Where to buy coil overs???

[GrimmJeeper]

You've got plenty of room for a bypass. Jeepspeeds do it all day long. The only advantage of a coilover really is packaging and getting more travel.

x2

 

[silverslk]

King/SAW/Bilstien are all roughly the same as far as piston design, shim design, functionality etc, they are dimensionally different so you can't really interchange parts, but to say they put "technology" in their shocks while the "others" don't is kind of misleading.. It all comes down to valving and customer service. No experience with FOA, never had one apart.

I would have to disagree with you Chris. Putting Bilstein with SAW and King is a bit misleading. King/SAW/Fox maybe but Bilstein has technology.....lets see if we can get some professional experience in here.

 

[Cache96]

ok.. so what would you guys recommend? I know its up to me in the end i just want to get different opinions from people that have or have seen these setups installed.:yelclap:

 

[grandrunner]

id go bypass if i had the dough

 

[Skullver]

I would have to disagree with you Chris. Putting Bilstein with SAW and King is a bit misleading. King/SAW/Fox maybe but Bilstein has technology.....lets see if we can get some professional experience in here.

technology? They all have a piston with bleed holes, they all use shim stacks on either side of the piston for valving, and they all come in a steel can and use orings to seal? What is this "technology" you speak of? It most definitely isn't rocket science! Getting the valving "right" is a whole nother story...

 

[crazyjim]

Bilstein is doing some cool new things with their shocks. Joel over at Bilstein is constantly testing and figuring out new ways to dampen, cool, and generally make shocks more reliable. Most of it is still in the prototype stages, and you won't see or hear about it. However you'll start to see them on race cars first, as that's where he's testing them all. I haven't seen Fox, King or Swayaway do anything "new" or "revolutionary" in shocks. If you want revolution, look at Bilstein's blackhawk... everything about that shock is revolutionary, and that technology is starting to leak over into their other shocks slowly but surely.

Put it this way, if I were building a race car, I'd want bilstein on my team. Simply for the fact that they strive to make sure you win, hands on.

I'm pretty sure the AGM Class 1 car that overalled at the baja was running a 2.5 shock up front... a 2.5... and never overheated.

 

[Skullver]

Bilstein is doing some cool new things with their shocks. Joel over at Bilstein is constantly testing and figuring out new ways to dampen, cool, and generally make shocks more reliable. Most of it is still in the prototype stages, and you won't see or hear about it. However you'll start to see them on race cars first, as that's where he's testing them all. I haven't seen Fox, King or Swayaway do anything "new" or "revolutionary" in shocks. If you want revolution, look at Bilstein's blackhawk... everything about that shock is revolutionary, and that technology is starting to leak over into their other shocks slowly but surely.

Put it this way, if I were building a race car, I'd want bilstein on my team. Simply for the fact that they strive to make sure you win, hands on.

I'm pretty sure the AGM Class 1 car that overalled at the baja was running a 2.5 shock up front... a 2.5... and never overheated.

I am just trying to help the op, blackhawks are bigger, have extruded aluminum bodies=fins=more surface area=better heat dissipation, but it still uses a piston, shims, oil and nitrogen, reservior/dividing piston and maybe a few little trick valves etc, and that is great that Bilsteins is working hard on being innovative, I totally beleive you and that is great. But the op asked about coilovers, and where to buy them. Personally I think he would be absolutley fine with any of the 4 big companies, King/SAW/FOX/Bilstein, the off the shelf shocks he will be running are all roughly the same, I think getting any deeper than that here would be superfluous Not trying to argue, just trying to stick on topic, I highly doubt anybody on here is planning on running blackhawks on thier cherokee, although it would be cool to have that kind of coin. Glad you guys have had good experiences with Bilstein, but they are not the end all, pelnty of winning tt's run KING, FOX, Robby Gordon, Revolution, etc etc, but that is neither here nor there
Cheers

 

[whooprunner]

I am just trying to help the op, blackhawks are bigger, have extruded aluminum bodies=fins=more surface area=better heat dissipation, but it still uses a piston, shims, oil and nitrogen, reservior/dividing piston and maybe a few little trick valves etc, and that is great that Bilsteins is working hard on being innovative, I totally beleive you and that is great. But the op asked about coilovers, and where to buy them. Personally I think he would be absolutley fine with any of the 4 big companies, King/SAW/FOX/Bilstein, the off the shelf shocks he will be running are all roughly the same, I think getting any deeper than that here would be superfluous Not trying to argue, just trying to stick on topic, I highly doubt anybody on here is planning on running blackhawks on thier cherokee, although it would be cool to have that kind of coin. Glad you guys have had good experiences with Bilstein, but they are not the end all, pelnty of winning tt's run KING, FOX, Robby Gordon, Revolution, etc etc, but that is neither here nor there
Cheers

I agree with skullver. All of the major shock manufacturers have similar technology and not much has changed in the last decade. I do have to say that Bilstein has great customer service for the race teams. We ran them in JeepSpeed in 2004 and they did great! The thing missing from their lineup are 3" shocks comparable to the other shock manufacturers.

 

[grandrunner]

i noticed you were running wheel spacers in the front. no warping or damaging anything?

 

[ratboy93]

King/SAW/Bilstien are all roughly the same as far as piston design, shim design, functionality etc, they are dimensionally different so you can't really interchange parts, but to say they put "technology" in their shocks while the "others" don't is kind of misleading.. It all comes down to valving and customer service. No experience with FOA, never had one apart.

FOA is a mixture of king and fox parts to make one... as in the seals i have a set of 2.5x10" there nothing special but for the price you cant beat them. the piston is black and white different from a king or a fox. when i rebuilt my foa the rebuild kit was odd quality.. the rubber seals were great but the piston ring was very crude i had to clean up all the edges so they would seal better. now the valving. i ordered a .20 stack of shims. basically thats a medium compression and from what they say is there "jeepspeed" valving.. not only are the shims low quality the have a small lip on the edges of the shims from being stamped. i did some light sanding and that was taken care of. the shim specs from foa lingo is a .20 stack well that was to soft imo so i used some shims my buddy had in his shop and from what the math said they are now 35% stiffer on compression and the rebound is about .20? i think i forgot

conclusion= they work well but had to make them work that way.. def wont out of the box. maybe the viton seals will be different but idk..... i would still prefer KOA hahaha King Over All

 

[RCman]

I think Skuller nailed it, for stuff the OP is going to be running he can't go wrong with any of the big names. Sure there are some sweet quad bypasses and such, but those are out of the realm for most XJ guys. While I've only got a few runs down, but I'm happy with my SAWs.

... Bilstein is constantly testing and figuring out new ways to dampen, cool, and generally make shocks more reliable. Most of it is still in the prototype stages, and you won't see or hear about it. ....

What makes you think that SAW/Fox/King are not doing the exact same thing? Don't get me wrong here I'm sure Bilstein makes a great product, but you seem to be clouded into thinking that they are the only ones trying to develop new things.

 

[Cache96]

Nice talk on shocks guys, this is actually very interesting. Ryan, i have had no problems with the spacers. i have had them on for about 2 1/2 years now.

 

[ratboy93]

king/fox/saw all do R&D workand are always lookin for a way to better there producttake king for instance.. look at there factory style bypass and resivoir shocks. bolt in on a slightly lifted or stock trucks.

fox... 4.4 5 tube bypass thats an amazing shock that i guarantee that they work as well as a blackhawk. alot of tt run fox. alot run blackhawk too.

saw i dont know what they got going on lol.


they all look for new innovating products... i think bilsteins are just a lil more out of the box

 

[crazyjim]

I need Joel in here to get technical, but he built me and Tony a set of coilovers specifically for the front of our trucks. They have sort of a speed sensitive bypass instead of a position sensitive to firm up the shocks during rapid compression. This helps Jeeps especially to stay on top of the whoops. It made a night and day difference in Tonys bronco. I can assure you no other company has that technology... Yet. However Bilstein is still the first.

 

[crazyjim]

fox... 4.4 5 tube bypass thats an amazing shock that i guarantee that they work as well as a blackhawk. alot of tt run fox. alot run blackhawk too.

The fox will not cool as well as the Blackhawk.

Also keep in mind the Bilstein 9100 is a 2.65 vs. a 2.5 from all other companies.

 

[tcm glx]

I need Joel in here to get technical, but he built me and Tony a set of coilovers specifically for the front of our trucks. They have sort of a speed sensitive bypass instead of a position sensitive to firm up the shocks during rapid compression. This helps Jeeps especially to stay on top of the whoops. It made a night and day difference in Tonys bronco. I can assure you no other company has that technology... Yet. However Bilstein is still the first.

X 2, They are also working on heat exchangers to lower shock body temps.... Now, it may be possible that the other manufacturers such as King/Fox/SAW are working on similar stuff, but I have not heard about it.

The other really cool thing about Bilstein is the willingness they have been putting out to help tune people's rides... that is just GOLDEN!!

 

[whooprunner]

I need Joel in here to get technical, but he built me and Tony a set of coilovers specifically for the front of our trucks. They have sort of a speed sensitive bypass instead of a position sensitive to firm up the shocks during rapid compression. This helps Jeeps especially to stay on top of the whoops. It made a night and day difference in Tonys bronco. I can assure you no other company has that technology... Yet. However Bilstein is still the first.

Hey Jim, what you are describing sounds like a flutter stack style of shock valving. This style lets you have lighter valving for slow shaft speed and stiffer valving for fast shaft speed. This can be done in any shock regardless of brand. I'd be curious to take apart your coilover to see if this the case

http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/sh...r-Stack-VS.-Conventional-Stack-(shock-valving)

http://www.dezertrangers.com/vb/truck-talk/21353.htm

 

[crazyjim]

I'm positive it's not a flutter stack. Joel designed a valve to accomplish this.

 

[Skullver]

I need Joel in here to get technical, but he built me and Tony a set of coilovers specifically for the front of our trucks. They have sort of a speed sensitive bypass instead of a position sensitive to firm up the shocks during rapid compression. This helps Jeeps especially to stay on top of the whoops. It made a night and day difference in Tonys bronco. I can assure you no other company has that technology... Yet. However Bilstein is still the first.

where is this "valve"? On a bypass shock the bypass tubes are position sensitve, and the shims are velocity sensitive, so where would one have to put a "valve" to make a shock velocity sensitive? On the shaft, hollow of sorts? On the piston itself? Crack 'em open and take some pics! Until then this statement : "I can assure you no other company has that technology... Yet. However Bilstein is still the first" cannot be made accurately at all! In fact Edelbrock has been claiming they have "velocity senstive" shocks for a while, no they are not the super bling rebuildable race shocks but same marketing principle.

While I like to believe what people say, I know better. Every single pair of rebuildable shocks I have owned I have taken apart immediately and went through them, not hard to do and does wonders for understanding how they work.

And that is wonderful that Bilstein works with folks to tune shocks, but I assure you so do the "others", to the same degree? Who can really say? Can you? My experiences with SAW have been great, they have went above and beyond to help me with anything from valving advice, to actually have them ship my shock bodies in to them so they could remove a super stuck fitting for the resi, free. I bought those shocks used.

I think sharing experiences is very productive, but throwing out unfounded comparisons and such is not really helping anybody, I completely understand you guys like Bilsteins and have good luck with them. I mean yes a Blackhawk may run cooler than a Fox 4.whatever, at what cost and does everybody really benefit from that extra cost? They have extruded aluminum bodies with added fins, very expensive to make them that way, but that is the only reason they run cooler, they function the same. Shocks turn motion into heat by way of friction, so they all create the same amount of heat in a given cycle, but they dissipate it differently. Plenty of folks do fine without them. Racing is expensive, part of the battle is allocating those funds where you will see the most benefit.

I am really curious now, somebody break open them custom coilovers and take some pics please.

 

[tcm glx]

Chris, the valve goes in the resi, and is not meant for bypasses, meant for coilovers... Not sure how to explain it other than on a very hard hit, they really help stiffen the valving up in order not to bottom as hard.

As for the heat exhanger, this is a radiator, and goes in line with the resi as well.

I agree that others I am sure are trying new things, and wouldn't knock them. I think Andy, Jim and myself bleed Bilstein just because of the enthusiasum we have been fortunate enough to see from their heads of off road department. I mean, I am the average smo... not running a Trophy Truck or anything like that, but I am fortunate enough to take 1-2 hours of tuning time away from Bilstein on a regular basis to try experimental things on the Bronco, as well as tune them to work well, and I must say, i am very pleased.... the Bronco runs like a bat out of hell (IMO).

Here are some of the pics of things I have seen already on the boards, so i am sure Joel would not be upset if I posted:
Heat Echanger:

Winning setup on a Class 1 Car at the SF250 (Overall winner)

Another setup similar, this is a bypass, with a resi full of oil to keep temps down, and then a blackhawk resi (the Blackhawk resi is where the technology started for the ACV (secondary valve) )