This is Your 80 on F.O.R. (1 Viewer)

[Rookie2]

That's the question . Is ride quality and loading worth spending extra money for a kit designed to fit 35's? Only OME J fits 35's, and if you start adding in CC bushings and bumpstop drops, and brakeline relocation to OME J, what do you get?

One might also say it is nearly half of the Slee 4", but then one might also ask whether one will be buying any of that other stuff. I also have an adjustable rear panhard, for example. Didn't need it, but wanted it because the axle offset was visible.

But ask that question: is it worth spending on the Slee 4"? Why not just OME J that is a third of the price with just springs and shocks?

I see what you're saying. Good points. I thought the FOR was more similar to the 2.5" lift, but apparently not.

 

[Tools R Us]

Only OME J fits 35's,...

BS, I have wheeled with several that run OME heavy and 35's, very successfully I may add.

if you start adding in CC bushings and bumpstop drops, and brakeline relocation to OME J, what do you get?

On a "light" rig, a nice riding setup that runs 37's.

With any lift CC is recommended. Bump stop drops and brake line, breather line, wiring, etc, replacement or relocation has to do with shock, tire selection. None of the above is unique to a J sprung setup, any tall lift, using any spring, where you want good droop, will require some or all of the above.

 

[concretejungle]

just want to say that i ran 35 in. tires with medium springs...still do on the rear, except i added a bull bar and a winch to the front, so i went with j's in the front for the added weight.

 

[MaddBaggins]

I got 4" of lift out of my heavies, until I put on the rear bumper. Now I have 3.5" of lift and 315's 850/863 OME springs.only a very slight rubbing on the inside of the wheel well in the rear at full stuff and just a slight rub on the top of the shock tower at full stuff. Neither front nor rear bind up at full stuff.

 

[Nay]

BS, I have wheeled with several that run OME heavy and 35's, very successfully I may add.

With any lift CC is recommended. Bump stop drops and brake line, breather line, wiring, etc, replacement or relocation has to do with shock, tire selection. None of the above is unique to a J sprung setup, any tall lift, using any spring, where you want good droop, will require some or all of the above.

Yes, you can do it and reduce available shock travel - it's plenty of lift.

I had my 35's on OME medium, and they rubbed with 1.25" of shock travel remaining (no flares). OME heavy uses the same shock and would do the same thing.

You can bumpstop down and lose that shock travel and still have ~8.5" rear travel, or accept the rubbing, but it is not an optimal setup as the 80 really relies on rear suspension travel if you crawl. Or you could space down the rear shock mounts to retain the travel. All consistent with what I've been saying, so stop rolling your eyes at me

I've said all along that OME medium was plenty of lift for 35's and that is the very reason it's not an optimal suspension. FOR is only 3.5" because of some scope creep, and it's really a great height for 35's. I'd only do one more inch of lift for 37's.

Here is a pic of the rear suspension as the tire started to rub on OME medium:

 

[Tools R Us]

Yes, you can do it and reduce available shock travel - it's plenty of lift.

I had my 35's on OME medium, and they rubbed with 1.25" of shock travel remaining (no flares). OME heavy uses the same shock and would do the same thing.

You can bumpstop down and lose that shock travel and still have ~8.5" rear travel, or accept the rubbing, but it is not an optimal setup as the 80 really relies on rear suspension travel if you crawl...

Or just use off the shelf OME stuff; L shocks are too long for a stock truck, require bump stop spacers to protect them. Most 315's rub the fender well and require bump stop spacers. Add any spring you want for the ride hight that your looking for and you windup with 10"+ of usable shock travel. A bolt on setup without dealing with shock adapters, are the shocks going to have close to the right valving, etc.

All consistent with what I've been saying, so stop rolling your eyes at me

Sorry if offended you with the rollin' eye.

By consistent do you mean like this?

I've said all along that OME medium was plenty of lift for 35's and that is the very reason it's not an optimal suspension.

Only OME J fits 35's...

 

[corsair23]

It sits on a different slope in each picture

It looks good, though, just needs some 35's

Yeah, the slope IS slightly different from picture to picture. So what can we conclude...

Picture 1 - slight up slope so the stinkbug should look a little less

Picture 2 - pretty level slope

Picture 3 - slight down slope so the stinkbug should look a little worse


Given all that, IMO the rig sits pretty level whether loaded or not and taking the above into consideration

As for the 35's...maybe someday, but the rig is overkill as it sits now for my level of 4-wheeling

 

[Nay]

Or just use off the shelf OME stuff; L shocks are too long for a stock truck, require bump stop spacers to protect them. Most 315's rub the fender well and require bump stop spacers. Add any spring you want for the ride hight that your looking for and you windup with 10"+ of usable shock travel. A bolt on setup without dealing with shock adapters, are the shocks going to have close to the right valving, etc.



Sorry if offended you with the rollin' eye.

By consistent do you mean like this?

You could probably do heavies with L's depending on your weight. "Right valving" is only true for bouncy OME springs that need all that damping. My "right valving" is 168/73 'cause my springs don't need so much control. That's why it rides like buttah.

You didn't offend me, I favor consistency

Now cut it out, we are in violent agreement . It is all lift height, shock choice, the things that come of that, and what you want for load bearing and ride quality for your $$$.

If I was bent on having OME, I'd run heavy front/medium rear, space down the rear upper shock mount 2", drop my rear bumpstops and run 35's. Easily done, but hardly worth the effort because you can't make the springs any better now matter how hard you try.

 

[FirstToy]

I don't understand some of your statements. Slee offers entire kits or individual parts. You can't fault them for striving to offer "everything" to make a suspension ideal and then say it's too expensive!

OME Heavy can be done w/ 35's. I know several running this way. Also, OME gets crapped on alot (maybe b/c it's old hat) but it is a great, inexpensive, bolt-on solution that works w/ minimal effort.

I have Slee4 springs (along w/ various Slee DIY parts, bought seperately) and I am so happy w/ the load capacity and improved handling.

I don't know anything about the FOR setup but it looks great. But Nay, you don't have to poo-poo other options to make the FOR look good. I think the FOR can stand on it's own merits as another good choice for 80 owners.

 

[Land Speeder]

Or you could space down the rear shock mounts to retain the travel.

Like what I did.... (see my current ROTW for pics)


I have the J springs which are my second set of OME springs. I've experienced sagging in both sets after only running them in a year. Frankie's springs are supposed to address this issue. I can't wait to buy my F.O.R kit one day...

 

[Nay]

I don't understand some of your statements. Slee offers entire kits or individual parts. You can't fault them for striving to offer "everything" to make a suspension ideal and then say it's too expensive!

OME Heavy can be done w/ 35's. I know several running this way. Also, OME gets crapped on alot (maybe b/c it's old hat) but it is a great, inexpensive, bolt-on solution that works w/ minimal effort.

I have Slee4 springs (along w/ various Slee DIY parts, bought seperately) and I am so happy w/ the load capacity and improved handling.

I don't know anything about the FOR setup but it looks great. But Nay, you don't have to poo-poo other options to make the FOR look good. I think the FOR can stand on it's own merits as another good choice for 80 owners.

I don't fault Slee for offering a complete kit - quite the opposite. I think Slee's 4" really makes the case - it uses the same OME L shock as the OME J kit, yet virtually everybody raves about the better load handling and ride quality with the stiffer spring. That means the improvement is 100% in the spring. How much that is worth to anybody is a personal choice.

I doubt Christo would disagree much with me if I said "anybody who raises the front end of their 80 over the OME medium 50mm spring height is likely to be headed his way at some point in the relative near future." There is no magic here. You can't mix and match your way out of this with OME parts, you can't do it with F.O.R. The reality is you are mostly choosing a spring and shock combination for the features of those springs and shocks, and everything else follows as a matter of course.

What the F.O.R. kit shows is you can have a premium ride completely unloaded and still load it up good without sacrificing anything, and those springs cost double an OME spring to achieve that. That's why you would buy this kit. The springs and the shocks - everything else is a correction. How your driveline reacts to caster correction? There is no difference to OME J, or a completely unloaded OME heavy that is near the same height.

You might choose the same caster correction for any of those springs and you might get lucky or you might not. Anything over OME medium, the only predictable outcome is caster plate correction with a DC shaft. You know you will have enough caster, you know you can get it lined up properly for a DC shaft (using Landtank's plates), and you know that a properly balanced DC shaft with zero pinion u-joint angle will not vibrate.

There is no other predictable outcome outside of OME's core 50mm market, so choose your kit based on the features of the springs and shocks that you want, the corrections the kit contains, and your tolerance for trial and error and crosswind lane shifts. Many a wise 80 owner will never buy more than OME medium. They'll always suffer some phallic envy on rigs that have bigger tires, but they will never have messed with anything. If you see more to OME than that, you've missed the point, because other companies do the big lifts better.

 

[sleeoffroad]

You could probably do heavies with L's depending on your weight. "Right valving" is only true for bouncy OME springs that need all that damping. My "right valving" is 168/73 'cause my springs don't need so much control. That's why it rides like buttah.

I don;t understand when OME springs became bouncy? You should stop by the shop one day so I can drive this butta truck

 

[sleeoffroad]

There is no difference to OME J, or a completely unloaded OME heavy that is near the same height.

Not true, OME 850's / OME 850J's and OME 863 /OME863J are the same rate but a 1" difference. OME850 and OME 863 are typically called heavy. So not sure what you meant with above statement.

You might choose the same caster correction for any of those springs and you might get lucky or you might not. Anything over OME medium, the only predictable outcome is caster plate correction with a DC shaft.

No true, the spec is on height on not specific springs. We say anything over about 2.5" starts to cause issues. OME heavy used correctly is still only about 2.5". There is one part to the caster correction that is overlooked a lot and that is the effect the rear lift has on caster.

 

[sleeoffroad]

I've experienced sagging in both sets after only running them in a year. Frankie's springs are supposed to address this issue. I can't wait to buy my F.O.R kit one day...

How did you define sag? Did you remove them and compare the free length with a new set of springs. Because that is how OME checks for sag. Remember that the regular OME springs (No J;s) are only listed as a 50mm lift, when used as suggested in terms of weight. That is less than 2". We settled on calling it 2.5" since that was the average lift that we saw.

I would be interested to see FOR springs in a couple of years on loaded trucks. The spring rate suggest that it could be used on a loaded truck. There is a lot of claims made, but we need a couple of years more data and some more people running it. I can see how they designed a different spring. It has a very small progressive section that I can see (based on pictures of the spring) have a stiff rate (about 300 lbs, which is in the range of OME heavies) and less active coils. Then they are cold rolled and made from better? material. So yes, they are different from OME. That is good. It would not make sense to just go make OME springs.

I would like to put a set of OME heavy with similar spring rates on a unloaded 80 and run really light shocks like Nay and then compare.

Also, I do believe that we abuse springs more than what OME intended. OME is a overland suspension. That is their strength. Coil bind (compressing the springs until the coils touch) is what causes springs to collapse. In the rock crawling we do, we tend to do this more often that Marvin driving over the Simpson desert. I think that is one of the reasons you see these reports of the springs "sagging"


On the Shortbus, I would change springs every year. They would only maintain their height for a year. After that they were sagged, nice and soft, but sagged.

 

[landtank]

There is one part to the caster correction that is overlooked a lot and that is the effect the rear lift has on caster.

Absolutely, people need to realize that hitting the caster spec pre spring install is not an easy task, it's a crap shoot!

Toyota's spec is 2*-4* for caster.

For every inch of lift on the front you lower caster by 1.74*.

Add in the height of the rear, lower adds caster and higher subtracts caster. And then factor in individual carrying loads such as bumpers, drawer systems rear tire carrier, the driver's fat ass. And it's damn near impossible to buy correction based on spring rate and actually have the outcome be correct. especially is you don't get the alignment numbers before you start the install.

The most sure fire way to get a predictable out come is to take the time and correct the caster correctly for your truck. I don't recall anyone who has done this correctly not being totally satisfied.

 

[Walking Eagle]

That was my design, sir. I was supposed to be first in line. You owe me an AC dryer

Don't think so Nay...

 

[Land Speeder]

How did you define sag? ......

On the Shortbus, I would change springs every year. They would only maintain their height for a year. After that they were sagged, nice and soft, but sagged.

Well.... your full response defined it for me. I crawl, therefore, I sag. Just like the Shortbus as you describe in the last paragraph.

 

[Land Speeder]

As complete fate would have it, I was running some erands this morning and heading up I-85 to Lowe's.
As I'm getting off the exit ramp I see a SWEET 80 heading south bound rather slowly. I've never seen this wagon... not a local because I know all the locals, and it was way too built to be a poser. Well I'm driving the Scion tC so no point in chasing it right?..... Wrong! I fly down the Interstate and catch up with it.... it's Frankie, he's 3 hours from his home town so this was rare.
He pulled off on the next exit and I drooled all over his lift. His rig was completely loaded in the rear, inside and out. i won't divulge with what. I was impressed that it was so level given all the weight.

Sorry Frankie if you would have rather me not posted this... but I just had to say kudos to an awesome job. With the type of riding I do, I've got to get that lift sooner than later.... period.
I can't keep going through OME springs every year, as others have also stated they do.

 

[Tools R Us]

...
I can't keep going through OME springs every year, as others have also stated they do.

What's wrong with your rig, setup that your going through springs every year? If you have a setup problem, coil binding, etc, different springs may make it better, but probably wont solve it.

My J's are 2.5 years old, they get abused about every way, other than overloading. It has spacers, narrowed 3 bushing arms making it flex better than most, gets wheeled often, mostly in the rocks, so it's fully flexed very often and the springs still measure exactly the same as they did new.

 

[Land Speeder]

What's wrong with your rig, setup that your going through springs every year? If you have a setup problem, coil binding, etc, different springs may make it better, but probably wont solve it.

My J's are 2.5 years old, they get abused about every way, other than overloading. It has spacers, narrowed 3 bushing arms making it flex better than most, gets wheeled often, mostly in the rocks, so it's fully flexed very often and the springs still measure exactly the same as they did new.

humidity? Nope that's not it. I'm not a scientist, I just know they sag after a period of time. The rears have sagged since my installation of the front adjustable coil spacers because it's level at best and I had seyt it up with a slight stink to it.

I wouldn't consider my cargo area overloaded, but maybe it is.... cargo shelf, very heavy pelican case with tools.

I'm not the only person who says this.