Box Rocket
SILVER Star
Then just buy the parts you can afford and hang onto them until you've got the rest of the parts, then install them all together.
Dobinsons 3 inch Progressive / Flexi coil review (9 Viewers)
- Thread starter half k cruiser
- Start date
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I did the OME J lift on my truck but I did not do the caster correction yet. It goes all over the damn place when on the highway. I have the caster plates, just ran out of time. I will do it when I get home from this next trip. If I had to commute daily in my FJ I would definately do it all at once. Like BoxRocket said, hang on to the parts and do it right.
Very interesting write up and really good information. I recently purchased a HDJ81 with an unknown company lift etc. so I'm looking to buy suspensión that I at least know what's going into the truck. Thanks for the info and I love the wheels too!
- Thread starter
- #64
Just finished up a 2200+ mile trip on these springs, including Kokopelli, White Rim, and Moab. I will have a better review coming soon, when I get all of the pictures sorted. For now, I will just say that I am impressed ! A little teaser photo ...
- Thread starter
- #65
Ok since I've had enough people PM I thought I would add the information to this thread. The numbers for the Fox shocks I currently run are
Front 985-24-076 3-4" lift
Rear 985-24-087 3-5'' lift
Those are off the shelf units, no custom valve. They work pretty well for the price. However, there are a ton of shock options coming out right now. I only have personal experience with OME, Bilstien, Tokico, and FOX.
Ride height (no fender flares)
DSF 23 1/4" PSF 23 1/4''
DSR 23 1/2'' PSR 23 1/8''
The load as of these measurement - Slee front bumper, MM10500 Hydraulic winch w/ steel cable, dual batteries, 4x4 labs rear w/ dual swing outs, 315 spare, 60'' hi lift, 10 gal of fuel, no additional load. Obviously the way I have my fuel mounted is drawing me down further to passenger. Currently the cans sit further out than the spare tire and closer to the corner, giving them more leverage. It shouldn't be an issue after next fill up since I will use what's in the cans. However, during future trips I may compensate by putting my tools to driver side rear in order to balance it out.
Front 985-24-076 3-4" lift
Rear 985-24-087 3-5'' lift
Those are off the shelf units, no custom valve. They work pretty well for the price. However, there are a ton of shock options coming out right now. I only have personal experience with OME, Bilstien, Tokico, and FOX.
Ride height (no fender flares)
DSF 23 1/4" PSF 23 1/4''
DSR 23 1/2'' PSR 23 1/8''
The load as of these measurement - Slee front bumper, MM10500 Hydraulic winch w/ steel cable, dual batteries, 4x4 labs rear w/ dual swing outs, 315 spare, 60'' hi lift, 10 gal of fuel, no additional load. Obviously the way I have my fuel mounted is drawing me down further to passenger. Currently the cans sit further out than the spare tire and closer to the corner, giving them more leverage. It shouldn't be an issue after next fill up since I will use what's in the cans. However, during future trips I may compensate by putting my tools to driver side rear in order to balance it out.
Any Up-dates ?? More Pic's ??
- Thread starter
- #67
I have a ton more pics but I can't get them to upload to the sight. My wife's Nikon is good for about 3-6mb per image and I guess they are just too big to load here. I have been meaning to do a pt 2 review since I finished my last trip, but, the photo thing is a real holdup !
Just resize the photos in any free photo editing software.
2fpower
SILVER Star
Or, save them to a directory, click on the ones you want to resize, click email, then it will give you options of what size to make them.
Then drag them off the email to a temp folder. Done.
Then drag them off the email to a temp folder. Done.
I just finalized my order for 4" flexy fronts and 6" shocks with Dave Otero. Looking forward to being one of the cool kids. 
Is there a write up for how to paint those wheels?
- Thread starter
- #73
We've never met, so you don't know, but i'm somewhat computer challenged. Don't get me wrong, I can search just about anything, but i'm not great when it comes to running programs. Definitely want to figure this out though as its a real hiccup in my game.
Welcome to the cool kids club !!! Your going to enjoy them.I just finalized my order for 4" flexy fronts and 6" shocks with Dave Otero. Looking forward to being one of the cool kids.
No but if you PM me I can give you a pretty easy run down and get you on your way.
lumbee1
Native American
I have the Dobinson 4" Flexicoils in the rear with Fox 3"-4" shocks at all four corners. I'm really happy with this setup. The Fox shocks are a bit on the soft side but control the truck really well. Driving fast over rough terrain is fun now. The Dobinson coils in the rear handle weight very nicely. I did have an issue with lean following the left and right labels. After reversing the coil positions left and right, all is good now. I haven't had a chance to push them offroad. Even though my truck is 1.5" taller in the rear, it leans less than it did with FOR springs and Bilstein shocks.
alia176
SILVER Star
If you have a PC, you might already have this program for compressing images: Microsoft Office Picture Manager. It's a great tool for compressing pics for posting. You can DO it!
Not looking to disrupt the OP's thread, but I agree with a subsequent comment that with more comparative info everybody wins, and I want to address the notion of tapering the wind as a design requirement.
This question of the coil as it goes from active to dead winds heated up a bit
years ago with the FOR Gen II release, particularly the stated need as above to taper to prevent coil failure.It should be relatively obvious that the transition from active to dead wind would be the critical section of coil, and that this transition has to be "progressive" if you keep the coil wind at the same OD of the coil and wire itself. This likely puts a lot of stress on a very short section of coil. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be progressive if you taper, because the reduction of OD (coil and wire) is what is affecting the spring rate. In my view, that's really a technique to mimic a dual stage coil as it effectively avoids the transition zone.
So the question is "what is gained or lost here, if anything?" The ideal design in my view is that the static curb weight is in the short progressive zone of a dual rate coil. A little weight and the coil goes very quickly toward its higher rate. Unloaded and it is running at the softest possible load bearing rate by default - this is "dual rate progressive" with a narrower progressive load range than a fully progressive coil, but you still have the "two stages" for that greater off-road benefit. Hopefully it's obvious to people at this point why dropping coils off the tower and unloading the suspension is undesirable, and if you are still running a setup like this, you can only fix it by not.
In any case, this is why this type of coil design is not suited all that well for people who add a ton of static weight with expedition stuff. You simply lose that little progressive sweet spot across a load profile and you should spend your money on shocks. Either HD slinky taper or just a classic progressive spring are better design approaches here.
In regards to the transition zone being failure prone in a dual rate progressive design, I don't know that we have a good population study - we would probably need to look outside of the 80 series population. I can say that personally I have both severely overloaded mine (the higher rate) on occasion as well as wheeled them hard over about 100K miles, and they are true to the day of install, although my entire rig needs some serious ongoing TLC through this summer.
Outside of educational purposes, I keep posting not to harp on the past, but rather because I hope to see somebody bring this type of coil back understanding some designers haven't been successful with it.
It incorporates all the best features for a lighter design balanced between passenger load and rock crawling, and I suspect is less expensive to manufacture. Maybe as more of these rigs get oriented to trail performance there will be enough demand.
That also assumes all you poor OME driving owners one day get a design clue and act accordingly with your wallets
.
- Thread starter
- #77
The flip side to that is you can run a dual rate front where you know your loads aren't really changing and a linear HD rear setup if you really are carrying that much constant weight. I know there are some guys on here that carry 600+ lbs full time in the back of there rigs. Some quite a bit more if they have a trailer. For my purposes the vehicle must be able to transition back and forth from daily driver and very little extra weight, to camping rig with additional 400-600 lbs.
As for a failure prone transition zone, I wouldn't mind hearing from all the guys running the OME dual rates for the last 15 years. I could definitely see if you didn't get the heat treat right. In fact I could see how one bad batch of springs would give people that exact impression. My 94 has had them for 6+ years and they were used when I bought them. I haven't noticed any issue other than they are a bit rough on an unloaded rig. They still have space between the ride rate coils.
Im sure you are referring to the OME stock height replacement springs 861/862 that are dual rate with same size wire all the way through all the turns correct?
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- #79
Those are the ones I was referring to.
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- #80
Well good news. I found the resize button and am able to convert my pictures down to a size compatible with the forum. Review coming shortly!
