trying to decide on what shocks to buy...

Darky said:
Ok, so just ordered my shocks. Bilstein 7100s 12" short bodies with 360/80 valving up front and 10" short bodies with 278/76 or something for the rear. :D Got em from eshocks.com with free shipping. I'm vurry excited. I suppose I will have to order some shock conversions now for the front..
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Front seems like it will be kind of stiff...? Not sure what the go-fast guys use but I run 255/70 up front and it works very well for crawling and the road.
 
MoparManiac said:
Front seems like it will be kind of stiff...? Not sure what the go-fast guys use but I run 255/70 up front and it works very well for crawling and the road.
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From reading they're recommendations in here, they usually say the 255/70 is too soft, and the 360 is great. However, I'm debating. I may call eshocks and see if I can drop the fronts down the the 276 and the rears are already 255/70, not the one I said.:)
 
Darky said:
Ok, so just ordered my shocks. Bilstein 7100s 12" short bodies with 360/80 valving up front and 10" short bodies with 278/76 or something for the rear. :D Got em from eshocks.com with free shipping. I'm vurry excited. I suppose I will have to order some shock conversions now for the front..
Click to expand...
Don't relocate your lower mount. I'm running 12" shortbodies and have about 3" of droop and 9" up. I would have gone 14" SB's had I known.
 
crazyjim said:
Don't relocate your lower mount. I'm running 12" shortbodies and have about 3" of droop and 9" up. I would have gone 14" SB's had I known.
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how much lift are you running?

when i get the $$ i plan on doing the lower BPE and upper shock mount conversion from barnett performance products. and im running 4" of lift.
 
MaxxXJ said:
how much lift are you running?

when i get the $$ i plan on doing the lower BPE and upper shock mount conversion from barnett performance products. and im running 4" of lift.
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Just find a ramp or ledge or something to drive up onto to where your suspension will be flexed out, chock your wheels, put on the e-brake, and measure compressed and extended.
 
ME, Cal, Tony and Jim all attest to the 360/80 valving (I might have had even stiffer on mine) and it works great. I dont think it was too stiff for the street but I had a long arm lift and control arm angles have as much affect on ride as the shocks(maybe more).
 
Not sure how relevant an example this is, but I have 1/2" of travel before my bumpstops touch, and about 2" more travel after that on my daily driver and crappy arkansas roads. The ride is firm but not bad at all, and I even get comments that it rides well for a jeep. I'm planning on 360/80s in the front and softer in the back when I upgrade shocks.
 
Goatman said:
Relatively soft rear springs work well for both rock crawling and going fast, so no real compromise there. We've also found that shock valving makes little to no difference for crawling, valve the shocks for going fast and they work just fine for the slow speeds of crawling. Stiffer front springs also work fine for crawling, but they can make normal trails a little more bouncy and not quite so comfortable. You don't need to worry about articulation, as long as there's enough flex, beyond that the lockers do the work and a little stiffer suspension generally makes the rig more stable which at some point also makes it perform better on the trail. We've learned that if you can fully compress the suspension (to the bumps) when articulating on the trail then it's way to soft for the fast stuff getting to the trail. If you set the whole thing up for the fast stuff and have lockers it still works great on the trail, with very minor compromises.
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I have thought that compression valving is not all that critical in the slow stuff. that being said I got talked into 30/90 on my new shocks which I was planning on using to go slow. but now I'm seeing all the hammers stuff and I wouldn't mind being able to go a little quicker. I'm thinking about going to 60/40 as a starting point to begin with. fox seems to like the 30/90 for rocks, and 60/40 for the quicker stuff. any ideas from you guys. oh yeah, 12" 2.0's in front, 14" in the rear.
 
MONSTERxbla said:
I have thought that compression valving is not all that critical in the slow stuff. that being said I got talked into 30/90 on my new shocks which I was planning on using to go slow. but now I'm seeing all the hammers stuff and I wouldn't mind being able to go a little quicker. I'm thinking about going to 60/40 as a starting point to begin with. fox seems to like the 30/90 for rocks, and 60/40 for the quicker stuff. any ideas from you guys. oh yeah, 12" 2.0's in front, 14" in the rear.
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If you're going through the floor in the rear the valving is going to be completely different. Make sure you tell fox that, and go with exactly what they recommend. They'll know better than anybody here where to start. Then learn how to tune shocks and start playing around :D
 
Darky said:
Just find a ramp or ledge or something to drive up onto to where your suspension will be flexed out, chock your wheels, put on the e-brake, and measure compressed and extended.
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... but that requires finding a ramp/ledge, removing a shock, crawling under it to measure it etc etc... it sounds like alot of work :). ok... so when i can find something near my house that has enough height to let me fully flex out, i'll post my extended and compressed lengths. although right now my compressed length = hitting the top of the fender well cuz my bump stops arent extended yet. maybe i can find a backhoe or fork lift to give me more of a maximum measurement.
 
I'm lucky enough to have about a 4 foot high ledge near my house that I used. Took a few tries to get the right angle for full flex, but it worked out pretty good. Check the Bilstein shortbody 7100s, they allowed me to get a 12" travel shock up front where any other 12" was too long compressed. :)
 
every freaking grocery store in town has the same height ledge all the way down to the bottom so i cant just crawl up it. at this local jeep club they have an RTI ramp im sure i could used but i'll have to ask them and travel across town to get to the shop they meet at.

bottom line, i just gotta stop being lazy :)
 
I measured my shock length by measuring eye to eye from axle to body, subtracting 6" and thats a decent full compressed number and look for a shock real close to that number and the full droop is just whatever you end up with.
 
Oil Town XJ said:
I was thing 360/80 fronts and 255/70 rear
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I would give that a try. Worse case, you change it later. I ran 7100's with 360/80 up front and Pro comp Es3000's out back (was saving to put my 14" 7100's through the floor) and it did really well considering they were crap shocks. haha
 
Darky said:
That's exactly what I'm running, and for the little I've run it, it feels pretty good. I'm no expert though, so take it as you may.
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How much lift do you have? I would go back and read but just got this far in the post and getting lazy. I see your online so if figure this would be quicker

Dave

to all that reads this. I also have 255/70 all around works fine but want to go 360/80 up front
 
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