Bypass shocks for mid travel

hey everyone,

I've been on the hunt for bypass shocks for my mid travel setup. I'm planning on getting TC mid travel hoops and whatever bypass pairs with them. I currently have fox 2.5's w/ reservoirs all around with TC UCA, just looking to pick up a little more speed out in the desert.

Looking around online, I saw that fox discontinued their triple bypass for midtravels and radflo seems to still build them but with only 2 tubes. I know kings would probably have it but I don't want to wait next year to get them. I'm currently leaning more towards the Radflo 2.5 bypasses but I don't see anyone online talking about them (YouTube reviews, tundra forums). I was wondering if anyone here happens to know anything about how they run with this setup?

 

You can't just buy any off the shelf 6" (or whatever stroke is needed) bypass? I guess I don't see why you need a bypass specifically for midtravel, when any generic bypass with the right length should work. Fox, King, ADS, Radflo, Bilstein, lots of options then. I'd also look at hydro bumps if you haven't yet.

 

huh. well that's why I'm here asking about it hah. I had the impression that the bypass hoop had to match the bypass. when I looked at total chaos, they had hoops for mid travel and long travel tundra's. figured I'd try out the stock length one and get a pair of bypasses to match. I'll definitely have to call a few companies to see if they can special make a pair. If anything, I'll just try the radflo's and have them tuned with the shocks.

 

Looking at the TC hoops I'm a bit mistaken, I thought you had to set the shock position and weld the tabs where you wanted but they come welded. So in that case the next question is how are you attaching to the lower arm? If the arm mounting points can be moved, or you just cut off the TC shock tabs and then move them to where you want, then all you have to do is compress the suspension and see what length shock fits and adjust the mounts to fit that. If your lower arm already has secondary shock mounts, and you don't want to move the TC tabs, then you are forced into a corner a bit.

Also, MCM Fab is in Henderson or somewhere near you and does a lot of Tundra stuff. He might have the hook up for everything you need. He does a lot of ADS stuff, so you might be able to get a shock "off the shelf" from him that is valved and has the tubes where you want them. Might be worth a call.

 

Reviving this thread as I’m exploring secondaries for the front…

What sort of performance upgrade can I expect if I add secondary bypass shocks to my front setup? I’m currently running ADS 2.5 remote resi’s and 700lb springs with MCM UCA’s and some durobumps. Stock LCA’s. Wheel and tire combo is 17” method 703 with Toyo AT3 35x12.5

Is adding secondary shocks like a “holy shit, this is a whole new truck” experience or more like “Sweet, I can go 5 mph faster for my $$ investment” experience? LT is not out of the question for me in the future and I don’t want to dump dollars into a setup that doesn’t transfer over to LT and doesn’t provide a significant upgrade in performance over what I currently have.

Also, anyone know how the MCM/ADS secondary shocks mount to the stock LCA’s? Is the MCM shock hoop bolt in or a weld on? I’ll probably email Matt and check on it but wanted to pick the hives mind, as well. I think there’s a couple guys running this exact setup (or very similar). @GiantsFanDan @KevinK @reywcms @snivilous @831Tun @joonbug @Vizsla

 

Icon 2.5 Omega S2

 

The front out performs the rear even with the triples in the rear and u748's Deaver leaf packs. It is a whole different experience but you are limited to what the rear will do. It also all depends on what trails you want to do. Has a lot of options for adjustability but you will have to stop breakout tools and adjust each bypass tube with ADS.

 

Icon is only a 2 tube bypass so bit of a disadvantage for adjustability, but doesn't require tools.

 

Bypasses are a substantial difference in performance. I’m pretty sure mid travel stuff doesn’t transfer over to LT. If the ultimate plan is to be LT then just do it right off the bat. But back to bypasses.

We did this on my old man’s rig he went from adjustable kings upfront to adding a bypass and he can hit areas much faster. My personal setup I can tell a huge difference in performance. And my setup isn’t even tuned yet. I did play with my tubes a bit and it was a substantial difference in speed and performance over the same sections some sections 15mph faster.

 

Counter question: what wheeling are you doing? Why do you want or think you need bypasses or long travel/what is the truck doing that you don't like and think that will fix it?

Maybe there is a simpler/cheaper solution to give you what you want so you can save for the big boy travel.

 

Good input. Thanks, Dan. I'm familiar with adjustment of bypasses since I already have the ADS trip bypass on the rear. I havent really adjusted them all that much, but I do keep the little wrenches handy in my console if the fancy strikes me to make an adjustment. I would likely do the secondary shocks in ADS, as well, since that's what the rest of my shocks are already.

 

Thanks for the input, Rey. Sounds like I would definitely notice higher performance.

LT isnt out of the question, but it's also not sitting in my shopping cart ready to go...This is still my daily driver and I have other things to pay for in my life so LT is probably down the road a ways. Honestly I've had some pretty good times with a "mid travel" setup and if I can get even more performance out of it I may do these secondary shocks. I understand LT is higher performance, but it's also more cutting, tuning, welding, modifying, etc.. One thing just leads to another...

As you mentioned, tuning would make a huge difference. I know ADS "tunes" these shocks and C/O's for a tundra and the off the shelf valving isnt terrible, but I'm sure these things could do better. The key is knowing your terrain, driving style, what compromises you're willing to make, etc...I have a hard time believing that I would settle on the "stock tune" if I understood what other options I have with a tune. Once I have that better figured out I could definitely see myself investing in a good tune/re valve and spending time with someone who knows WTF they're doing inside a nice shock. I don't see myself investing the time and money into the tools that would allow me to do my own tear downs and re valving at home. Just too much going on elsewhere in my life for that business.

I saw these guys mentioned in a blog post some time ago and have been meaning to reach out and see what the deal is with their tuning services.https://www.303shockservices.com/shock-service It says on their website that they're not accepting any new clients for the rest of this year so it's probably something I need to schedule well in advance.

 

Good question. I'm mostly wheeling mountain roads/trails in CO. These things can vary from smooth dirt to gnarly rock piles that vaguely resemble an old road...Most of the fun stuff is old (non maintained) rail road grades, mining roads, logging roads, and the like. Potholes, washboards, exposed bedrock, water crossings, loose rock, smooth straightaways, tight treed paths, and more are usually on the agenda for the trails I run.

What I'd be looking for in ANY future suspension upgrade is the ability to travel gnarly terrain faster in more comfort and less risk of breaking my truck. I do have plans for 37's on the next set of tires, but that's hopefully 40k-50k miles down the road. In the mean time, looking at things like secondary bypass shocks to increase capability and let me party a little harder... Crawling around stuff isnt an issue, but I want to go faster. Seems like more cushion in my tires and better performance in the suspension is the way to do that.

 

I wouldn’t bother with a bypass on MT. Adding a hydraulic bump stop down low where the original bumps are will give way better results, be way easier on the truck, and then spend some of what you save getting the coilovers valved. What you gain with the bypass is ability to take bigger hits, the trouble is where the absorbed energy goes. Many LT kits use the bypass as a substitute for a real bump, no good, our trucks are too heavy. Just my opinion

 

Interesting! Thanks for this consideration, Vizsla. I do have the ADS hydro bumps on the rear and they seem to do a great job of taming harder hits. I've yet to use the full extent of their travel but I get into them pretty regularly when I'm on the trails. The front has the durobumps and they have made things softer, as well. I can see how hydro bumps on the front could be a great addition.

You got any threads or product links discussing the installation, pros/cons, etc... of front hydro bumps? Do you have to cut off/modify the stock bump locations?

 

Secondaries will help on big hits going high speed. Not for much else.

On a scale of 1 to 10…

Stock 1
MT 5
LT 10

I’d say MT2 would be about 6.5 to 7.

 

I'd differ to all the other guys, since I know nothing about tundra suspensions.

But here's my $.02 novel and feel free to ignore it

I don't think a bypass will get you much, assuming the trails you're doing are anything like the trails I grew up next to in the mountains above Boulder. How I interpret your needs is you want more small bump compliance and there's the occasional hard hit. A hydro bump will give you a lot of adjustment (stroke, initial and final resistance, etc.) and will be easier to package, a lot cheaper (and more available), and will transition to any setup/vehicle you get in the future.

As far as the small bumps, a larger tire will obviously help. The other thing is tire pressure, which lord knows I hate the overlanders that air down at the slightest hint of dirt, but it does have its place. Going down to 10psi will soak up those little rocks and washboard a lot more, if you can convince yourself the time involved is worth it.

On top of that I'd rebuild your current shocks, I don't know how fresh they are but most shocks need a rebuild anyways. On top of that I'd talk to Tyler at ADS and give him your specs (weight, up travel, spring rate, valving, bump zone, travel ratio, etc) and ask if there's an improved valve stacks he'd recommend. I don't know if the ADS come with 700s or you put those on for more weight, but if the shocks aren't meant for that rate and the side effects that drove that rate then there's probably something to be gained there too.

I think those couple changes will make a considerable difference, pretty cost effective to implement, and can transition with the truck. As opposed to bypasses, which I think will be hard to implement, and I'd be surprised if they can be used with the LT and the stock arms. Don't get me wrong, bypasses will help but I think you'll need quite a bit of valving work to make it worthwhile. And in the event you did everything I suggested and didn't like it, you could still add bypasses since you'll want hydros eventually anyways, so you can ramp into how much money and time you want to spend instead of diving in head first. Food for thought, all I have is some blown Kings so take it with a grain of salt

 

Excellent input, thanks guys!

Does anyone have pictures of how/where hydro bump stops get mounted in the front on the 07-21 tundras?

I’ve never seen a packaged “bolt on” type kit for sale. Seems like maybe more of a custom fab job?

 

I'm interested in this too. I've saw photos of custom bump can mounts off factory LCA's before but I went looking a while back and couldn't find them.

 

It's definitely a fab job let me see if I have a pic on my phone saved.

 

Eh…the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze given the OEM geometry here. You don’t gain any additional travel with secondaries, you’re simply adding the ability to contain more energy within the given amount of space, Keep in mind you’re converting energy here, something usually gives, in our case frame rails rotate inwards toward the engine (engine cage/shock brace helps to mitigate) or steering knuckles bend (gussets/aftermarket spindles helps to mitigate)

The biggest advantage that I haven’t seen discussed yet, is resistance and recovery from shock fade…the ability to continue to provide predictable damping for prolonged periods of continuous piston movement is a bigger advantage in my eyes. This is especially true if you tune and pair the c/o with the secondary (bypass or not) complimentary as the thermal energy being generated is split between two volumes of fluid.

Note the primary and secondary valving are a summation here, so in ride zone(assuming bypass), the static “speed sensitive” damping of the c/o is combined with variable damping (bypass check valves at work here) through out the ride zone. Once in bump or catch zones (piston has passed the respective bypass port(s)) the summation of the static c/o and bypass piston results in the final damping within their respective zones.

another method is utilizing a carrier configuration of a coil-over, which is a shock body and no damping, as this job of oscillation control is moved to an external shock. Disadvantage being the reduction of thermal load capacity.

What is 80% of you use case…and be honest with yourself. Is the occasional big hit, or prolonged system utilization at speed worth the upfront and prolonged cost/complexity (fiscal and time)?



/rant and word vomit

 

Another novel, sorry everyone. I like to be thorough with my responses

Again, not remotely related to a Tundra, but only so many ways to skin the cat. Packaging usually dictates where the bump will go if you bump off the lower arm (only so much room between shocks, CV, tie rod, etc). I've done a single plate between the frame and can, I've done a plate on either side sandwiching the can like this, etc. You'd be better off mounting the bump as far outboard as possible so you're reacting the load as close to the source (hub) as possible, but again packaging kind of forces your hand. You'll probably want to plate the arm where the contact zone is for both strength and a flat spot for the bump to strike. I was gonna say it wouldn't hurt to plate the arm between the bump and the spindle to prevent that zone buckling, but considering the stock bumps are located so far inboard the arm is probably built beefy enough and you'll probably be lowering the overall stresses using a hydro... but food for thought, I don't know how weak the stock arms are.

You want the bump to be perpendicular to the arm at full compression (ideally), so as the bump strikes it ramps up the reaction force as the contact angle approaches 90deg. Picture below has a pretty acute angle between the bump and arm at droop, but they are perpendicular at bump. Something to also consider is the more inboard the bump stop is, the larger the motion ratio between bump stop travel and hub travel is. An 8" shock midway on the arm is 16" of travel, a 2" bump 1/4 way out on the arm is 8" of hub travel that engages the bump. There's differing opinions on setup, some people like a lot of bump zone (hub travel engaging the bumps) but imo that's due to bad valving of the shocks. The bumps imo should only be engaging at the very end of stroke so you're not affecting the shocks performance until you really have to. Let the shock do all the work, until the very end--having a bump engaging for a ton of travel doesn't allow that, but if you want to use the bump more like a reverse-bypass tube where you have ramped up compression for a long part of the stroke and no fine bump zone, then to each their own.

With all that said, imo 2" bumps going off the lower is too much travel and is usually the smallest travel you can buy. I like to shorten the bumps (just open it and install a spacer between the valve stack and the bottom of the body so it can't extend as far) to like 1" or 1.25", this will make your bump zone the last 3" or so of travel (depending on your distances of course), and then run a fairly high pressure in the bumps (like 300psi) since there's a lot of leverage on them. This is opposed to your rear bumps going straight off the axle. They might be 2" stroke, but they're using the same % of your total hub travel as the front limited to 1" stroke, and the rears can run at 100psi but they have zero leverage since they're straight to the axle, where as the front is reacting 3-4x the load to get the same force output at the hub due to the motion ratio. And as I said in my previous post, the amount of oil in the bump and the nitrogen pressure and valving in the bump can all be fine tuned to adjust the ramp up force of the bump if you really want to get fancy.

 

Bumping off the lower on MT I don’t think is worth the attempt if LT is a future possibility.

It sounds like for the wheeling you do, a 3.0 icon front coilover would work. It has three internal zones, but like @Vizsla mentioned, that bump zone is putting all the energy into the coil bucket and not direct to the frame like a bump can would. Several of us have “no longer stock frame geometry” as a result of putting too much energy into the coil buckets without cross bracing across the shock towers.

If you’re married to ADS, hit up Matt and see what he thinks.

Icon cutaway for reference.



Our front setup with the 3.0 plus bypasses for further reference. Don’t do this if you’re going LT anyway. Haha. This is our daily driver.

 

ICON shill

 

I can’t help it. They do exactly what we want.

 

Well....there's a hell of a lot more information to consider than I originally thought...imagine that. You guys are awesome with the input. This thread is (probably) now the most comprehensive discussion on the planet for bypasses and hydro bump stops on the front of a 2nd gen tundra. Good work!

Good points about fab work, added stresses, and practical performance gains. Sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze, sometimes its not...

After reading all that technical analysis I should go decompress by poking fun at people in the towing forum about their 5th wheel setups....Can't even tell it's back there, bro!

Perhaps the underlying issue is that I'll never be satisfied with MT performance and I just need to get me some of that sweet sweet LT koolaid. In the meantime, ima keep hammering this setup for all it's worth. Im probably having more fun with this truck in one trip than most people get in 200,000 miles.

The trails west of Boulder are my closest testing grounds for this truck! I live in Broomfield. Last weekend I was up Rollins pass road to the Yankee Doodle lake then back down Jenny Creek trail. Couple weeks ago I was on Coney Flats where I pinch flatted both drivers side tires. Mammoth gulch/Kinston Peak are some other frequently run trails. The first trail I bombed after getting the ADS installed was Switzerland trail which was still half buried in snow that day. Those trails get busy on the weekends, but it's still pretty quiet up there compared to down on the front range. You got any suggestions for others I should check out?!

 

I figured there was a good chance The national forest backed up against my parent's property so I had access to the Switzerland "Trail" network without ever touching pavement, and had a loop I'd run when I first started dabbling in suspension tuning. My parents still live there but I moved away in 2018 to a place with a bit more offroading potential, and a bit nicer winters I'll send you a message so I don't clutter your thread more than I already have!

 

I found the solution:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvL-QQYMa1p/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

Here are some shots of what I did to my rig. Used to have a 2nd Gen long travel Tacoma and now I’m on a mid travel built 2nd Gen tundra. It’s better in every way for my style. 1. I didn’t use my old LT very much and it was a fit to drive it daily on the road and for anything but it’s built purpose. 2. My current setup allows me to do almost anything and still drive her home with no issues.

King 3.0 Coilovers (they are friken massive)
King 3.0 rear bypass shocks ( 2 compression tubes and 1 rebound tube)

 

Hey @Marvthehamster, is there a way to bypass up and around the Needles Eye Tunnel to be able to drive through Rollins Pass rather than only up/down Rollins or Corona Pass Rd? Similar to how you can drive the 501 bypass in the scree field above the old trestle bridge?

I've driven Corona Pass up from Winter Park to where Needles Eye is closed tons of times but never all the way through. It has been years and I don't remember the top well but on google maps it looks like there may be a way around it.