Shock Comparison: Rancho RS5000X vs Skyjacker Black Max vs KYB Monotube

bobthetj03 said:
You are pretty much where I am at ride height, so the 55239's will work well up front, but you'll need to add 1.75" of bump stop extension up front. For the rear, you can run the 55241's, but you'd get a better travel bias if you run bar pin eliminators up top. That will give you a closer 50/50ish bias, but again, you'll need bump stop extension. You can forego the bump stop extension in the rear if you have a 1.25" BL. Otherwise, you probably need the rear extension anyway for the rear track bare relocation bracket to clear the tub.
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Thanks for the input. Yeap I am aware that I will need some BS extensions. If I cut them exactly where they need to be, hopefuly I will not use any shock travel though.

Body lift is in the plans for now. Maybe in the future.
 
TJim said:
Mostly personal experiences, and opinions.

For example, I have seen many times in this forum that Bilstein 5100 are a stiff shock choice. I have seen that you suggest a lot Skyjacker Black Max Shocks, and that they are a bit softer than Rancho RS5000x.

I would like to know if anyone has personal experience, running both choices, or two of them in the same rig. And how they compare.

I most likely will go with the longer Ranchos, but I have some time to kill till then.
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This is what i can tell you from my experience and echoing again...

Out of the box shocks within a price of Fox downward...
Bilstein 5100's
FOX
Rancho 7000
Are by far the stiffest.

The Rancho 5000x is not as stiff as the above.

The Blackmax IMO is the smoothest of the bunch on a TJ.

There is no better/best here...everyone likes something different. A smooth ride to driver "A" might be mush to Druver "B" or too stiff or...._____ and vice versa
 
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Rubicon88 said:
Out of the box shocks within a price of Fox downward...
Bilstein 5100's
FOX
Rancho 7000
Are by far the stiffest.

The Rancho 5000x is not as stiff as the above.

The Blackmax IMO is the smoothest of the bunch on a TJ.
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I see the KYBs getting some attention on here lately. Where would you put them in this list of stiff-to-soft?
 
Rubicon88 said:
This is what i can tell you from my experience and echoing again...

Out of the box shocks within a price of Fox downward...
Bilstein 5100's
FOX
Rancho 7000
Are by far the stiffest.

The Rancho 5000x is not as stiff as the above.

The Blackmax IMO is the smoothest of the bunch on a TJ.

There is no better/best here...everyone likes something different. A smooth ride to driver "A" might be mush to Druver "B" or too stiff or...._____ and vice versa
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Thanks, you've been very helpful in these threads.

Have you tried/installed at all KYB Monotube?

I agree that everything about this topic is subjective and opinions differ. I hope I had the budget to try them all, haha. (Mostly because I am a curious person)
 
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Mike_H said:
They have two sizes. One for the 3-4" lift range and one for stock.
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I've spent hours pouring over all the numbers at shockwarehouse.com and did find a couple potential KYB Monomax fits. Although they weren't specific to the TJ, it looks like I could either add a bar pin to them, or run a bar pin eliminator. However, when I looked at the vehicles they fit, all were heavier full size trucks or SUVs. Somehow this didn't feel right though!

https://www.shockwarehouse.com/news/kyb_measurements.cfm
 
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Interesting to see these comments on the Black Max... We found them to ride surprisingly good on the JL's. Irrelevant to this discussion, but does seem to indicate they were looked at for Jeep applications and not just 3/4 ton pickups...
 
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Rubicon88 said:
The Monomax I can speak of ...

KYB makes their own shocks...
The monomax is stout.
I'd say very comparable to the Bilstein 5100.
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Aha, thanks. I had gotten the impression that they may fall in between the RS5000X and the BlackMax, but if they are about as stiff as the 5100s then maybe it's just the 5000X and BlackMax that will be the most popular for those of us with such light TJs. I'm especially interested as I have an SE.

Edit: But we'll see what @Mike_H says of course.
 
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Mike_H said:
Depending on how my KYB's run...I may be trying them out too!
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I'm not sure why yet, but I also noticed that, overall, the BlackMax shocks tend to have shorter compressed and longer extended lengths than other comparable shocks I was looking at. This really helped with my oddball setup. I'm not sure why that is, so I'm trying to learn more there.
 
Rubicon88 said:
The Blackmax IMO is the smoothest of the bunch on a TJ.
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Can I order some from you and get a refund with free return shipping if I don't like them? ;)
p.s. I had the Skyjacker nitro and hydro shocks years ago. I thought they both rode bad. This was way back when OME yellow shocks actually rode good.
 
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