shock ideas

[William Winkler]

Hello

I have been a lurker on this site for a couple of years, but This is my first post, so don't get too crazy please. Last year I put a used eagle camper on my 2004 toyota tacoma. A month later added air bags. I keep the camper on. The ride is bouncy off road and street speed bumps send the dogs a flying. Springs and everything else is stock. Here is my question. Anybody out there with the same or similar rig reading this have a suggestion for shocks? I am considering purchasing some Bilstein 5100 all around. Friends say this will be good enough to excellent. I don't want much or any lift ... so set at 0 ... since they are adjustable. here are a couple of other question. does anybody really adjust the shocks? Is this difficult? Do I really need new leaf springs or springs or anything else like new bushings and washers which some on line places sell separately.
Love yer opinion.
Thanks

 

[Silvertip47]

Did your camper bounce before the air bags? A lot of people do not understand the purpose of air bags. They are not designed to replace any part of your suspension. Just level from front to rear and side to side which would leave the stock suspension free to do it's job.

You take away from spring steel with inflated rubber balls, yeah, it's going to bounce!!!

1. Experiment with them by reducing the air pressure.

2. Make sure they are plumbed separately. Together they can cause more problems than they can fix.

3. I had adj shocks on my last rig. It was a PITA to crawl under and adj each one each time. I now have HD Bilsteins and love them. Adj shocks do not raise or lower the ride height of the truck. It only affects the dampening speed of the shock. 0= soft ride, 9= stiff.

 

[dsrtrat]

The 5100 Bilstein shocks are for leveling the truck by moving the shock mount, not for ride, stiffness and rebound. It's position is changed by moving a small snap ring on the shock body.
I have the 5100's on my full size Chevy Silverado Z1 that came with factory Bilsteins and the 5100's are a much better shock with a superior ride.
Dsrtrat

Hello

I have been a lurker on this site for a couple of years, but This is my first post, so don't get too crazy please. Last year I put a used eagle camper on my 2004 toyota tacoma. A month later added air bags. I keep the camper on. The ride is bouncy off road and street speed bumps send the dogs a flying. Springs and everything else is stock. Here is my question. Anybody out there with the same or similar rig reading this have a suggestion for shocks? I am considering purchasing some Bilstein 5100 all around. Friends say this will be good enough to excellent. I don't want much or any lift ... so set at 0 ... since they are adjustable. here are a couple of other question. does anybody really adjust the shocks? Is this difficult? Do I really need new leaf springs or springs or anything else like new bushings and washers which some on line places sell separately.
Love yer opinion.
Thanks

 

[ntsqd]

Trying not to delve to deep into damper (shock) tuning; leaf springs have a mild rising spring rate (spring rate vs. compression distance) and a lot of internal friction so their damper settings don't have to be too aggressive to get the job done. Air springs have a large rising spring rate and require more aggressive damping. From purely a damper tuning perspective it is never good to mix spring types as that makes getting the damping right a very large chore - if it can even be done. Since most dampers for the rear axle will be calibrated for leaf springs, the lower the pressure that the air springs can be operated at, the better matched the damper will be to the suspension and the better job it will do.

No pure shock has any ride height adjusting potential, with the two caveats: high pressure gas charged shocks do have a *tiny* spring rate built into them (due to internal geometry) - so they will have a very small impact on ride height; and that some front applications have some form of spring seat height adjustment. How much "spring rate" is added by the damper depends on how much weight is on that tire, what the charge pressure is, and what the shaft diameter is.

No Bilstein damper for a street-driven vehicle that I am familiar with has an external valving adjustment, knob or otherwise. The 0 to 9 adjustment stuff belongs to Rancho shocks.

 

[William Winkler]

Did your camper bounce before the air bags? A lot of people do not understand the purpose of air bags. They are not designed to replace any part of your suspension. Just level from front to rear and side to side which would leave the stock suspension free to do it's job.

You take away from spring steel with inflated rubber balls, yeah, it's going to bounce!!!

1. Experiment with them by reducing the air pressure.

2. Make sure they are plumbed separately. Together they can cause more problems than they can fix.

3. I had adj shocks on my last rig. It was a PITA to crawl under and adj each one each time. I now have HD Bilsteins and love them. Adj shocks do not raise or lower the ride height of the truck. It only affects the dampening speed of the shock. 0= soft ride, 9= stiff.



Thanks for the info
The truck has always seemed "loose", but with the addition of the camper has come a different kind of bounce. In some off road conditions the bounce has gone resonant from side to side and I have had to stop driving and let the shimmy dissipate before continuing. The air bags did level the truck. The bags are each set at 30psi. Any lower pressure makes for non level. I ordered some shocks ... Bilstein 5100's and hope this will dampen the bounce and tighten things up a bit to a lot. The shocks are adjustable, according to the salesman, before mounting to the truck. The adjustment is apparently for lift purposes only, and to change or adjust the shock requires much effort. I went with the 5100's over the HD Bilsteuns because I do enjoy offloading and the 5100's are designed for offroad whereas the HD's are just supposed to be great shocks, but un lift able. They will arrive in a week or so.

 

[William Winkler]

The 5100 Bilstein shocks are for leveling the truck by moving the shock mount, not for ride, stiffness and rebound. It's position is changed by moving a small snap ring on the shock body.
I have the 5100's on my full size Chevy Silverado Z1 that came with factory Bilsteins and the 5100's are a much better shock with a superior ride.
Dsrtrat



The 5100's have been ordered. Once installed I will report back.
I appreciate your response.

 

[William Winkler]

Trying not to delve to deep into damper (shock) tuning; leaf springs have a mild rising spring rate (spring rate vs. compression distance) and a lot of internal friction so their damper settings don't have to be too aggressive to get the job done. Air springs have a large rising spring rate and require more aggressive damping. From purely a damper tuning perspective it is never good to mix spring types as that makes getting the damping right a very large chore - if it can even be done. Since most dampers for the rear axle will be calibrated for leaf springs, the lower the pressure that the air springs can be operated at, the better matched the damper will be to the suspension and the better job it will do.

No pure shock has any ride height adjusting potential, with the two caveats: high pressure gas charged shocks do have a *tiny* spring rate built into them (due to internal geometry) - so they will have a very small impact on ride height; and that some front applications have some form of spring seat height adjustment. How much "spring rate" is added by the damper depends on how much weight is on that tire, what the charge pressure is, and what the shaft diameter is.

No Bilstein damper for a street-driven vehicle that I am familiar with has an external valving adjustment, knob or otherwise. The 0 to 9 adjustment stuff belongs to Rancho shocks.

ted


Thanks for the reply. I erroneously thought that the adjusting Bilstein shocks could be adjusted for ride comfort for when the camper was off or on the truck. The many tech folks I spoke with helped me understand that the shock adjustability was for lift purposes only and that one would not often do this adjustment. I do like the option and did order the shocks. The Ranchos were a bit chi chi for my wallet. The cool factor was, however, very large.