Combining Bilstein 5100 Front and 5125 Rear

I have been searching around for a couple days on various forums and found no hard answers.. just some vague and sometimes conflicting posts from recent years.

I ordered the Bilstein 5100 upgrade with my Iron Rock 4" long arm lift kit. They had to have the shocks drop shipped to me, but when they finally arrived here is what I received:

Front 5100 BE5-6241-H7
http://cart.bilsteinus.com/product/24-188197/1431776
This is the "factory replacement with 3.5-4" lift" model
That also have very little information in the way of valving and length specs
From my measurement
Valving: ??????
24.5" ext/15" = 9.5" travel

Rear 5125 BE5-A463-H7
http://cart.bilsteinus.com/productsearch/33-186542
This is out of the universal/custom line, not factory replacement
Per Bilstein
Valving: 255/70
Ext 24.35" ext/15.11 = 9.24" travel

I have read that these front shocks are valved really soft, which is confirmed by the fact that I can collapse it with arm strength, where as a I have to really lean on the rear one to collapse. I am concerned that these shocks are not designed to be matched up and running the soft valving on the front and firm on the rear will cause problems.

Can I get some expert advice? Should I send one of these sets back, and which should I ask for instead?

It really depends on what kind of wheeling you do and what the spring rates are front and rear. For crawling the front shocks will probably be just fine for you. If you like to do go fast stuff then you will definitely want stiffer compression up front.

I don't have much shock experience, but 255/70 up front for me was on the soft side.

Some of the numbers I saw for the front shocks were like 170/60?? Crazy soft. But Bilstein does not publish the actual numbers, and they only say "self-adjusting deflective disc valving." I think 255/70 is the stiffest they go.

This is my first rodeo, so I can't really answer the question about what I plan on doing.. but I don't forsee anything but camping, fishing, and very moderate trails and rocks. It is only a DD in the winter so I don't mind to sacrifice road manners too much.

they are very soft, i called bilstein a while ago and asked other stuff and threw that question in there for kicks.. it was something around 170/60. 255/70 is the stiffest you can get in a non-rebuildable bilstein.

MoparManiac said:

I don't have much shock experience, but 255/70 up front for me was on the soft side.

Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I've got 5150s. 255/70s. I really with they were stiffer.