing and product development for some of the major suspension companies out there, and I'm sure I can answer these questions on my own- but I'm wondering if anyone here has played around with long travel shocks on these mid wheel base rigs, and if so, what are your shock lengths and modifications to accommodate the additional wheel travel? I'm going to keep it simple this time and keep the factory driveshafts (lengthening is ok) and leaf spring set up. I don't want break stuff wheel travel, just to maximize what I can get out of the factory-ish driveline. The idea for this truck is simple and bombproof. Anyone got any info/pics? In the end I've got lockers, t case gears and built axles with 35s, so if I lift a wheel so be it, I'll get there.
 
Without SOA, I doubt you are going to get a lot of extra travel unless your shocks are really limiting your travel now. I can tell you what Bilsteins I put on mine which were much longer than what it had on there and that might be a good starting measure.

Removing sway bar should help.

rear:
Bilstein 5125 series: 33-104652 - 255/70 valving
11" travel
Collapsed Length (IN) - 17.01
Extended Length (IN) - 28


Bilstein 5125 series: 33-230368 - 360/80 valving
10" travel
Collapsed Length (IN) - 16.01
Extended Length (IN) - 26.38
 
no real hard and fast numbers,,,, after you install the longer shackles get you up and down numbers and match shocks to that,,, and thats the best you'll be able to do with out fabrication and change.
 
Without SOA, I doubt you are going to get a lot of extra travel unless your shocks are really limiting your travel now. I can tell you what Bilsteins I put on mine which were much longer than what it had on there and that might be a good starting measure.

Removing sway bar should help.

rear:
Bilstein 5125 series: 33-104652 - 255/70 valving
11" travel
Collapsed Length (IN) - 17.01
Extended Length (IN) - 28


Bilstein 5125 series: 33-230368 - 360/80 valving
10" travel
Collapsed Length (IN) - 16.01
Extended Length (IN) - 26.38

Yeah I'm definitely keeping it SOA for stability and up-travel. My last rig was spring over and while it rode great it handled like a dump truck. I'm a big fan of spring under. These are good starting numbers and I will probably end up with something like this. I need to disconnect my sway bay and take the truck up the ramp we have at work and see what my minimums are, then we'll rack it and disconnect the shops and look at droop. Just hoping for this sort of info to see what kind of numbers I can expect. Thanks!
 
no real hard and fast numbers,,,, after you install the longer shackles get you up and down numbers and match shocks to that,,, and thats the best you'll be able to do with out fabrication and change.
Yeah figured as much. Was hoping someone had minimum lengths for bump stops and maximum lengths for drive shafts, ect. No big deal.
 
Yeah figured as much. Was hoping someone had minimum lengths for bump stops and maximum lengths for drive shafts, ect. No big deal.


i hear ya,,,, for minimum, i'd just stick to the factory shock length, its a good measurement. for maximum length, can you run out of driveshaft spline with the stock configuration? i dont think so, get as long a shock body as you can.

the problem is the shock locations, if you move them to run longer shocks you'll be able to use those longer shackles, or since you have a lift you can lower bumpstops to run longer shocks, but then your just back to stock ish travel, unless your fabricating its all pretty moot.

have you flexed your rig and looked at max comp and max decomp? i would wonder if your even touching the bumpstops with that OME lift.
 
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