Slee 4 inch kit vs. J spring (2 Viewers)

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Cristo .. can you share with us yous coils spring rate .. ? ( for 4" coils that I soppose are the same or close for 6" coils )

And yours are straight thought ( didn't see the FOR but thought are progresive )
 
IMHO if i were choosing between the slee 4 inch and the OME J springs, i would go slee. I have used all OME medium and now J/medium. Too soft.
 
Christo, no problem, there is a lot of good info on mud, but also alot of misinformation, from everything I have read about the j's setups, I think I will just do a kit and be done with it.

The bottom line is at certain lift heights you need more parts. How much more differs from person to person and what their expectation is. However I can assure you that we sell a lot of lift parts to people that thought they could cut corners or leave parts out.

Now, whether it is 4 or 6 inch is left to be decided. I called and spoke with you yesterday about this. I want to be able to do rubicon, dusy, moab, etc, but it is really important to me to have a comfortable vehicle that I can drive to the trail reliably.

A 4" lifted truck is less "work" to drive on a long distance trip. That is just the nature of it.


that being said, when you compare the 4 to the 6 inch lift, do you sacrifice onroad driveability when stepping up to the 6?, is the extra 2 inches that much more?

It does make a small difference but we have clients that drive both lifts long distances without issues.

also, does the 6 inch kit perform off road better because it uses the slee machined control arms (ie: flex).

The benefit of the arms is in that it places the axle forward in the correct location for the lift. Caster plates, and it doesn't matter whose you use, are a compromise solution. Flex is controlled by a number of other issues. We have a couple of longer shock options that are coming on line. Shocks are in stock, just working on the one adapter we need for the back. We might also have some direct bolt in shocks that are longer than the OME L shocks, but they are going to pretty costly due to the design. We are still evaluation these.

I want to make sure the rig is capable enough to run some tough trails but also comfortable enough to drive home long distances. I won't ever tow again, it is a PIA.

The 4" is probably better, and if you want, you can run the arms with that.

last question, on your website there is a yellow 80 that is pictured, is that the 4 or 6 inch lift? and what size tires?

That was in the days where we used J springs with 1.5" spacers. So around 5" of lift.

one last note, and I am not one to pick favorites, but, I have been impressed with slee's customer service, I am new to 80's, not new to LC by an means, but I went to surf and turf in my new 80 last november, ordered a few parts from slee, they screwed up and sent them regular mail when I paid for 2 day, well they went ahead and sent a 2nd package out to my hotel in san luis obispo overnight, that type of service is rare nowadays and that is why I am going to give them my business.

Thanks.
 
So what you are saying is the FOR coils does all these things? Work on a loaded or unloaded truck, keep the same height, irrespective of load and the truck stays level doesn't matter what application?

Before I answer, let's be clear. I do not have a horse in this race. What I am telling you is to buy the Slee springs, not to change your mind and get a F.O.R. suspension. I have never run Slee's springs, I have never ridden a truck with Slee's springs, and I have never criticized them. I am talking about OME, and I am doing that by comparing to the other suspension I have run, which is F.O.R.

On to the response:

Nope, what I am saying is they do this far better than OME coils. I'll go on a statement I see on this thread as an example: "OME J springs will give you 3.5" in the rear fully loaded, and 5" unloaded". I have certainly seen plenty of threads that lead me to believe this is true including pictures of incredible stinkbug, and lots of people have commented on how crappy it rides unloaded (harsh).

Now, an OME J rear coil is 250/lb inch spring rate, which as we know means it takes 250 lbs to compress the spring one inch. That's 500 lbs of weight to compress the rear end one inch, and 750 lbs to compress the 1.5" that makes up the loaded vs. unloaded spec on OME J springs.

750 lbs just on the rear suspension is an enormous amount of static weight, and would take up a major percentage of the vehicle cargo rating. I have no idea how you get 750 lbs out of a rear bumper, tire carrier, spare, tire, hi-lift and some spares and tools leveraged entirely over the rear suspension.

What this means is that a level riding 3.5" J spring is compressing 1.5" with far less weight than the spring rate would require, and to me that means the spring is not maintaining its rate as you load it.

Now when we hear a lot of people saying that the unloaded stiff and harsh riding J spring at 5" of lift becomes wallowing and unstable on a "heavy rig", my statement that the spring is losing load bearing capacity as load increases makes sense. If the spring is designed for so much weight that unloaded it would provide 1.5" increased static ride height, then why is that same spring having difficulty handling that height when properly loaded?

This issue is encountered across all of the moderate rate OME springs.

Like I said, you can tinker with different OME coils, etc., but I do not believe you will ever get adequate load bearing across a full range of usage with an OME coil without suffering major ride quality and suspension height variances. You can pick a set of springs and keep load relatively constant and whether you like it or not is purely preference, but a big point of the 80 is big load variances for a range of multi-purpose uses, so I want a coil that can handle big load variances without radically changing its characteristics.

Now we can go back to F.O.R. Gen I to illustrate that coil design matters (which again is why you should buy Slee coils over OME for use with OME L shocks). That kit was 227 lb/in front and ~254 lb/in rear stated spring rate, which means approximately a J spring rate. It used incredibly soft shocks, Bilstein 4" TJ lift shocks to be exact with a slightly stiffer custom rear spring rate, but basically a 168/73 valving. Hence the bounce on load or big dips, as NorCalSam would testify.

But let's look at just the springs. I took these pics just to show load bearing of F.O.R. coils because of the years of posts about "what OME springs should I get to ride level" and the responses of "just add 500 lbs to the rear so it rides nice".

In the first pic, I am completely unloaded. Just the 3 rows of seats. No tools, spares, or anything else. The vehicle is completely level hub to flare on all four corners (23" hub to flare with no flares).

In the second pic (which I actually took first), I am towing a 2,000 lb 12' open U-haul trailer with six cubic yards of damp mulch. Conservatively, 3,500 lbs. I also have my high lift, tools, spares behind the 3rd row, plus about 125 lbs of 3 kids in the 3rd row. The trailer was evenly loaded, so 10% tongue weight hanging off the hitch (350 lbs) plus 250 lbs more of kids and gear either over or behind the rear suspension. In other words, a 600 lb difference leveraged on average well behind the 3rd row.

I jounced the suspension between loaded and unloaded to ensure the measurements were good.

The loaded to unloaded rear measurement is 3/4" of compression for 600 lbs. The OME J spring under this kind of load is doubling that compression with the same stated spring rate to get to a 3.5" loaded state. This means the effective load bearing across a 600 lb load range for the F.O.R. coils is dramatically more consistent and higher than the OME coil.

If you want to see the radical variance in OME J lift heights, read this thread and look at the pictures. Brett goes unloaded and gets a 6" lift where others have 3.5" on the same springs, has to add a big front spacer, and ends up with all of the big lift complications you are avoiding by not buying a big lift. I go unloaded and stay at my 3" lift, fully loaded 3/4" compression where the lines of the rig still look level because the 80 design has a rake to the rear visually. Which springs would you rather have? Buy the Slee 4" springs, not OME.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/258740-ome-j-lift-install.html
FOR Unloaded Close.jpg
FOR Trailer Load Close.jpg
 
I know his was 1st gen, but I have not seen anyone talking about the weight carrying capacities of the new springs.

Actually Sam's springs weren't even gen 1s, they were prototypes that he begged for.

As for carrying weight, I did a detailed post when I switched from your springs to the FOR gen IIs. the rear height was unchanged and the front was 3/8" lower.

Same truck with the same gear, only hours apart. That should give you an idea of how both springs rate compare.
 
Actually Sam's springs weren't even gen 1s, they were prototypes that he begged for.

As for carrying weight, I did a detailed post when I switched from your springs to the FOR gen IIs. the rear height was unchanged and the front was 3/8" lower.

Same truck with the same gear, only hours apart. That should give you an idea of how both springs rate compare.


What were the other springs? (What were you running before the FOR springs?)
 
Before I answer, let's be clear. I do not have a horse in this race. What I am telling you is to buy the Slee springs, not to change your mind and get a F.O.R. suspension. I have never run Slee's springs, I have never ridden a truck with Slee's springs, and I have never criticized them. I am talking about OME, and I am doing that by comparing to the other suspension I have run, which is F.O.R.

Thanks for the disclaimer :D

On to the response:

Nope, what I am saying is they do this far better than OME coils. I'll go on a statement I see on this thread as an example: "OME J springs will give you 3.5" in the rear fully loaded, and 5" unloaded". I have certainly seen plenty of threads that lead me to believe this is true including pictures of incredible stinkbug, and lots of people have commented on how crappy it rides unloaded (harsh).

The OME spring was never designed to be run without load. So one should not judge how the spring rides or the spring height when used incorrectly.

Now, an OME J rear coil is 250/lb inch spring rate, which as we know means it takes 250 lbs to compress the spring one inch. That's 500 lbs of weight to compress the rear end one inch, and 750 lbs to compress the 1.5" that makes up the loaded vs. unloaded spec on OME J springs. 750 lbs just on the rear suspension is an enormous amount of static weight, and would take up a major percentage of the vehicle cargo rating. I have no idea how you get 750 lbs out of a rear bumper, tire carrier, spare, tire, hi-lift and some spares and tools leveraged entirely over the rear suspension.

Correct if the load is applied straight on the spring.

What this means is that a level riding 3.5" J spring is compressing 1.5" with far less weight than the spring rate would require, and to me that means the spring is not maintaining its rate as you load it.

Have you considered that the spring is designed to sit at 3.5" on a truck with a certain amount of static load and then have a certain spring rate and handling characteristics? How much weight does it take to get a OME J spring from 3.5" to 2.5" ?

Now when we hear a lot of people saying that the unloaded stiff and harsh riding J spring at 5" of lift becomes wallowing and unstable on a "heavy rig", my statement that the spring is losing load bearing capacity as load increases makes sense.

This is a pretty big assumption on your part in terms of the spring loosing load bearing capacity. It still stays at the same height, it is just that the spring is to soft to control the body roll.

If the spring is designed for so much weight that unloaded it would provide 1.5" increased static ride height, then why is that same spring having difficulty handling that height when properly loaded?

It was not designed as a 5" lift spring.

This issue is encountered across all of the moderate rate OME springs.

The issue is more people using the incorrect springs.

Like I said, you can tinker with different OME coils, etc., but I do not believe you will ever get adequate load bearing across a full range of usage with an OME coil without suffering major ride quality and suspension height variances. You can pick a set of springs and keep load relatively constant and whether you like it or not is purely preference, but a big point of the 80 is big load variances for a range of multi-purpose uses, so I want a coil that can handle big load variances without radically changing its characteristics.

So again we have the suggestion that the FOR springs can magically handle all these situations.

Now we can go back to F.O.R. Gen I to illustrate that coil design matters (which again is why you should buy Slee coils over OME for use with OME L shocks). That kit was 227 lb/in front and ~254 lb/in rear stated spring rate, which means approximately a J spring rate. It used incredibly soft shocks, Bilstein 4" TJ lift shocks to be exact with a slightly stiffer custom rear spring rate, but basically a 168/73 valving. Hence the bounce on load or big dips, as NorCalSam would testify.

But let's look at just the springs. I took these pics just to show load bearing of F.O.R. coils because of the years of posts about "what OME springs should I get to ride level" and the responses of "just add 500 lbs to the rear so it rides nice".

In the first pic, I am completely unloaded. Just the 3 rows of seats. No tools, spares, or anything else. The vehicle is completely level hub to flare on all four corners (23" hub to flare with no flares).

In the second pic (which I actually took first), I am towing a 2,000 lb 12' open U-haul trailer with six cubic yards of damp mulch. Conservatively, 3,500 lbs. I also have my high lift, tools, spares behind the 3rd row, plus about 125 lbs of 3 kids in the 3rd row. The trailer was evenly loaded, so 10% tongue weight hanging off the hitch (350 lbs) plus 250 lbs more of kids and gear either over or behind the rear suspension. In other words, a 600 lb difference leveraged on average well behind the 3rd row.

I jounced the suspension between loaded and unloaded to ensure the measurements were good.

The loaded to unloaded rear measurement is 3/4" of compression for 600 lbs. The OME J spring under this kind of load is doubling that compression with the same stated spring rate to get to a 3.5" loaded state. This means the effective load bearing across a 600 lb load range for the F.O.R. coils is dramatically more consistent and higher than the OME coil.

Have you tried to do the same with a truck with J springs, setup as the spring are designed to be used and then add 500 lbs?

If you want to see the radical variance in OME J lift heights, read this thread and look at the pictures. Brett goes unloaded and gets a 6" lift where others have 3.5" on the same springs, has to add a big front spacer, and ends up with all of the big lift complications you are avoiding by not buying a big lift. I go unloaded and stay at my 3" lift, fully loaded 3/4" compression where the lines of the rig still look level because the 80 design has a rake to the rear visually. Which springs would you rather have? Buy the Slee 4" springs, not OME.

Have you tried to add 500lbs to your FOR truck, and then add another 500lbs?
 
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Actually Sam's springs weren't even gen 1s, they were prototypes that he begged for.

As for carrying weight, I did a detailed post when I switched from your springs to the FOR gen IIs. the rear height was unchanged and the front was 3/8" lower.

Same truck with the same gear, only hours apart. That should give you an idea of how both springs rate compare.

How does it handle any additional weight over the minimum required to get to the height they are speced at?
 
How does it handle any additional weight over the minimum required to get to the height they are speced at?

All I care is how it carries the weight I carry. For me, they are an improvement over your springs in ride quality.

Now, I did swap your springs for a set of OME for my sons truck which in hind sight was a mistake. I ended up getting another 80 for myself and that truck will become my long distance cruiser and the original 80 will be the local beater.

For the beater I'll get which ever spring/shock combo is cheaper, your's or FOR's.

For the record I had Slee's springs for several years and loved them and they aren't a bad choice at all. The truck will ride more like a truck though while FORs ride like a sedan. I drive down to NC a few times a year and do so with Toyo ATs on and these new springs will really pay off in road fatigue. But I'm 51 and seem to be more sensitive to that stuff lately.
 
All I care is how it carries the weight I carry. For me, they are an improvement over your springs in ride quality.

Now, I did swap your springs for a set of OME for my sons truck which in hind sight was a mistake. I ended up getting another 80 for myself and that truck will become my long distance cruiser and the original 80 will be the local beater.

For the beater I'll get which ever spring/shock combo is cheaper, your's or FOR's.

For the record I had Slee's springs for several years and loved them and they aren't a bad choice at all. The truck will ride more like a truck though while FORs ride like a sedan. I drive down to NC a few times a year and do so with Toyo ATs on and these new springs will really pay off in road fatigue. But I'm 51 and seem to be more sensitive to that stuff lately.

Rick, as I posted before, I don't think you are making a fair comparison in ride quality between Slee's and FOR's springs when you have the second variable, the shock, in the equation. FOR's shocks (billies) have always been light on compression damping and is why they are so popular in automotive applications. FOR has also correctly matched the spring and shock rates. Slee's coils, IMO, have never been paired with the correct shock due to availability and cost. It is a fact that OME shocks have too much compression damping in the shock, which can lead to the perception of making a coil "feel" stiffer. In any automotive, dirt bike, or bicycle damper suspension, you let the spring do the compression, and worry about the amount of rebound control needed for the application. My rig is really too light for running Slee's springs supposedly, but when the correct shock damping is being used, the ride is appropriate and comfortable.
 
Rick, as I posted before, I don't think you are making a fair comparison in ride quality between Slee's and FOR's springs when you have the second variable, the shock, in the equation. FOR's shocks (billies) have always been light on compression damping and is why they are so popular in automotive applications. FOR has also correctly matched the spring and shock rates. Slee's coils, IMO, have never been paired with the correct shock due to availability and cost. It is a fact that OME shocks have too much compression damping in the shock, which can lead to the perception of making a coil "feel" stiffer. In any automotive, dirt bike, or bicycle damper suspension, you let the spring do the compression, and worry about the amount of rebound control needed for the application. My rig is really too light for running Slee's springs supposedly, but when the correct shock damping is being used, the ride is appropriate and comfortable.

I think I am being fair, I bought what Slee sells and then compared them to what FOR sells. That's how I buy my suspensions as well as others I think. If there was a better shock available for Slee's springs then why doesn't he offer them? It would seem a shock upgrade for his premium springs would be obvious. Why would he hamstring their performance like that?

Anyway, Guppie has narrowed the field to OME or Slee and isn't interested in any other options so like I posted, IMO he should just buy the Slee kit. That way if things go sideways he has one single guy on the hook with no finger pointing.
 
one man mission to badmouth slee... what did he do to you?
 
one man mission to badmouth slee... what did he do to you?

just because I prefer someone else's product isn't bad mouthing. I have more often then not suggested his products over MAF's. So in that case I'm bad mouthing MAF. I call them as I see them. When I stated that I felt Slee's 4" springs were better than FORs gen 1s where were you telling me I was bad mouthing FORs products?

It's not like I'm stating opinions on a product that I haven't bought, installed correctly and then tested for my self.

Grow up.
 

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