shock length to use? front toyota shock mounts

rooinater · Jan 8, 2007

well i decided on the bbcs shocks, but am curious at what shock length i should go with in the front and in the rear. should i mount them straight up or angled in in the back. and for the front shock mounts should i just build shock towers out of square stock? i heard something about using ford shock mounts? any suggestions on shock length, mounting or pics of mounting is greatly appreciated.

84Toyota4x4 · Jan 8, 2007

Shock length is something thats gonna be different for every truck, lots of variables. You might find someone with a similar or the same setup, which would get you close, but if you're doing anything too super flexy and stuff, you should just flex it out and measure them.

The Ford shock mounts are Ford part #E5TZ-18183-A I would personally just get a set of tube shock mounts, they look better IMO.

~T.J.

bite me · Jan 8, 2007

yea but at $12 each, I'd run the ford shock towers...:redneck:

Pook · Jan 8, 2007

you'd probably be fine with 12" shocks in the front. less cutting needed to fit. I run the 15" shocks in my ftoy but I'm probally only using 13" of shock. I don't think I've fully extended them.

I'd run the 15" shocks in the back and as wide apart and as vertical as possible in the back to help with bodyroll and sidehill issues.

You can't go wrong with the bbcs they are an awesome shock, all though my ftoy is light, they make it drive like a dream hauling ass on the forestry roads and in the sand, and work great when crawling. I have also help install a few sets on full body'd rigs and had the similar results.

Paulie · Jan 8, 2007

i drove a rig with BBCS in the rear mounted straight up and there was no more body roll, took corners at 45 and stayed pretty level. id use them but possibly not all the way around. be a shitty ride since they are hard to compress. run em in the rear and some 12-14" bilsteins with remote resevoir up front. thinkin about it myself next month

mad chemist · Jan 9, 2007

Best thing to do is to to go find yourself a pile o' rocks some place and flex out your suspension, see what kind of length you'll need when you're fully extended, then fully compressed. You want a shock that will be handle both situations, with a little bit of wiggle-room. Bumpstops and shock limiting straps can be used to minimize overcompressing or over-extending shocks.

Shocks have the most dampening effect when they're mounted straight up and down. I think at a 30 deg. angle that you still get around 86% dampening efficiency- so, you can mount them at an angle to run longer shocks, and still get reasonable dampening.

I just put the ford shock towers on my fj40, used lower shock mounts from Ruffstuff specialties on the axle (I used shock mounts from Spidertrax for the rear).

Here's a good write-up for installing the Ford shock towers:

http://www.in2jeep.com/fordshockmt.htm

Hope that helps!

rooinater · Jan 9, 2007

so i'll be buying some ford shock towers, mount them or leave them off and flex it out. then measure the front end flex. figure out the shock length from there. the beds removed and i'll be building a flatbed. so i'll just run the 15" bbcs in the rear and make custom mounts.

so it would be advantageous to run something other than bbcs in the front? my toyota is not going to be a dd or constantly ran on the street. it'll be from the trail, on the trail and back to home rig.

84Toyota4x4 · Jan 9, 2007

You have to have the towers mounted to be able to measure the flex, if you were asking, I couldnt tell. Sounds to me like you have a plan!

~T.J.

rooinater · Jan 9, 2007

sweet, thank you guys. i was sort of asking, sort of deciding. thanks!

Pook · Jan 9, 2007

Paulie said:
i drove a rig with BBCS in the rear mounted straight up and there was no more body roll, took corners at 45 and stayed pretty level. id use them but possibly not all the way around. be a shitty ride since they are hard to compress. run em in the rear and some 12-14" bilsteins with remote resevoir up front. thinkin about it myself next month

I don't know what your talking about as far as shity ride goes.

My ftoy is lighter than any fullbodied toy and it rides great. 100x better than my old truck with rancho 9000's. I street drove the ftoy on the hwy in and out of Moab and it rode great on the street and have had it goin 65mph on FSR and in the desert.

Pook · Jan 9, 2007

mad chemist said:
Best thing to do is to to go find yourself a pile o' rocks some place and flex out your suspension, see what kind of length you'll need when you're fully extended, then fully compressed. You want a shock that will be handle both situations, with a little bit of wiggle-room. Bumpstops and shock limiting straps can be used to minimize overcompressing or over-extending shocks.

Shocks have the most dampening effect when they're mounted straight up and down. I think at a 30 deg. angle that you still get around 86% dampening efficiency- so, you can mount them at an angle to run longer shocks, and still get reasonable dampening.

I just put the ford shock towers on my fj40, used lower shock mounts from Ruffstuff specialties on the axle (I used shock mounts from Spidertrax for the rear).

Here's a good write-up for installing the Ford shock towers:

http://www.in2jeep.com/fordshockmt.htm

Hope that helps!

Biggest issue with the /\ most people run in the back of a toy is not how it effects the dampening but how the trucks pivots on the top of pyramid shape you have created with no resitance to body roll.

rooinater · Jan 9, 2007

so mount them as straight up and down as possible. so when i make trips to rim rock lake i don't roll over and down the hill, on them steep side hills? or have crappy body roll while driving? correct?

Pook · Jan 9, 2007

both reasons.

mad chemist · Jan 11, 2007

Pook said:
Biggest issue with the /\ most people run in the back of a toy is not how it effects the dampening but how the trucks pivots on the top of pyramid shape you have created with no resitance to body roll.

Hmmm...I think we're talking about the same thing. When you take a corner, you want to minimize compression of the leaf spring resulting from the force of the vehicle mass thrown to the outer side of the vehicle (ie., taking a left and turn, and body leaning right. That resistance to compression comes from the shock. When its mounted at angle, that resistance to the axle's vertical movement is less when the shock is mounted (opposite idea on other side- resisting spring extension). The axle doesn't really pivot on the shocks- its range of motion is the same regardless of how the shock is mounted, its how it responds to motion.... I think...

Dain Bramage · Jan 11, 2007

not to hijack here, but does that mean that i should make my rear shocks a little more vertical to negate some body roll?

mad chemist · Jan 11, 2007

http://www.4x4review.com/feature/shock-genius.asp

Here's another good link. Overall, if you'd rather have longer wheel travel for wheeling, mount at an angle and use a longer shock. If you wanted a real nice, controlled ride, buy a Lexus!