When I converted my EB E350 V10 to 4X4 I decided to go with the new Fox Shox 2.0 Performance Series IFP shocks.
http://www.ridefox.com/product.php?m...sal&ref=filter
I already had these shocks on my F250 SuperDuty 4X4, they are for a 2" leveling kit and I was very happy with them. Fox didn't have an off the shelf application for my conversion but it turned out that the front shocks on my F250 were exactly the correct extended and collapsed lengths for the rear axle and bolted right in place.
Because I was building my own front suspension, using a Dana 50 Twin Traction Beam from a Ford 1 Ton pickup truck, I could build my shock mounts as I wanted - so I chose to use the same shock on the front suspension as well. It is nice to be able to use the same application an all four corners.
My front suspension cycles just at 12 inches of wheel travel, 5 inches up from ride height and 7 inches of droop. The rear has about 10.5 inches, split in half.
I have about 1000 off-road miles on this setup so far and it handles awesome, especially off-road, and especially higher speeds off-road - which is where many of the miles have come from on the dirt roads of Baja. The shocks work really well right off the shelf - but I am one who always want just enough and a little bit more.
Today I pulled all the shocks off and headed over to Fox Shox in El Cajon where Joe Moore, and I opened them up to re-valve them to improve a few handling characteristics that I knew could be better. Joe went on a test drive with me last week, so we had a good idea of what we wanted to do.
The main thing I wanted to do was eliminate some of the body roll that I had when pulling into a driveway or going through a dip at an angle or cornering on undulating roads. We determined that the low speed rebound valving, both front and rear, was the main issue to address and I also wanted to add a bit more compression damping to the front shocks.
Joe called the engineers who worked on the design of these shocks and they too joined us for a discussion of what changes to make.
New valve stacks were assembled and installed and the shocks were recharged with 200psi of nitrogen.
I headed back to my race shop and installed them, then headed home for dinner.
OMG!!! Near perfect and accomplished exactly what I wanted. All but eliminated the body roll, firmed up the ride and control all around, but still a very comfortable ride.
In two more weeks we will be back down in Baja for the NORRA Mexican 1000 and many miles of off-road and I can't wait to see how the new setup does.
Maybe I won't wait - a short trip to the desert seems in order.
Thanks Fox Shox again!
watchtower, white whale, land yacht, big pig...
Linear Mode
