Member III
sure thing... it can totally end up being a huge can o worms as I'm finding out with custom stuff we've been doing with our truck. The jeep is way easier in comparison
Not one... BUT TWO trucks! '12 JKU and '03 GMC Sierra...
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Enthusiast III
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I think the aussies and the overseas folk as a community will have a bit more experience with those trucks than we'll end up with out here. I flat out don't see a lot of those 200's around... even with the toyota guys. That said, they're super comfy trucks. I don't expect you to run into many issues with getting more suspension performance out of it, its still a fairly widely supported platform..
And yeah. The jeeps are like legos, you can pretty much get anything and it'll almost always bolt up. I don't have the normal build profile of an "overlander" or a rock crawler with mine, so its been a bit of an interesting build so far with the main goal to have stable high speed performance and reliability in those environments. At some point its going to get long arms to keep with the theme of lots of wheel travel and low COG....
The GMC Sierra on the other hand... its 2wd and the stock suspension sucks, so its been a constant work in progress. Needless to say, my welding is getting better!
Member III
spent some more time on the truck, fixing the stuff my wife managed to kill and then welding up some limit strap brackets and frame mounts...
Influencer III
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Member III
I got the truck back together yesterday before band practice. At some point I'm going to figure out how to make some limit stap mounts that can work with the the sway bar but but it's back in a drivable state so I'm stoked. Currently with the kind of cheap procomp prorunner shocks in the front, it's getting a bit over 10" of wheel travel so I'm pretty happy. Front springs still need to settle again, but it's driving pretty goooooood.
We'll go align it today then we have the EB gathering this afternoon. weeeee. Hopefully @Pi_Baker doesn't kill it right away again, LOL.
We'll go align it today then we have the EB gathering this afternoon. weeeee. Hopefully @Pi_Baker doesn't kill it right away again, LOL.
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little update...
@Pi_Baker and I cruised around on some easy trails in Hollister Hills, tried some tougher/steeper ones and nerves and the kid were the bigger limiting factors rather than the truck which is great. My crappy welds held up for the shock mount repairs, and the limit straps worked perfectly.
One thing we started noticing was the behavior of the G80 in the rear diff was sort of predictable but the clunkiness of getting consistent and predictable engagement was enough of a challenge that we're going to start looking at better rear diff options.
Needless to say, it's really difficult to do controlled movements and positioning of the truck in steep and off camber situations when the rear diff keeps locking and unlocking at random.
@Pi_Baker and I cruised around on some easy trails in Hollister Hills, tried some tougher/steeper ones and nerves and the kid were the bigger limiting factors rather than the truck which is great. My crappy welds held up for the shock mount repairs, and the limit straps worked perfectly.
One thing we started noticing was the behavior of the G80 in the rear diff was sort of predictable but the clunkiness of getting consistent and predictable engagement was enough of a challenge that we're going to start looking at better rear diff options.
Needless to say, it's really difficult to do controlled movements and positioning of the truck in steep and off camber situations when the rear diff keeps locking and unlocking at random.
Influencer II
Good looking rigs! Really impressed with the work you've put into both of them. Didi read that right and you have 800lb springs on the front coil overs? I think the factory ones on my F150 are only 630lb ones, lol. How are you liking the King Bump Stops? I'd love to go full King setup all the way around but the budget just isn't there for it so i'm going Fox without the resi's. Really digging the rigs though, keep up the kick ass work!
Member III
Coilovers in the GMC has been a bit of an experiment/cluster fsk tbh, my partner ended up breaking one on our last trip so we had to stick the factory springs and standard shock back in while we get ready for the next stage in that truck.
The next stage for the front is to:
- Cut the factory spring perch off and weld on some coil over towers from ruffstuff specialties
- find a better spot for the limit strap clevis
- put an 8" travel coilover shocks in, we're looking at Kings for this stage. Ton of money but worth it given how hard she drives this thing
- add better bumpstops to the front (looking at hydro bumps for this, as well...)
Then. When we get all that done to the front... we'll have to tackle the rear.
At this point she just has a small block and an AAl back there. I'd like to replace the spring pack or go with one of those Deaver mini-pack things at some point, but who knows. We'll be re-doing the rear shock mounts, mounting locations and some shackle stuff as well but as always its a trade off between performance, load capacity, how much work we want to put in.
The downside to all of this it'll be a lot of money and fab work, but its also a learning experience and should be a lot of fun to get there. For the front springs... The stock control arms have the spring/shock mount fairly far inboard so the shock motion ratio ends up being fairly low for the amount of wheel travel we get out of it and it ends up requiring more dampening force and higher spring rates to support the trucks weight because of the larger moment of the control arm. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I'm going to model the front suspension of this truck in CAD and play with it a bunch and see if i can get a better idea of the dynamics and forces that the suspension will see through its range of travel and maybe give me a better starting point for designing/sketching up some new lower control arms... So far based on what we've looked at for numbers with the control arm length, how inboard it is, the angle, and the front weight of the truck stuff in the 650-750 is where we wanted to be, 800 was a bit too high at first so we went with some 550 after.. and those were way too soft. Coilover spring rate is a bit of black magic to say the least.
Currently we have some Pro-comp mono tube shocks, which are just rebranded Bilstein 5100's in the GMC and they've been fine so far. So we'll see how they do in the interm before we re-do the front. Again. I'll be interested to see if the rears hold up or if we have to go to a better shock. Or if she blows them up again....
As for the hydro bumps on the jeep...
... they're awesome. Its one of the better mods Ive done on my jeep so far, really makes a huge difference in being able to carry speed on fast open dirt roads. I'll be doing rear hydro bumps in the jeep at some point as well, but I don't bottom on the rear as bad as the front was its lower priority. Currently in the I have 2.0 shocks with resi's and that has been a pretty good match for my driving style, the weight of the rig and clearance. I was tempted to go with 2.5's on it, but to do that I would have had to made some major tweaks to the shock mounting on the front by the axle and up by the frame. The rear would have had to have the upper mounts moved a bit as well, so in the interest of reducing downtime and saving the hurt on my wallet the 2.0's were a better off the shelf solution.
I'd highly recommend you get something with an external reservoir for the shocks if you can, it makes a big difference when you start really pushing them.
Influencer II
Wow, you definitely can kick some ass on fabrication work, and the access to CAD is definitely a huge help, i miss having access to that program, haha. If you haven't i'd strongly recommend reaching out to the owner over at Filthy Motorsports. Ben is an awesome guy and damn near has a PHD in aftermarket suspensions. He is a King Dealer over in Colarado. His number is 720-545-2279 or you can shoot him an email at sales@filthyms.com he always responds.
I really like the idea of the hydraulic bump stops because they also allow you to get more use out of the shock. When you don't have a bump stop you have to compensate for that in the shock body and therefore wind up limiting the usefulness of the shock. Basically trying to make the shock do both jobs instead of one. I definitely want to go resi's on my setup but i don't have the ability for the high speed offroading that you guys do out on the left coast unfortunately so i may squeak by for a few years without them.
Either way, really impressed by your work and what you both have done and plan to do with your rigs. Y'all are definitely some awesome people! Keep trucking!
I really like the idea of the hydraulic bump stops because they also allow you to get more use out of the shock. When you don't have a bump stop you have to compensate for that in the shock body and therefore wind up limiting the usefulness of the shock. Basically trying to make the shock do both jobs instead of one. I definitely want to go resi's on my setup but i don't have the ability for the high speed offroading that you guys do out on the left coast unfortunately so i may squeak by for a few years without them.
Either way, really impressed by your work and what you both have done and plan to do with your rigs. Y'all are definitely some awesome people! Keep trucking!
Member III
Yep, Ben is who I've been working with for the shock stuff and like figuring out what will work best for our 'not-quite a pre-runner, but gets driven like one' truck. He's an awesome dude!
Member III
I picked up some flat fenders for the Jeep... hopefully this is the end of my tires rubbing at full compression. There are some inner fenders on the way as well, so hopefully those will be on this weekend. With any luck I'll be able to start on my overhead console this week to, but I'm not holding out hope.
I still need to figure out a good way/place to relocate the resi's on my shocks too.
I still need to figure out a good way/place to relocate the resi's on my shocks too.
Member III
Got a bunch of projects finishes up on both trucks... We got two of these boxes finished for the back of the truck, we're still working on coating them and then getting em installed but it's nice to have em done and making that odd bit of space more usable in the back. Don't mine
I also picked up a new HL jack for the Jeep, i finally got around to replacing the one that got stolen like 5 years ago, so it's nice to have one again.
Also got some Baja Designs S2's hooked up to replace the long gone oem fogs. There ended up being just enough space by the front body mount/frame horn to bolt them, which is pretty awesome as they're kept low and fairly out of the way of anything smacking them.
Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to escape the Bay Area to the Shaver lake region get a few days out away from everything.
I also picked up a new HL jack for the Jeep, i finally got around to replacing the one that got stolen like 5 years ago, so it's nice to have one again.
Also got some Baja Designs S2's hooked up to replace the long gone oem fogs. There ended up being just enough space by the front body mount/frame horn to bolt them, which is pretty awesome as they're kept low and fairly out of the way of anything smacking them.
Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to escape the Bay Area to the Shaver lake region get a few days out away from everything.
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Influencer II
Member III
Member III
Welp, got a few updates... we have a death valley trip in a couple days so all the little projects are getting wrapped up. First is getting some betrer storage in truck wrapped up....
Then the Jeep got a bunch of work... new rear LCAs and the trackbar bracket got welded on.
then last night I pulled out the front LCAs to deal with the one I bent and realigned the front. between all that it drives a bit better.
Then the Jeep got a bunch of work... new rear LCAs and the trackbar bracket got welded on.
then last night I pulled out the front LCAs to deal with the one I bent and realigned the front. between all that it drives a bit better.
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Enthusiast III
Member III
Nope, the slide is pretty much at the bottom of the bed. We deal with lots of bins in there, lol.
