Shock Tech

Arcticelf

Head BFH Operator at Gray Man Fab
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Blowing through the entire compression stroke on a single bump.

Ex: A concrete wash pan leaving a gas station entering the roadway will be enough to blow through the compression stroke.

That's valving. Increased spring rate will help, but if you don't have exessive body role stiffer springs will just make the ride harsher.
 

AssBurns

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It is my understanding 5165's can be easily re-valved by the manufacturer. It is also possible to add a schrader valve to adjust nitrogen pressures on the reservoir. I've had a multitude of different springs and shocks on my runner and never seem to be able to find out something that works well.

I have had Superflex's with both bilstien 5100 and toytec boss shocks. The 5100/superflex combo bottomed out quite often. I didn't bottom out as often with the boss shocks. The boss shocks rode a million times better than the bilstien 5100's, but I still contacted the bumps regularly but a tolerable amount.


I desired more lift and switched my coils to the OME 861's with the boss shocks. I never bottomed out unless articulating on these coils but they handled like shit on the highway and I had an intolerable amount of body roll. I was lifting a font tire rather often when turning and desired more highway worth handling. In addition I snapped two boss socks at the rod end mount running this setup but got them warrantied.

That leads me to the OME 906 coils. I got these for dirt cheap off craigslist but they couldn't hold weight for shit. Only ran these for about two weeks but they still bottomed less on the boss shocks than my current setup.

Current setup is OME 890's with the Bilstien 5165's. These worked well with the boss shocks but after snapping a final rod end outside my warranty period I made the switch to 5165's. I like the handling and minimal lift i get with the 906's but my favorite springs have been the superflex's. I may have to return to those and contact bilstein to talk about a re-valve based on my application.
I've never heard of anyone sending 5165's to Bilstein for a a re-valve. Not saying it's not true, just never heard of it before. Then the subject on adding a schrader valve to these shocks. Is there an easy way to release the nitrogen pressure on them before drilling and tapping for a schrader valve?

Sounds like you've been through quite the setups. Honestly, it sounds like you are ready to bite the bullet and get something a little nicer that you can play with the valving and nitrogen pressure yourself to dial in the ride you are looking for.
 

MonkeyProof

PowerTop
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I've never heard of anyone sending 5165's to Bilstein for a a re-valve. Not saying it's not true, just never heard of it before. Then the subject on adding a schrader valve to these shocks. Is there an easy way to release the nitrogen pressure on them before drilling and tapping for a schrader valve?

Sounds like you've been through quite the setups. Honestly, it sounds like you are ready to bite the bullet and get something a little nicer that you can play with the valving and nitrogen pressure yourself to dial in the ride you are looking for.
You can get 5165's all day long with schrader valves installed from various booths/ local vendors at the off road swap meets..
 

AssBurns

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You can get 5165's all day long with schrader valves installed from various booths/ local vendors at the off road swap meets..
Didn't know that. I was always under the assumption they were more of a sealed shock that once assembled, it's not supposed to be disassembled. Learn something new every day
 
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So have a friends... he is looking at billies for his turd gen ...he is running a spacer lift with 3" block in the back ... I'm trying to get him to remove it and he is finally listening to me ... what billies do you guys recommend
 

4runner DOA

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I ran 5100s with 885s in the front for awhile, might hold the weight of the turd gen front decently. Rears I'd get something longer than 5100s. 5160s maybe? Tundra 5100s?
 

Itaro

Seriously, FJB
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If he wants to keep that lift in the back he’ll need a new leaf pack. If he doesn’t want as much lift then remove the block and 5100s, 5160s, icon 2.0s. All will do the trick. If he does get a new leaf pack I believe there’s a 5125 that’ll work, extended icons/foxes, or whatever
 
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I've never heard of anyone sending 5165's to Bilstein for a a re-valve. Not saying it's not true, just never heard of it before. Then the subject on adding a schrader valve to these shocks. Is there an easy way to release the nitrogen pressure on them before drilling and tapping for a schrader valve?

Sounds like you've been through quite the setups. Honestly, it sounds like you are ready to bite the bullet and get something a little nicer that you can play with the valving and nitrogen pressure yourself to dial in the ride you are looking for.

Once I am out of school I will be buying some nice shocks. Being a full time college student doesn't allow for race truck parts. Ive had enough setups to run outboard shocks with hydros if I just saved up the first time lol. Lesson learned I suppose
 
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Well I am new here, so I m gonna tray not to fuck up as I posted elsewhere, yes al stand tall when you start shooting at me for what I am going to ask:

Backround; I live in Argentina ( beatifull country, fucked up people and economy ) a pair of OME springs cost US dolars 700, yeah right it is not a tipo. ( so I have one more chance to get this right before my wife castrates me with a rusty machete...

so for now I have OME 880 up front and LC 8 wraps rear paired with OME 90004 front and 60027 rear, everything conected ( sway bars )

rear ended up at 23.6 inches with what I carry everyday.
Front sits at 21.25 center of axle to fender
Whant to get the front up a bit BUT KEEPING IT RELIABLE.
has any of you the exact measurments (settled height with OME 881 and ome 883 (manual, 3rz), with stock 98 front bumper, no skids no nothing extra up front ?

Open fire !!!
 

Dukestaco

Stirring the pot 24/7
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Well I am new here, so I m gonna tray not to fuck up as I posted elsewhere, yes al stand tall when you start shooting at me for what I am going to ask:

Backround; I live in Argentina ( beatifull country, fucked up people and economy ) a pair of OME springs cost US dolars 700, yeah right it is not a tipo. ( so I have one more chance to get this right before my wife castrates me with a rusty machete...

so for now I have OME 880 up front and LC 8 wraps rear paired with OME 90004 front and 60027 rear, everything conected ( sway bars )

rear ended up at 23.6 inches with what I carry everyday.
Front sits at 21.25 center of axle to fender
Whant to get the front up a bit BUT KEEPING IT RELIABLE.
has any of you the exact measurments (settled height with OME 881 and ome 883 (manual, 3rz), with stock 98 front bumper, no skids no nothing extra up front ?

Open fire !!!
Ha ha. That rusty knife to the balls is a Hispanic thing. My tells me "Telovoy a cortar" all the time. Sorry I can't help with the shock set up I have a 4th gen
 
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Ha ha. That rusty knife to the balls is a Hispanic thing. My tells me "Telovoy a cortar" all the time. Sorry I can't help with the shock set up I have a 4th gen

:AMEN:

Its even worse than an hispanic thing, my wife is of italian heritage and I am of german( but we both where born here and adopted local manners so to say ), so be very careful of italian women, they do have one hell of a caracter and dont even talk to her when she s with her period !!!!!


Sory I ll stop de BS right away.
 

AssBurns

will wheel for beer
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Well I am new here, so I m gonna tray not to fuck up as I posted elsewhere, yes al stand tall when you start shooting at me for what I am going to ask:

Backround; I live in Argentina ( beatifull country, fucked up people and economy ) a pair of OME springs cost US dolars 700, yeah right it is not a tipo. ( so I have one more chance to get this right before my wife castrates me with a rusty machete...

so for now I have OME 880 up front and LC 8 wraps rear paired with OME 90004 front and 60027 rear, everything conected ( sway bars )

rear ended up at 23.6 inches with what I carry everyday.
Front sits at 21.25 center of axle to fender
Whant to get the front up a bit BUT KEEPING IT RELIABLE.
has any of you the exact measurments (settled height with OME 881 and ome 883 (manual, 3rz), with stock 98 front bumper, no skids no nothing extra up front ?

Open fire !!!
Not quite the right thread for this but we can still discuss it unless it becomes a further discussed topic.

You have the OME 880 which only provides about 1" of lift. You can reliably lift it up to 3" without any issues. With your smaller motor and no extra weight, it seems the 881 might be the best option for you.

Stole this from t4r.org - https://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/66976-3rd-gen-4runner-lift-information-faqs.html
  • 880 1" lift coil for stock weight.
  • 881 2.5" lift coil for stock weight.
  • 883 3" lift coil designed for 100 lbs. additional front weight.
  • 882 3" lift coil designed for 150+ lbs additional front weight.
  • A top plate spacer can be combined with the 881 coil for a full 3" lift
 

AssBurns

will wheel for beer
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Sorry for posting in the wrong place, and thank you very much for the info.
No worries. This thread is more for rebuilding and tuning shocks. Not necessarily for picking which spring/shock combo works for a specific lift height.
 

AssBurns

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I’ve played around a lot(had my shocks apart probably 100 times) with shocks over the past 15 years or so I’ve been into off-road stuff. Dirt bikes too when I was in my teens. It’s always been really fascinating to me the way a small change can make such a difference if made in the right way. I’ve learned a lot from reading on rdc and dr and a lot from real world experience with my own and friends vehicles. From free bleeds to flexible rate plates there’s a lot you can do. I’m honestly not sure what my front shocks are right now, bought them off a close friend that didn’t remember the stack exactly but they’re valved for the front of a caged +4” ranger and they work phenomenally in the front. Rear is a .020 flutter stack with a .015 fulcrum before hitting a x3 .020 flexible pate plate inside fox 2.0 race series shocks and the rear works really well until I start cooking the oil after a few consistent hard miles in the desert. the weirdest ones I’ve ever taken apart were bilstien 7100s I had on an xj, but after figuring out the metric stuff I was able to make the string cruise around 35mph through Barstow pretty comfortably. I’ve only had experience with 7100s, SAWs, and fox’s. Also AW32 Is way better than wasting your money putting high end expensive shock oil in your shocks. It’s been proven by race teams, don’t buy the hype you have to waste all your hard earned sheckles on Baja blood or fox fluid or whatever you may find. It’s all I’ve ever ran. I’ll try to write out things that I’ve learned over the years making smooth body shocks perform well and post it up when I have the time to write it all out if anyone is interested.
 
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This is probably going to be a wall of text but hopefully some of you learn something new and it helps in some way in the future. These are things that I’ve found tinkering on my own and others vehicles over the past 10ish years.

Shims adjust how the piston travels through the oil of the shock. Thicker the shim, the more dampening you get. Thinner the shim, the less. Pretty simple. Oil weights also play a large factor in this but I’ve only ever ran one type of fluid in an off-road truck shock. It’s all about limiting the flow of oil through the piston.

It’ll probably be helpful if you know the terms before I start explaining what little I know, most of these can be found by googling if you don’t understand it.

Compression dampening is what keeps you from smashing into your bump stops. Stiffer valving is better for go fast, but you need to tune it to be comfortable. It’s great if you can speed through dips and whoops but not if it comes at the cost of your back.

Free bleeds for the most part should be left alone from what I’ve read and experienced. On my rears I only have 1 of 4 bleed holes open, by doing this you restrict fluid flow a lot. Restricting fluid flow causes cavitation on hard hits and the oil to move a lot more in the resi and can cause a lot of damage to your shocks(this is why resi ifp depth is very important for all shocks, top mounted resi most importantly). Can be combatted by adding nitrogen to your resi cans, but it isn’t always the best option. My first revalving I did of my 4runner when it was completely stock other than the shocks and tires was to try and make it quick and comfy on Fox 2.0rr shocks. 6.5” travel shocks in front and 10” travel shocks in rear. I ended up having to run 350psi of nitrogen to combat the cavitation and shock fade after a few miles, but it rode awesome. Could skip across stuff in Barstow and Lucerne almost as fast and guys with LT. only drawback was all that valving in the tiny shock caused a lot of cavitation even with 350psi of nitrogen and would cook the seals out of the shocks every long trip. After years of this I finally said fuck it I wanna go fast so that’s when LT happened.

The small shocks are fine if your vehicle isn’t heavy and you’re not trying to haul ass. A Toyota 2wd pickup can be incredibly fast on 2.5 shocks if it’s built with weight in mind and valved appropriately. Hell even on 2.0s if it’s light enough. The heavier the vehicle the more shock you need because you need dampening to combat the weight of the vehicle pushing down. Not necessarily spring rate, but shock valving. Springs should be picked for weight of the vehicle, shocks for type of terrain.

Let’s get back into compression valving.
If you have a standard .015 stack on your compression side of the piston that’s probably really good. Might be a little stiff in the shorter quicker bumps, so you combat that with a flutter stack or a mixed stack. Let’s use fox standard shim sizes for 2.0 shocks cause that’s what I know off the top of my head.

Compression side
•Rate plate
-.800” diameter
—.950
—-1.100
——1.350
——-1.425
———1.600
-piston
———1.425
——-1.350
——1.100
—-.950
—.800
-.750 “backup” washer
Rebound side*

Between the 1.350 and the 1.100 shim on the comp side id insert a .020”x.800” shim to create a flutter, this will allow those larger base shims to open up sooner and allow fluid flow on the short quick hits like washboard, small rocks, potholes and such. If .020 is too much and I felt like that was also making it blow through travel, I’d go with .015 or .010” thick. You can also shorten shim stacks from but ALWAYS use the larger base shims. You can add more base shims to have a stiffer “zone” before the shims flex past the flutter and engage the rest of the stack. That’s what’s so fun about tuning shocks, there’s nearly endless ways to adjust the shims. You can create two or three zones using flutter stacks, at one point in the front of my 4runner when it has stock length arms I had a double flutter and it rode really great, but I had to ditch that when I put the longer arms on it.

Flexible rate plates are something I’ve fooled around with only a little bit. From my understanding it makes the shock not hit it’s harshest “zone” so violently. Instead it hits and flexes the rate plate to allow a smoother feeling of hard hits. The hard part it making it flex enough to accomplish this and not blow through your travel and bump so hard you piss blood.

There’s fulcrum shims that allow freebleeding. It’s when you put a .800” shim of whatever thickness you desire between the comp side of the piston and the largest shim. This allows the fluid to flow past the fulcrum and not engage the stack for smaller bumps like washboard and small rocks. I liked .010 fulcrum with a .015 compression stack for trail driving. The fulcrum shim method works well, but increases the overall fluid flow when hitting hard because it increases distance between the piston and it’s largest shim. Flutters just allow the base of the stack to open a little easier to allow the smaller hits to not engage the entire stack.

Mixed stacks work well too. You can have a .020/.015 mixed stack to allow the stack to be more progressive.

Rebound valving is something that I haven’t spent a whole shit ton of time on. I usually just valve it around what I see is needed for the spring rate I have. Usually .012 or so shim stack and it works fine, if you’re on leaf springs you need much less, probably .008 shims. You want your wheels to stay in contact with the ground as much as possible to maintain speed and not load/unload your drivetrain constantly, keeping you from ruining axels and driveshafts and transmission parts. You want it quick enough to maintain a good amount of contact, not so quick you get the classic pogo stick esque donkey kick that sends your rear end up and over the front. This is caused usually by too heavy of rebound allowing the suspension to “pack” and not droop enough to have enough compression travel to dampen the next hit. This happens a lot, most of the time it’ll be okay if your shocks are tuned right, also has to do with comp valving to make sure you’re not bottoming so fast that you’re hitting bump stops constantly anyway.

A lot of people have their own methods and may differ completely from what I’ve done and what I like. I personally like light rebound in the front to keep the front from diving and packing, almost making it feel like it’s growing through whoops. The rear I like to be controlled but light to keep the rear tires planted, but again no so light that the springs can push the shocks open so quickly that the rear will pogo.

Bypasses are something that I’ve messed with only a few times, the more tubes the better. They allow different dampening zones at different dampening rates which is awesome, you don’t have to pull the shocks apart all the time. You set your baseline valving for your trucks weight and driving style and you then adjust the bypass valves in or out to make it handle better. I’ve played with fox’s internal bypass that utilizes holes covered by different thickness reeds. These are the ones that come on raptors. IMO they’re cool but overall I’d go with an external bypass because why open the shocks to tune if you can leave them closed.

Hydro Bump stops are truly one of the best things to ever happen to off-road. I haven’t spent a lot of time on tuning them because it’s not really needed. It’s a tiny shock that’s valved to hell. I put the appropriate amount of fluid and fill them to 200psi of nitrogen and call it good.

To end id like to say it’s not all about wheel travel numbers, it’s about how you set your truck up and how to tune your shocks. There are guys that have 9 inches of travel and can haul absolute ass. With stock arms I was making I think 8” up front and 13” in the rear. Everyone I took for a ride said it was ridiculously smooth *for a stock truck*. Yeah, it was a little rough till it got up to speed, but I could cruise through washes of Barstow at a good speed and my back never hurt after the trip.

I think I covered most of what I know, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Also I’d like to add I’m selling a set of 2.0x6.5” fox remote reservoir shocks, if you’re interested let me know. Fit perfect in stock length arm trucks and 4runners 86-95.
 
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