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ORI Struts

nosigma

NAXJA Member # 1371
NAXJA Member
Location
McLean Va
My long arms will be going in next week. Up travel from ride height at the spring will be about 4 inches to the bump stops and down travel at the spring is silly, like 16 inches before I start having pinion angle problems (rotated the inner c's). At about 16" of droop from ride height the front drive shaft is close to making contact with the cross members inboard mount of the long arms. 20 inches of spring travel is probably more than needed, 16 inches should do just fine.

So now I am looking a shock-spring-limiting strap anti-rock combinations for the rig. Lots of work, lots (more) custom fabrication plus a ton of spring rate and shock tuning. Enter the ORI strut. I dont see to many people running ORI's on NAXJA. I see lots of larger buggies running them here on the east coast and a few heavily built TJ's, JK's. A couple folks on NAXJA have installed them but that was mostly between 08 and 10.

So why are the ORI's not more popular on XJ's?

I know that it takes custom axle mounts and tube work inside the engine bay to mount them (not a big deal at this point for me). Have there been problems with the ORI's?

On the plus side they incorporate spring, shock, limiting strap all in one package. They are also super stable and you can adjustable with both gas pressure, 7 position rebound adjustment and off course internal modifications to the valve stacks with both washer and drilling/plugging bypass holes (a fair amount of work if you need to make huge changes).

John
 
Sorry to bump but one of the NAXJA members who has run them replied to a PM:

Hi John,
the ori's work flawlessly. i would buy them again with no hesitation.i have never used coil overs so i cant compare the ride or setup, but the ori's were simple to setup.

Didnt ask permission to post the PM so I wont give the members screen name out (it a PRIVATE message for a reason).

Anyone else with ORI experience out there?

John
 
The reason ori's aren't on a lot of XJ's is probably because of the high cost and the lead time is usually quite long. XJ builders are usually more of a budget type group of guys as well.
 
What's your setup, and how do you plan on having 16" of down travel?
 
Royal XJ:
The initial cost is a little bit higher than a good spring/shock/anti-rock + limiting strap combination, but not by much when you add it all together. So that plus the ordering backlog may indeed be the reason. Then when this is combined with the need to add a properly reinforced mounting point up inside the engine bay. So far on the performance side I cant seem to find any complaints. I may need to spend a few hours on Pirate looking around.

What's your setup, and how do you plan on having 16" of down travel?

Not to change the topic but the picture below (a mock up of the lower arm for clearance checks) shows the front end at full droop, just as the drive shaft makes contact with the driver side radius arm mounting ears. The shock that you see is a 12" travel shock. The lower pin mount is about 6" off of the axle mount which is level with the top of the axle. The full build discussion (including the normal radius arm vs 3 link debate) can be found here:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1015773&page=7

I linked to page 7 since that where most of the "nearly finished" pics are. I want to keep this thread on ORI's so if you want to comment on other aspects of the build please comment in build thread.

 
I now remember why I dont frequent Pirate much. After sorting through all the nonsense and reading actual experience I found my answers.

For pro level go fast nothing is going to beat coil overs and remote reservoir bypass shocks with the air bumps and sway bars.

A lot of people are afraid of air shock blow outs. I could not find anyone who got left stranded on ORI's due to a blow out.

Cost is about a wash when compared to a low end coil over with bumps, straps and sways.

Its hard to beat the ORI's for stability in off camber since they dont unload strongly, this is also why they are not preferred for go fast compared to a really well set up set of coil overs and bypass shocks.

Its hard to beat the ORI's for ease of set up. You can get to 90% of perfect pretty quickly. 90% of perfect looses races. Setting up in few hours or over a couple trail rides was common on ORI's. Months spent beating the head against the wall was common on coil overs (when the owner was tuning for performance, not just slapping them in).

I found several posts from guys who have raced on ORI's and went back to coil overs etc. A couple of them put ORI's on their trail rigs & buggies because of simplicity, stability and ease of set up. They dont run high double digit mph except for an occasional fun blast.

Race rigs walked away from ORI's some time ago. Non race rig owners like them a lot.
 
I
A lot of people are afraid of air shock blow outs. I could not find anyone who got left stranded on ORI's due to a blow out.

Goatman got taken out of '09 KOH by a blown out ORI. Finished the race on some borrowed fox air shocks.

He finished Goatfest this year on his bumpstops after having an ORI go out again. He was able to keep going when they blew out, just one corner was sank all the way down and you couldn't go fast..

I imagine airshocks would be the same, but have never run them.
 
i love my ori struts.
they are 14" travel, but i wish i got 16" though.
they were pretty simple to setup, like you said, easy to get 90% performance, &
for a rock crawler, not a race buggy, that is close enough for me.

100_2014_zps0470c5ea.jpg

100_2012_edited-1_zps8bb62997.jpg
 
Quote from: overhead on December 15, 2014, 10:44:54 PM
Quote from: nosigma on December 15, 2014, 10:30:01 PM
_________
ORI's, Coil Overs, Air Shocks, Coil Assisted Air Shocks, Lions Tigers and Bears OH MY

V6 T Bird springs and 1962 F-100 Monroes have been good to me and my wallet. Too many choices, to many decisions.

John
_______
Whatcha gonna go with john?
________
Either ORI's or King bypass triple spring coil overs. Same high cost, $1300 per end.

Cook kid suspension or no #%^#ing for 6 months. Everyone says riding on ORI's is like floating on a cloud of titties. It better be because the ORI' or Kings for that matter are as close as I am going to get after my wife sees the bill.

John
 
i ran ORIs on the last XJ and loved them so much I'm going to run them on the current build.
14" up front and 16" rear


main reason i see a lot of people not running them is initial cost. but, imo when you factor in nice bumps, off road sway bar, limit straps, and the cost of the coil over .the price range is a lot more competitive

also a big issue for some is wait. usually there is atleast a 3 month wait and some people can't wait that long.

and last i think people are afraid of them because of the poor reputation that normal air shocks receive. which i can say first hand is not comparable at all. the handling and stabilty i gained by switching to these from coils/shocks at all 4 corners is unreal.
 
Last edited:
N20Jeep,

Thank you for the reply. Cals post about Goatmans experience does give me pause for concern regarding blow outs and most worrying is the comment made about poor customer support in the case of Goatmans problems. You and knucklehead have both had good experiences as has the fab shop I am working with. I spend so much time off camber here in VA that the stability along with the "all in one" aspects of ORI's have me favoring the ORI's over a coil over system.

By chance do you have a link to a picture or link showing how you fabbed up the upper shock hoops and chassis attachments on your rig?

John
 
To be fair, Goatman doesnt really feel like he had a bad experience. ORI was prepared to take care of him, but at the end of the day his shocks were not user serviceable and the cheapest route to repair them was to sell him new ones at a discount.
 
my customer service experience has been very positive with them.
my last XJ caught fire and melted the rear struts along with damaging the front.

they ended up rebuilding the fronts and cutting me a hell of a deal on new rears. which is something they certainly didnt have to do.

as for the mounting



 
I run ORI's on my XJ buggy.

I've got a handfull of runs on them and am still waiting for them to get broken in before playing with them more.

Overall, I love them.

It is SO nice to simply be able to adjust everything you want "on the fly".

I just take my N20 tank and filler with me wheeling. I can easily adjust as I feel fit before/after the trail.

I've gotten them up to speed and so far they've made me more than happy.

Will they replace a coilover and bypass? No.

Can a coilover be tuned to be better than an ORI? Yeah to an extent.

Is it a GIANT PITA to do that and will most people? **** no :D

The group I run with has two rigs with ORI's (me being one of them), and everyone else on coilovers or airshocks.

Everybody is happy with their setup, you just have to be willing to work on it.

I like having shock/coil, bump, and swaybar all in one since I didn't have room for all of that.

If it were a DD of any kind...I wouldn't go with ORI's just in the case that somehow you blow one out...you don't have the spring like you would on a coilover to give you some support.

Long story short...I love love love my ORI's :D

Mine are the ST's, not even the newer STX's.
 
I'm rehashing an old thread here because I'm tempted by these. I have a spring/shock setup and kinda hate it, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.
'95 XJ, 4.5" TNT Long (Radius) Arm, 33's, 4.10's, LSD's front and rear
Whenever I wheel it hard and the front tires start spinning, I get wheel hop, and a hard knocking sound in the front end. I've narrowed this down to the shock bodies contacting the frame. So the axle is rocking side so side a little as the wrap occurs. This is exacerbated a little bit by my choice of where to mount my limit strap tabs, but I relocated the driver's side limit strap and I think the shock still contacts the frame. I do have front stiffeners installed.
So I'm curious- do others have this problem? Is it just the TNT radius arms causing the axle hop? The ORI struts are more compact than just the traditional spring, and the space available where the spring sits is so much larger- maybe I could tolerate the axle wrap, or control it, a little easier with ORI's.
Any suggestions are welcome. I'm aware that moving the limit strap mounts might help some, but I don't think will resolve the issue entirely. You can see the imprints on the shocks here:

6f321ec2e1739f0de3852900db8fb128.jpg
0962446497142b1d19251d073ef75e93.jpg
 
I'm rehashing an old thread here because I'm tempted by these. I have a spring/shock setup and kinda hate it, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.
'95 XJ, 4.5" TNT Long (Radius) Arm, 33's, 4.10's, LSD's front and rear
Whenever I wheel it hard and the front tires start spinning, I get wheel hop, and a hard knocking sound in the front end. I've narrowed this down to the shock bodies contacting the frame. So the axle is rocking side so side a little as the wrap occurs. This is exacerbated a little bit by my choice of where to mount my limit strap tabs, but I relocated the driver's side limit strap and I think the shock still contacts the frame. I do have front stiffeners installed.
So I'm curious- do others have this problem? Is it just the TNT radius arms causing the axle hop? The ORI struts are more compact than just the traditional spring, and the space available where the spring sits is so much larger- maybe I could tolerate the axle wrap, or control it, a little easier with ORI's.
Any suggestions are welcome. I'm aware that moving the limit strap mounts might help some, but I don't think will resolve the issue entirely. You can see the imprints on the shocks here:

6f321ec2e1739f0de3852900db8fb128.jpg
0962446497142b1d19251d073ef75e93.jpg

Do you drive your rig on the street much?

I run ORI's and love them (though I need to figure out my heavy side lean). However, if I were running a rig on the street often, I would either keep that setup and try to get it to work, or go with coilovers.
 
I'm rehashing an old thread here because I'm tempted by these. I have a spring/shock setup and kinda hate it, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.
'95 XJ, 4.5" TNT Long (Radius) Arm, 33's, 4.10's, LSD's front and rear
Whenever I wheel it hard and the front tires start spinning, I get wheel hop
Seen that alot with TNT long arms even with good shocks. What shocks you running?
 
Seen that alot with TNT long arms even with good shocks. What shocks you running?


Hehehe- Rough Country. So I'm taking a different route. I've ordered the shock mount conversion brackets from T&J. This will do away with that silly post/ bushing combo up top and it moves the shocks outboard a little. On the axle side, I'm doing away with the factory shock mounts as well and moving them outboard about an inch. This should eliminate all the racket and I'll be upgrading to some better shocks. I'll post up the results.
 
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