Shock questions for the go fast guys

Well, I'm shopping for shocks again. My 2.25" SAW's are a bust, poor quality developmental shocks. I ditched the fronts a while ago, and now I'm ditching the rears. I liked them when they were working, but.....

I'm wondering what some of you are running now, and what you think about the valving. I'm looking at Fox 2" that are made for TJ's, still thinking about Bilstein 7100's, and considering 5125's or 5150's for the back. I know some 5150's have had broken shafts, but I wonder how widespread that is.

Is anyone running 7100's with heim ends in the back? If so, I wonder how you're mounting the top, or did you get them with bushings.

Is anyone doing pre-runnning type stuff with 5150's?

Maybe most of the go fast guys are out at the Jeepspeed race this weekend.

Jes and Andy seem very pleased with their 7100s

My 5125s are pretty great. I don't buy the resevoir deal on the 5150s, I think it's all gimmick. I've beat on my 5125s pretty hard for 20 minutes at a time then touched them and they've been hardly warmer than the air temp.

I read good things about the Bilstein 9300s


:laugh3:

BrettM said:

Jes and Andy seem very pleased with their 7100s

My 5125s are pretty great. I don't buy the resevoir deal on the 5150s, I think it's all gimmick. I've beat on my 5125s pretty hard for 20 minutes at a time then touched them and they've been hardly warmer than the air temp.

I read good things about the Bilstein 9300s


:laugh3:

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I saw one while I was at Bilstein. It's like a piece of art work in person. The overall size of it is unbelievable.

SW have poor quality? First time I've heard that. Most seem to express the opinion that they are better then the Fox's. Whats causing the SAW to go bad? Guess I would be suprised if the failure was just due to poor quality shocks. Something else may not be setup right causing the failure. Not the correct size, valving, spring rate, mounting placement, ect.

Goatman said:

My 2.25" SAW's are a bust, poor quality developmental shocks. I ditched the fronts a while ago, and now I'm ditching the rears. I liked them when they were working, but.....

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See...

You shoulda sold them to me when I offered...

Gil BullyKatz said:

See...

You shoulda sold them to me when I offered...

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Want 'em now? All four, with lots of additional spare parts.....cheap.

Goatman said:

Want 'em now? All four, with lots of additional spare parts.....cheap.

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You know my opinion, 275/78 with the SkyJacjer 8" springs is pretty hard to beat. With one coil cut off, you may want to go a touch higher on rebound damping, maybe to 80 or so.

You just can't go wrong with 7100's, as long as you get the valving right.

Now, an interesting facet of all of this is the WAY that guys like us go fast. We tend to run fast with 10 PSI or less in our tires, racing to the rocks and back, which really softens everything up. If we were truly into running fast all the time at 30 PSI of tire pressure, the SkyJacker 8" springs, at 240 pounds/inch would feel very stiff. I'm betting that a rate of 200 lbs/in would be much more comforatble and controlled, and then we'd want to drop our rebound damping down so the shock wouldn't "stack up" on the fast whoops, as there is not enough spring rate to extend the shock back out quickly. A 255/70 would probably be more to our liking with a lesser spring rate, maybe even less rebound.

Of course, with our relatively heavy rigs, this would compromise rock performance to a great degree, making the rig feel tippy and tend to over-rotate when the front tires drop into a hole.

So, of course, the ultimate solution is a position sensitive, or bypasss, shock. This way, you can tune a rising shock rate into the damper, preventing bottoming on fast stuff, and controlling rotation in the rocks.

Remember, it's all a compromise. I'm happy with my choice.

Weasel said:

SW have poor quality? First time I've heard that. Most seem to express the opinion that they are better then the Fox's. Whats causing the SAW to go bad? Guess I would be suprised if the failure was just due to poor quality shocks. Something else may not be setup right causing the failure. Not the correct size, valving, spring rate, mounting placement, ect.

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Around here we call them Stay-A-Ways. I haven't run any bilstein's since the mid 90's and they've been redesigned a few times since then so I cant give any good comments on them. I've been running fox on everything I own for years and I love them. I can remove and revalve one in about 15 minutes and it costs about $3-$5 for a set of shims. If you want the best go with kings, but for the money stick with bilstein or fox. If you're not doing any hard prerunning don't worry about the reservoir unless you like the looks of it. I raced a 1600 buggy for 2 years with nonreservoir fox's with no problems.

scroll halfway down the page and you'll see a video of how to valve a king shock. It is almost identical to valving fox's.
http://www.desertrides.com/multimedia/video/index.php

I need some damping shims for Walker Evans Air shocks, any idea where to get them? I'd imagine they are all similar or do I have to go thorugh Walker? Supirsed to hear that about SAW, but I'll remember it. I thought Fox's were overated, just not.

They're not over rated, just overlypopular with bling bling big trucks. I have a few friends that hate them and the only reason is because they put a 10" lift on their duramax or superduty and don't have them valved right. They don't want to take the time to let me set em up properly, all they want me to do is take them apart so they can have the bodies chromed.
I wish I could help you, but I haven't had any experience with the Walker Evans shocks. Do you like them so far?

Not running them yet, need to get the N2 kit in then I can get my ride rate correct. Then probably do some test runs before dyno'ing them and figuring out the damping. I'll post pics of them when they go on.

Richard, I'm partial to Bilsteins because they are metric, more standardized and interchangeable part dimensions with the Ohlins, Showa, Kayaba, and White Power racing motorcycle suspension I've been working with the last 30 years. Though I've used Fox, nothing in them interchanges with anything else, same problem with SAW, and others.
In Bilstien's offroad department in San Diego (800-537-1085) there's a tech, Shane (ext.5908) who's been running his XJ on shocks he's made out of bits and pieces from their shop inventory. Though his experience is more rally/desert you may find picking his brain for info interesting.

PS. I've made most Bilstiens rebuildable with the addition of a schrader valve or reservoir (5100's, 6100's, 5150's, and standard applications) and swapped shafts, bodies and piston designs, to get the extended and collapsed lengths, ends, and damping style I want.

RobertF said:

In Bilstien's offroad department in San Diego (800-537-1085) there's a tech, Shane (ext.5908) who's been running his XJ on shocks he's made out of bits and pieces from their shop inventory. Though his experience is more rally/desert you may find picking his brain for info interesting.

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Shane is the fawking man.

CRASH said:

... touch higher on rebound damping, maybe to 80 or so.
....

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First section of page 3. Don't make me explain.

http://www.bilstein.com/7100_Rebuild.pdf

I ordered a set of Fox 2.0 w/resevoir for the front. They're 11" travel and come in at the length I need. They are newly offered valved for TJ's and come with a stem top mount, which gives me another 1.5" of length to work with since I don't need the shock adapter. I'm gambling on the valving, but they should at least be close since an XJ and TJ are close in weight, and Fox developed the valving. I'm betting it's more for everyday offroading and not just rockcrawling, so I hopfully they won't be too soft. I can still get them revalved to fine tune them, so they should be a good shock to work with. It was a toss up going with Fox or the short body Bilstein 7100's. I figured I'd give the Fox's a shot. Haven't processed the order yet, so I can still change my mind if I do it soon.

I went with Bilstein 5150's in the rear, 10" travel and 255/70 valving. They seemed to work well this weekend, though I wouldn't mind them being slightly stiffer. I didn't seem to get the rear end bucking that I was getting with the SAW's, but I also didn't run as hard. The rear just seemed to be better mannered.

They worked OK when I hit a small bomb crater and launched it 4-5 feet in the air. I'm averaging the height, Garry said about 3-4 ft, and a couple of others who saw it said 8-9 ft, anyway, they all said it was HIGH. Luckily I hit it just right and it launched evenly and came down perfectly on all fours.......nothing clanked or felt funny so I didn't even stop, just kept going like I knew what I was doing.

Only thing that broke was my front housing again, but I didn't even see that until back in camp after running Sledgehammer. I noticed that the seal started leaking. No problem, it just cracked where it had been welded up before, right where the tube hits the housing, and a new crack about an inch long into the housing. It didn't seperate, so I'll just grind it out and weld it again. I just hate to have to pull it all apart to change the seals....now both are leaking.

That poor 44.......time for an upgrade.

We tried welding a later model Ford 44 housing with 3" tubes, and it never did hold up, always kept cracking in slightly different spots. Finally built a new one.

I have to disassemble the whole thing to change both leaky axle seals, so it will get heated up and welded good, and I'm going to add a good truss. We'll see how it does.

Paul launched his racing Matt over to Sledge and the front left tire came down on a rock. His less than a year old front Currie 9" housing has a nice smile to it.

Those front 9" housings seem to have SERIOUS issues at speed!

What is that, the 4th one that the lake bed has claimed in our little group?

CRASH said:

Those front 9" housings seem to have SERIOUS issues at speed!

What is that, the 4th one that the lake bed has claimed in our little group?

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It's not that bad :laugh3:

I found a shop near my house that will straighten it for $100.

Paul