Shock madness (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter 06reg4x4
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
They may have expanded the part #. Or maybe my sig line is wrong. Here they are:
Dobinsons C97-144VT Dual Rate 3.5" Front Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-144VT are 3.5" Front Heavy Load Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons. The highest quality coils offered
exitoffroad.com
Dobinsons C97-145VT Dual Rate Rear 3.5" Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-145VT are 3.5" Rear Lift Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons to suit heavy constant loads
exitoffroad.com
Note that Dobinsons markets these as heavy duty/weight 3.5” lift, but being dual rate coils they ride perfectly at low weight. I have a 38” spare in the back plus tools and axle shaft spares so there’s some extra weight, just nothing up front - that’s why I get 5.5” out of them although you’d need to be maximizing weight to get them anywhere near 3.5”.
As more general commentary…
The higher spring rate is again excellent if you are swaybar adverse, but my design premise is always to minimize added weight and that’s not typical around here, which is certainly one reason people feel strongly about swaybars however they choose to implement them. This coil with a slower rebound heavy duty shock is an excellent combination that might not play as well with more weight and more active rebound damping that usually accompanies more weight. OME is over rotated on this in their 80 series designs, which IMO is why people struggle to dial in OME suspensions outside of the stock coils that also happen to be dual rate and travel balanced to the base OME shocks.
There are a lot of factors that can affect dialing in a bigger lift vs. attempting to stay artificially low, including pushing the axle forward with aftermarket radius arms. These things can over complicate basic suspension design and lead people to have more problems fitting 35’s than I have fitting 38’s and spending more money in the process. But my design goals have always been atypical of this forum.
@Nay beat me to it
Dobinsons has the IMS shocks that would be a major upgrade to the base yellow shocks.
I really like the Foam Cell Pro - they are big enough that my rear sway bar was hitting the shock body, which is why I pulled it (and never looked back). I hear others report liking the Foam Cell less than I do, but again, I prefer a slower rebound shock with a long travel dual rate spring.
Rebound is likely what we are react to most and people are going to tune that quite differently depending on needs or just buy something yellow that ‘fits’.
What shock is best? The yellow one.
Thanks, interesting thoughts....wonder how the Dobinsons IMS shocks would work on your setup....and would you use their 6" version like you have with the Ironman Pro?They may have expanded the part #. Or maybe my sig line is wrong. Here they are:
Dobinsons C97-144VT Dual Rate 3.5" Front Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-144VT are 3.5" Front Heavy Load Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons. The highest quality coils offered
Dobinsons C97-145VT Dual Rate Rear 3.5" Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-145VT are 3.5" Rear Lift Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons to suit heavy constant loads
Note that Dobinsons markets these as heavy duty/weight 3.5” lift, but being dual rate coils they ride perfectly at low weight. I have a 38” spare in the back plus tools and axle shaft spares so there’s some extra weight, just nothing up front - that’s why I get 5.5” out of them although you’d need to be maximizing weight to get them anywhere near 3.5”.
As more general commentary…
The higher spring rate is again excellent if you are swaybar adverse, but my design premise is always to minimize added weight and that’s not typical around here, which is certainly one reason people feel strongly about swaybars however they choose to implement them. This coil with a slower rebound heavy duty shock is an excellent combination that might not play as well with more weight and more active rebound damping that usually accompanies more weight. OME is over rotated on this in their 80 series designs, which IMO is why people struggle to dial in OME suspensions outside of the stock coils that also happen to be dual rate and travel balanced to the base OME shocks.
There are a lot of factors that can affect dialing in a bigger lift vs. attempting to stay artificially low, including pushing the axle forward with aftermarket radius arms. These things can over complicate basic suspension design and lead people to have more problems fitting 35’s than I have fitting 38’s and spending more money in the process. But my design goals have always been atypical of this forum.
Their website seems to be trash for finding anything. I figured out that the part number had changed, but they won't show you that spring unless you search under "80 SERIES LANDCRUISER 2.5-4 INCH LIFT (LONG TRAVEL)". Just let me select FJ80 and show me the options FFS!
I may have to try having my vpn show up somewhere other than the US, just to see if the Aussie site is better.
Edit: Different, but equally baffling. I promise, this isn't my first day on the internet. They just don't seem to be interested in directing people to their higher end offerings. Even their catalog doesn't list half their springs.
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #68
Budget… lol have a link on a set of front “L’s”. would the dobs still keep the 850 coil seated?
And the truck came with a uninstalled 850/860 setup. That’s why I’m running that. If I were buying new. And had the cash dobinsons or slinky setup I think would be my ticket. Just trying to maximize what I got. Like I did my xj.
Last edited:
Totally makes sense!
tmxmotorsports
SILVER Star
Watching this thread nowThey may have expanded the part #. Or maybe my sig line is wrong. Here they are:
Dobinsons C97-144VT Dual Rate 3.5" Front Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-144VT are 3.5" Front Heavy Load Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons. The highest quality coils offered
Dobinsons C97-145VT Dual Rate Rear 3.5" Coils - Exit Offroad
Dobinsons C97-145VT are 3.5" Rear Lift Long Travel, maximum flex dual rate coils from Dobinsons to suit heavy constant loads
Note that Dobinsons markets these as heavy duty/weight 3.5” lift, but being dual rate coils they ride perfectly at low weight. I have a 38” spare in the back plus tools and axle shaft spares so there’s some extra weight, just nothing up front - that’s why I get 5.5” out of them although you’d need to be maximizing weight to get them anywhere near 3.5”.
As more general commentary…
The higher spring rate is again excellent if you are swaybar adverse, but my design premise is always to minimize added weight and that’s not typical around here, which is certainly one reason people feel strongly about swaybars however they choose to implement them. This coil with a slower rebound heavy duty shock is an excellent combination that might not play as well with more weight and more active rebound damping that usually accompanies more weight. OME is over rotated on this in their 80 series designs, which IMO is why people struggle to dial in OME suspensions outside of the stock coils that also happen to be dual rate and travel balanced to the base OME shocks.
There are a lot of factors that can affect dialing in a bigger lift vs. attempting to stay artificially low, including pushing the axle forward with aftermarket radius arms. These things can over complicate basic suspension design and lead people to have more problems fitting 35’s than I have fitting 38’s and spending more money in the process. But my design goals have always been atypical of this forum.
I find the same. How can a business survive with such a shìtty website. Is even near impossible to find who their retailers are
I suspect they're trying for the old-school thing: they want to encourage people to call or email and talk to someone about their needs. I'm sure the idea is to cut down on dissatisfied customers by advising them and for a lot of people they're right. For my part, I can promise you that I will ask for help when and if I need it, but until then I'd prefer to figure it out for myself.
I’m sure they’d be fantastic. I’d be looking at the 6” version although not all 6” shocks are the same. Compressed length is key so I’m not either having to modify travel to protect the shock or leaving a ton of travel abandoned. And nothing over 12” travel, IMO there’s no reason to engineer a super long travel rear that eats bushings - I stayed with 10” travel shocks for years to keep a focus on balance (using pin to eye adapters from the FOR Gen II kit) but decided that I wanted the Foam Cells so the adapters are on the shelf at least for time being.
Travel isn’t excessive, IIRC it’s 11.5” and you always lose a bit protecting the shock so my general design goals are intact. As a side note, pin mount to eye mount adapters, something that is common in the Jeep world, open up all the shock options since most multi-application shocks are dual eye mount while taking pressure off the shock pin/eye since the eye can rotate as the axle travels fore and aft through it’s range of motion. Never understood why this didn’t catch on here (other than we are let our vendors drive us vs us driving them) as it is one of the best shock/travel tuning solutions that enables not automatically adding travel when you just need to space where travel is occurring in a sweet spot.
And you don’t have to buy a shock made for your rig, you can customize high end stuff exactly as you see it. The shock madness is just general madness that we lack basic off the shelf solutions like pin to eye adapters that solve half the suspension threads on this forum.
Including this one where our OP just needs his existing shock travel spaced down, he’s only getting more travel because that’s a longer shock body and spaces the travel down accordingly while potentially introducing other problems. Pin mounts are only really a thing in shorter travel OEM setups and not for long travel suspensions especially where you want to remove the squish of shock mount bushings and replace with uniball.
Edit: here’s the pin to eye adapters. Should be easy to visualize how the mount to mount distance is reduced and any eye to eye shock can be utilized. Second pic shows the custom washer that seats it in the pin holes for the 80 series mount (upside down here the seat ring faces away from the lock nut). These things are gold, although we have enough great options for 80 series shocks now that they are more of a customization tool than “how the hell do I get away from this OME crap?”. We are very fortunate to have a spring manufacturer like Dobinsons focused on the 80 - it’s keeping the platform accessible to the benefits of modern suspension engineering.
And this is why I ditched the rear swaybar initially - you start looking at 3” high oil volume shock bodies and there’s not much room back there at full droop.
Last edited:
Exit Offroad appears to be Dobinsons US at this point and @crikeymike has been there for some time if I’m getting it right. They do seem to have it all organized.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2005
- Threads
- 63
- Messages
- 1,187
- Location
- Jacksonville Beach, Florida
- Website
- exitoffroad.com
I have my site broken down much more simply. From this page, you can look at just springs, just shocks, just kits, or whatever item you're after. The search box works well too, I just updated that plugin so it does a much quicker job of finding a closer answer to the search query.
Each individual coil and shock page has the specs of them too
80 Series Land Cruiser (1990-1997) Archives - Exit Offroad
exitoffroad.com
77mustard40
SILVER Star
I'm on the first gen C97-146-&147VT's with 4-5" IMS shocks. They are rated as 2.5" but I'm pretty light (bumpers, winch and sliders) and am netting about 3.25" and sitting on 35's. Call this a shorter version of Nay's setup, although I still have the sway bars (dropped) front and rear. She's a DD that see's off-piste a few times a year and I'm happy. Found the springs lightly used on MUD for a song and added the shocks. Just another option that's shorter but that still has a lot of travel.
Thank you for your efforts toward competent web design.I have my site broken down much more simply. From this page, you can look at just springs, just shocks, just kits, or whatever item you're after. The search box works well too, I just updated that plugin so it does a much quicker job of finding a closer answer to the search query.
Each individual coil and shock page has the specs of them too
80 Series Land Cruiser (1990-1997) Archives - Exit Offroad
Seriously, that's way better.
- Thread starter
- #79
So…. What I ended up doing is just adding shock ext’s on the front. Almost 3” more straight droop than before. We’ll test out sat. And it still rides the same of course. And m pretty sure this puts me at L length if not a little longer. I forgot to measure. “Rushing”
Are the coils Dual rate like Nay’s 3.5 VT coils? They don’t say Dual rate in the description? Does it matter/make a difference?
- Dobinsons C97-147VT 2.5″ lift with 440lbs weight (lifts more with less weight)
- Dobinsons C97-146VT 2.5″ Lift Variable Tapered Long Travel Heavy Load
