Tunable Shock Options for Factory Mounts?

[mrblaine]

Lol... so the Poly shock towers are the recommended flavor?

There is a bit more to the mounts than "oh hey lookie" there is a place to bolt up the top of the shock and there is a lower mount.

The Poly mounts have the upper eye as close to the back wall as is feasible. Others do not and you can only move the mount so far into the frame before it comes out the other side. If you can't move the top of the shock inboard to help keep the tire off of it, then you wind up leaning them way back to get into a smaller tire shadow. That solves the mounting issue and keeps the tire off of the shock but it makes you look like a goober who doesn't know how to outboard a shock. Or even more gooberish is tossing on a wheel spacer so you wind up with the rear tires out further than the fronts.

 

[Deputy Dodge]

Be careful, you're gonna wind up with something that you can't afford that you have to work on in the snow.

Hopefully I can keep my legs!

 

[srimes]

Yes and no. Lots of folks run them even on longer travel shocks because their builder or shock guy tells them to. What they are supposed to do is add a short but high level amount of damping to the uppermost limit of travel to help the valving in the shock slow the shaft speed down in a very short distance. Lots of tuning involved to dial that in.

What they actually wind up doing is being very annoying with the clicks and pops from folks trying to do their tuning with the air bumps instead of both.

Do you have any experience with ORI struts? They seem like a great option.

 

[mrblaine]

Do you have any experience with ORI struts? They seem like a great option.

I do not, but I have great powers of observation and the ability to read between the lines to arrive at a fairly sound conclusion. There is or was a monster of a thread on POR of olden days about them. It centered around "how do you tune these pieces of crap" with large helpings of how did you get off the trail when they collapsed and wouldn't hold pressure tempered with "how did you get yours warrantied?".

Every poster was the same, these are the greatest things since sliced bread, now- how do I get them to work, fixed, repaired, or warrantied?

After watching that for a few years, I pretty much was able to figure out I'm just not interested in anything that required that much fiddling. And while I don't doubt that someone somewhere competes on them in go fast stuff successfully, if they do, it isn't well known.

 

[psrivats]

This is where I started many years ago trying to get as much out of the factory mounts as I could. It is an educationally valuable exercise to the extent that it made building the outboard mounts that much easier to understand.

More people really need to read the early portions of your build thread and understand your learnings that you have shared.

 

[mrblaine]

More people really need to read the early portions of your build thread and understand your learnings that you have shared.

If only.

 

[Chris]

More people really need to read the early portions of your build thread and understand your learnings that you have shared.

LOL...you want people to read and learn?

Maybe lower the bar a little

 

[srimes]

LOL...you want people to read and learn?

Maybe lower the bar a little

please share your outboarding knowledge with an interpretive ticktock dance

 

[GTTJ]

When talking about outboarding, most of the discussion that I've read pertains to the work done in the rear. I've done my rear and felt the improvement that's been talked about. Is doing the front as much of a gain in ride quality as i got from the rear?

 

[jjvw]

When talking about outboarding, most of the discussion that I've read pertains to the work done in the rear. I've done my rear and felt the improvement that's been talked about. Is doing the front as much of a gain in ride quality as i got from the rear?

Yes it is, because you presumably will now have nicer shocks on both ends. And with those nicer shocks on the front, the steering and braking are affected by how the front shocks control that movement.

 

[Quadratec]

What are some options for shocks for our TJ's that are tunable and rebuildable? I have long lusted over these King Shocks due to King Shocks great reputation in the offroad race community but the price is prohibitive. Are there any alternative options that can be fully rebuilt and tuned by a qualified tech? Fox?

King shocks in question
https://www.quadratec.com/products/...m_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organicshopping

Hello!

I'd be happy to recommend some shock options for your TJ! Could you share a bit more about your setup? What lift are you running, and I noticed you mentioned Moab and freeway driving—sounds like this is more than just a daily driver. Feel free to respond here or send me a direct message.

Thank you,
~Lorraine

 

[freedom_in_4low]

The problem I've run into when researching this is the upper mount in front. I may just be looking in the wrong place but I haven't come across a fox RR with a stud on top, and anything you do to put an eye on that mount is gonna take up space and reduce available up travel by at least half an inch.

I put this little spreadsheet together so I could easily compare shocks side by side. All I have to do is find the compressed and extended lengths and add a row and it'll immediately tell me everything I need to know. Or if I'm considering a ride height change, I can just plug in the new number and see where I land.

The Rig measurements are just the distance between mounts that is at all usable, not counting any shocks or bump stop extension. Things like hard contact between components (including factory bump stops), springs coming unseated, driveshafts binding, etc. And then the stuff out to the right looks at the greater of compressed lengths (shock vs rig) and the smallest of extended lengths to come up with an actual net travel, up, down and bias.

View attachment 548879

I threw some Foxes in there a while back just playing around with this idea of a tunable shock in OE mounts, not totally confident that I have them identified correctly. I also don't know if I can compare the lengths apples to apples...for example my rear upper mount is inverted with the bar pin above the crossmember, not sure I can get away with that with a Fox so then I lose about an inch which might move me from the -114 to the -113. Same with the front...I don't know how many inches it'll cost me to put a shock eye under a mount designed for a stud or whether I could do something clever like putting the lower eye below the lower mount, but knowing that would make the difference between using the -109 or the -108.

@Arthurius I did a little more poking around and found that the Fox options in my table do actually appear to have the stud mounts and bar pins where they're supposed to, so the lengths should be comparable to other bolt-on options. I polished up the numbers a little bit and added some formatting, as well as mounting codes (I don't think Fox mounting codes match up with the rest of the industry, but in general, these match up with stud, eye, and bar pin).

The right part of the table highlights green anything with >10" of total travel, 5" of either up or down, or between 40-60% travel bias. Less than 4" of up or down goes red. My current shocks (highlighted green all the way across) are pretty much the only options that are all green for my rig. , but the FOX -108 would be close enough in front. The rear kinda sucks, between the 113 and 114 I either have to add bump stop or say goodbye to over 2" of downtravel.

 

[deadbeat son]

@Arthurius I did a little more poking around and found that the Fox options in my table do actually appear to have the stud mounts and bar pins where they're supposed to, so the lengths should be comparable to other bolt-on options. I polished up the numbers a little bit and added some formatting, as well as mounting codes (I don't think Fox mounting codes match up with the rest of the industry, but in general, these match up with stud, eye, and bar pin).

View attachment 550158

The right part of the table highlights green anything with >10" of total travel, 5" of either up or down, or between 40-60% travel bias. Less than 4" of up or down goes red. My current shocks (highlighted green all the way across) are pretty much the only options that are all green for my rig. , but the FOX -108 would be close enough in front. The rear kinda sucks, between the 113 and 114 I either have to add bump stop or say goodbye to over 2" of downtravel.

Those Fox PNs are for the new aluminum body shocks that @mrblaine recommends avoiding.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Those Fox PNs are for the new aluminum body shocks that @mrblaine recommends avoiding.

Ok. Good to know. I'll poke around some more tomorrow and see if I can find the steel body equivalents, if they exist.

 

[deadbeat son]

Ok. Good to know. I'll poke around some more tomorrow and see if I can find the steel body equivalents, if they exist.

To the best of my knowledge, they don't exist anymore; I've spent a lot of time digging through their application catalogs and researching. The steel body shocks are available in eyelet mount only, in 8", 8.5", 10", 11", 12", or 14" travel. I plan to see if I can fit an 8.5" with a stem to eyelet adapter on the top, and switching out the lower mount to the correct mount for the bar pin. According to my notes, the front shocks would require a 213-78-200 eyelet, 014-11-003-A bushing, and 213-82-000 bar pin to fit the lower OEM mount. The rear shocks would require a BP to eyelet convertor for the top, like the JKS 9608, with a 213-78-200 eyelet, 014-11-003-A bushing, and 213-27-002-B sleeve for the lower OEM mount.

The shock PNs are:

• 980-02-404 - 8"
• 980-02-031 - 8.5"
• 980-02-032 - 10"
• 980-02-039 - 11"
• 980-02-034 - 12"
• 980-02-035 - 14"

I'm not sure if the 5.1" or 6" travel shocks are still available, but they're irrelevant. I have the open/closed lengths for the above shocks if you want them.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

To the best of my knowledge, they don't exist anymore; I've spent a lot of time digging through their application catalogs and researching. The steel body shocks are available in eyelet mount only, in 8", 8.5", 10", 11", 12", or 14" travel. I plan to see if I can fit an 8.5" with a stem to eyelet adapter on the top, and switching out the lower mount to the correct mount for the bar pin. According to my notes, the front shocks would require a 213-78-200 eyelet, 014-11-003-A bushing, and 213-82-000 bar pin to fit the lower OEM mount. The rear shocks would require a BP to eyelet convertor for the top, like the JKS 9608, with a 213-78-200 eyelet, 014-11-003-A bushing, and 213-27-002-B sleeve for the lower OEM mount.

The shock PNs are:

• 980-02-404 - 8"
• 980-02-031 - 8.5"
• 980-02-032 - 10"
• 980-02-039 - 11"
• 980-02-034 - 12"
• 980-02-035 - 14"

I'm not sure if the 5.1" or 6" travel shocks are still available, but they're irrelevant. I have the open/closed lengths for the above shocks if you want them.

Ok, you're 10 steps ahead of me. Nice work on that research.

The stem adapter sounds like it would take a ton of space. I wonder if the parts are interchangeable in a way that would allow the SM3 upper mount from the aluminum body shock to be installed on the steel body. Though as deep as you've researched you probably found that answer to be no which is why you noted the solution you have.

 

[deadbeat son]

Ok, you're 10 steps ahead of me. Nice work on that research.

The stem adapter sounds like it would take a ton of space. I wonder if the parts are interchangeable in a way that would allow the SM3 upper mount from the aluminum body shock to be installed on the steel body. Though as deep as you've researched you probably found that answer to be no which is why you noted the solution you have.

I really dug into this idea late last summer with a plan to do it over the winter, but I got lazy and never did anything with it.

I never looked into the option of replacing the top cap, sometimes the obvious eludes me. I don't think the stem mount from an alloy body would be compatible with the steel body shocks, but perhaps there are some stem mount top caps available as service parts for the old stem mounts they used to make. The new alloy shocks are built differently.

Alloy stem mount, which appears to require a specific shock body:

Steel body with separate replaceable top cap:

Here you can see that the alloy body eyelet mount doesn't have a replaceable cap, it's machined into the body:

Somewhere on this forum is a picture of a TJ with an old steel body stem mount shock, but I can't recall what thread I saw it in.

Finally, from what I understand, shock lengths are measured to the top of the body / bottom of the stem, so the bushing and retainer already subtract from the available space between the mounts. At least Fox measures them that way, per their catalog:

So realistically, you take up roughly 1/2" of available space with the bushing and retainer. The stem to eyelet adapter takes up 1.5" from where the adapter touches the OEM mount to the center of the eyelet:

This leaves you with a net loss of 1" of space due to the adapter. I had to run 1" of spacers on my OME shock mounts to split the bias at 50/50. If my 9" travel OME shock plus spacer comes to 23.24" when extended (not counting the bushing and retainer), then I should be able to run a Fox 8.5" travel shock with its 22.85" eyelet to eyelet length, plus the 1.5" adapter, and use a 1/2" coil spacer to adjust my bias to roughly 50/50.

At this point, it's just estimates, calculations, and research. I won't know for sure if everything works until I take the time to cycle suspension with the adapters in place and take real measurements. That's the part I've been too lazy to do for the past year.

And this is just the front!

 

[macleanflood]

Why not use a torch, plasma cutter or hole saw and cut out enough of the top shock mount to install a bar pin?

I think there's just enough room to sneak a torch in there...

Or does this violate the stock mounting specifications?

-Mac

 

[jjvw]

Why not use a torch, plasma cutter or hole saw and cut out enough of the top shock mount to install a bar pin?

I think there's just enough room to sneak a torch in there...

Or does this violate the stock mounting specifications?

-Mac

If you are going to do that amount of work, then why not do Poly mounts?

 

[macleanflood]

If you are going to do that amount of work, then why not do Poly mounts?

Agreed... that's what I'd do...but in this case, considering the consequences of the adapter...it would take me a couple of minutes with a plasma cutter to cut out a circle on top, weld in and gusset a couple of tabs on top and hang an eyelet only shock with a grade 8 bolt.

That and the cheap ass in me says I could do this for a hell of a lot less than $250.

-Mac