What Difference Do Shocks Make?

BuildBreakRepeat said:
Sound like a tune change is needed. Or adjusters?
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I agree. FSM does offer a free retune too. It is hard to find the time to ship them to him though as my rig is a DD. I could do the junkyard F150 shocks that @jjvw has done.

kmas0n said:
I have the same setup. 11" ranchos up front, 12" Fox RR outboard rear.
I recently purchased all the things needed to tune shocks myself. I have a set of 12" RR that were tuned firm by Fullstack. They were very stiff and speed bumps, potholes, tabletop crosswalks, and such were brutal. I feel like it would knock the air out of me unless I was doing 35-40 mph... at that speed, it was actually pretty smooth. Off-road, it was very harsh. Where I live all of the trails are littered with small rocks and the constant small bumps just shook me and the jeep apart... unless I was driving crazy fast... Then it was pretty nice, but that's not the type of driving I am looking to do.

My jeep is very light, no spare, no rear seat, minimalist bumper, etc and the tune just wasn't right for my jeep. @pcoplin had offered to retune them for free but he got me thinking, "what if I could do it myself?" I purchased the regulator, hose and fill valve, spare shims, seal kits, and everything else I might need. Paul at Fullstack is so awesome that he sent me a set of shims setup for a light tune, so I could put them in myself. The difference was night and day. Much smoother, much less pain, but still not the right tune for my light jeep, my driving style, and the terrain I drive. So after a ton of research, I came up with my own tune.

I started with a very light .008 stack (#35 from fox) and added a small shim between the two largest to create a small flutter valve. Nothing crazy there.

Now the jeep is very smooth on the bumps, the dips, the tabletop crosswalks. Off-road it's great. I ran broken arrow this morning and it was smooth and controlled. Not too much head toss, Easy coming down off rocks, no bottoming out.
I'm not done tinkering, but I'm very happy with what I have now. I need to get the jeep out into the open and start going faster to see how it does. I've re-valved the shocks 4 times in the past few days.
The best part is I can go from getting the floor jack out to bolting everything back together in about an hour.
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I know 2 others with RRs and 2 more who are buying RRs soon (all near me). The thought to buy all the gear myself so we can recharge and retune has crossed my mind multiple times. Good to hear you are having success with it!
 
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tworley said:
I agree. FSM does offer a free retune too. It is hard to find the time to ship them to him though as my rig is a DD. I could do the junkyard F150 shocks that @jjvw has done.



I know 2 others with RRs and 2 more who are buying RRs soon (all near me). The thought to buy all the gear myself so we can recharge and retune has crossed my mind multiple times. Good to hear you are having success with it!
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You buying all the gear has crossed my mind, too! It's a great idea. :)
 
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Chris said:
The 11" shocks with LSC are the ones that are backordered. I haven't checked on the 12", but last time I did, they had them in stock.

I know I could fit 12" in the front if I wanted to, but it would be really tight, and I think more work than it's ultimately worth.

I'm going to shoot you a PM so I don't derail this thread.
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For your application, why are 12s more work?
 
While I haven’t mocked it up yet, I’m almost certain I’ll have to cut into the inner fender with these GenRight inner fenders, even with an 11” travel shock. I just don’t see a way around it. Case in point:

6B65FD31-5A0B-4366-8697-4FD89350CCDA.jpeg
 
Not sure I think that everyone should be. I do wonder why most don’t consider it. I don’t think it’s a bad option for those willing to cut their fenders (inners or outers) or even run aftermarket fenders.
 
mattcogdell said:
Not sure I think that everyone should be. I do wonder why most don’t consider it. I don’t think it’s a bad option for those willing to cut their fenders (inners or outers) or even run aftermarket fenders.
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Because it is fucking diminishing returns. The top of the inner is a whole bunch more difficult to cut clean and correct and there is no need to hack up a fucking stock air box for 1 more inch of down travel that only matters to someone bragging on the internet because it sure as fuck makes no difference on the trail. So if you want to be a fucking stud around the campfire and tell everyone you got 1 more inch, knock yourself the fuck out. In the meantime, 11" travel Fox fronts work perfectly for Currie 4" springs and not once ever has 1" more down made any fucking difference what so ever in how a rig makes it up or down the trail, NOT ONCE!
 
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jjvw said:
It's the last part of a winter project. We'll see where it goes. 11s are much easier to deal with.
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Were you running 11" travel shocks before? If so, why the switch to 12"?

I'll go check it out (y)
 
Chris said:
Were you running 11" travel shocks before? If so, why the switch to 12"?

I'll go check it out (y)
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My front ranchos are 10.73". I have an extra pair of 12" Foxes and no stock air box to chop up. Everything Blaine says is correct. The clearances are tight and it is quite a bit more work to get the bigger shock positioned. I know pretty well what to look for and once my front axle is in its final position, I'll make the final decision on if this is something I want to put myself through.
 
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jjvw said:
It's great until it isn't! :)
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My foxes are still suffering from really harsh damping on sharp events like speed bumps, potholes etc it's not nice. The front coilovers I ordered from Fox a couple years ago and they did a custom tune to add flutter stack but it DEFINITELY needs a new tune just haven't got around to taking the rig down and pulling shocks.
 
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