Shock Options (1 Viewer)

[Ebag333]

So I've been needing longer shocks for quite a while now, and have been considering my options.

While I'd love the Bilsteins or Fox fancy-schmancy ones, they're a bit out of my price range. Even the OME-L's ain't cheap at $184 per pair.

That got me looking into other options. One of the popular shocks down under are the pro-comps, especially the ES9000's. And since I can pick them up for $33.99 each (4wd.com has a sale through Monday), it's awfully tempting.

I have a couple of options with them:

1. Buy the correct type of shocks that bolt on. Will end up with either slightly shorter or slightly longer than OME L's.
2. Adjust the mounts to be Eye/Eye.

For option 1, I'm looking at the 925530 for the front, which has about half an inch more up and an inch less down than the L's, for a total travel of 10.38". For the rear there are several options.

For option 2, this opens up a whole world of options. If I can adjust my upper mounts about 5" up, there's some nice shocks with 15" of travel that'd be nice.....

For the rears I'm really thinking about doing option 2, as it's easily done (only need to do the upper mount as the lower is already eye, and there is room to go up an inch or two). There are quite a few options, such as the 926500 (same travel as OME), 927500 (half an inch more travel), or 929500 (an inch and a half more travel). I don't think I can get more than 2" going up on the upper shock mount.


Hmm. Decisions, decisions. Anyone want to stop by Rivertown and check my RTI (after shooting tomorrow) to see how long/short my shock actually needs to be?

 

[retrofive]

I'll swing by with ya

 

[retrofive]

For the thread

 

[Ebag333]

Yup, G got another ~5 inches up the ramp (~55" vs 60"), entirely thanks to his longer L's.

I've decided that I'm probably not going to change my front shocks.....yet. Couple of reasons:

1) I don't want to set up my shocks until I figure out what my range of motion will be with an X link setup.
2) Because the front is so much less flexy than the back, the shock wasn't fully compressed (you can see how much room I have in the wheel well). Had I gone up the ramp backwards I would have gotten more flex, but it still wouldn't fully cycle like an X-Link would.
2) The post/post configuration of the front is a bear to try and figure out what to put in there. I'm contemplating cutting open the top of my shock mounts, and welding in new eye posts. This would allow me longer shocks, which allows more travel.


When I measured my rear, I was at 16" from the bottom of the upper mount to the center of the eye in the bottom mount.



For the rear there's a basically bolt in option for the OME L length shocks. Pro Comp offers their model 926510, which is 15.56" min to 26.79" max (11.23" travel, slightly longer than the OME L's), and is a stud/eye combo. Even with the medium height lift I think I'd bolt these in, and get a lot more cycling out of the rear.

There's a shorter option, the 925553, which is 15.22" to 25" (10" travel). This would probably be a good choice for 33's as they'll tuck better. They're an inch shorter in overall length than the L's, but that's still longer than the standard.

The longest option is 929510, which is 17.09 to 29.77 (12.68" travel). I'm not sure how you can fit that without adjusting the bump stop down, but if you had the bump stops adjusted for the L's they'd probably work just fine. And at 2.68" more length than the L's, you'd get quite a bit more travel in your motion.




There's no good front bolt in option for the Pro Comp's that I've seen yet, but I haven't quite gone through all of them.

It seems that all the 9XXXXX ones are gas, the 1XXXXX and 3XXXXXX are not. Or something else that I haven't figured out yet with their strange naming scheme. Don't ask me the differences between the two item numbers that otherwise look identical.


If anyone's interested here's the table I've built of all the 9XXXXXX items. I ignored most stuff under 15", and most stuff over 18".

Model		Body	Min	Max	Range		Upper	Lower	Gas

924509		2.36	14.84	24.84	10.00		Eye	Eye	Yes
925501		2.36	15.49	25.74	10.25		Eye	Eye	Yes
925506		2.36	15.49	25.74	10.25		Eye	Eye	Yes
925509		2.36	15.49	27.74	12.25		Eye	Eye	Yes
925543		2.36	15.22	25.23	10.01		Eye	Eye	Yes
925553		2.36	15.22	25.22	10.00		Stud	Eye	Yes
926500		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926502		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926504		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
926505		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926505		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926508		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926508		2.36	15.94	27.07	11.13		Eye	Eye	Yes
926510		2.36	15.56	26.79	11.23		Stud	Eye	Yes
927500		2.00	16.27	27.76	11.49		Eye	Eye	Yes
927501		2.00	16.27	27.76	11.49		Eye	Eye	Yes
927503		2.00	16.27	27.76	11.49		Eye	Eye	Yes
927504		2.00	16.27	27.76	11.49		Eye	Eye	Yes
929500		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
929502		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
929503		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
929508		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
929510		2.36	17.09	29.77	12.68		Stud	Eye	Yes
929543		2.36	17.32	29.83	12.51		Eye	Eye	Yes
932002		2.36	18.82	32.83	14.01		Eye	Eye	Yes
932003		2.36	18.82	32.83	14.01		Eye	Eye	Yes
932007		2.36	18.82	32.83	14.01		Eye	Eye	Yes
932008		2.36	18.82	32.83	14.01		Eye	Eye	Yes

 

[Ebag333]

Here's the choices for the 3X and 6X:

Model		Body	Min	Max	Range		Upper	Lower	Gas

124515		2.00	14.38	24.35	09.97		Stud	Eye	No
125553		2.00	15.22	25.22	10.00		Stud	Eye	No
126510		2.00	15.58	26.72	11.14		Stud	Eye	No
126513		2.00	15.58	26.75	11.17		Stud	Eye	No
129510		2.00	16.87	29.32	12.45		Stud	Eye	No
									
321560		2.36	12.55	21.31	08.76		Stud	Stud	Yes
324515		2.36	14.52	24.70	10.18		Stud	Eye	No
325510		2.36	15.04	25.75	10.71		Stud	Eye	No
325530		2.36	14.79	25.17	10.38		Stud	Eye	No
326553		2.36	15.56	26.79	11.23		Stud	Eye	No
327553		2.00	15.80	27.29	11.49		Stud	Eye	No

I'm guessing that 321560 isn't actually gas charged....but.....

 

[Ebag333]

Here's OME's for comparison.

Remember if you do an eye/eye conversion, you gain/lose 1 inch. You lose 1" in the front on each side (2" total), and can either gain or lose 1" on the rear top (depending on if you fab up your mount to go up, or down).

Model		Body	Min	Max	Range		Upper	Lower

N73			13.93	24.17	10.24		Stud	Stud
N74E			14.57	24.40	09.83		Stud	Eye
N73L			15.23	26.26	11.03		Stud	Stud
N74L			15.23	26.26	11.03		Stud	Eye

 

[TOY350]

Yup, G got another ~5 inches up...

The more the better...just saying

 

[Ebag333]

The more the better...just saying

Indeed. Why do you think I want longer shocks than what you got?

 

[TOY350]

Indeed. Why do you think I want longer shocks than what you got?

Oh we were talking shocks? And now back to the regular broadcast programming...

 

[Ebag333]

So for the rears I'm going to go with the 932002 (or 3, or 7, or 8....).

I only need 16" at compression, so if I adjust the upper shock mount up ~3 inches (via adapter, or cutting and welding a new tower on) that'll give me the room I need. I have about 5 inches to spare above the upper mount, so there is plenty of room to fit something. The body lift makes it way easier to access that.

The OME L's max out at 26.26", this will let me max out at 39.83", a good 3 and a half inches longer. If an extra inch of travel (between my standard OME's and Garett's L's) bought Garett an extra 5 inches, I wonder what 3" will buy...


For the front I'm going to cut the top of the towers off and weld in some Ford (or similar) shock towers:

For the rear I will just do a pin to eye conversion kit.

It looks like I can go up about 2.5" on the front, meaning I'll get an extra 1.5" of room (figuring losing an inch from the pin to eye adapter on the bottom). I'm not sure how much compression I'll get yet, but if the OME's are anything to go by I'll be in the 15" to 16" range for compression, very similar to the rear. This means that the 14" travel shocks won't fit (at least not without adjusting the bump stop down) but the 929500 (12.5" travel) shocks should fit the bill.

This still means that the rear will work more than the front, but that's what the truck was designed to do.

 

[Ebag333]

Shocks ordered. Total was $153.96 for all 4 and shipping.

I ordered 929508 for the front (12.5" travel), that's designed to mount up to a Ford 250/350, so if I steal some Ford shock towers, that'll work perfect. I ordered 932008 for the rear (14" travel), which is also a Ford application.

OME Shocks from Slee are $184 a pair, so for less than half of what I would have paid for L's I'm getting 4, and they'll be longer to boot.

Now I just hope they ride decent.