Find me a better shock...

Have to agree.

My Falcon shocks experience was maddening. Front shock was clunking immediately, noticed major leaking in less than 5K miles, spent over $500 in labor / shipping getting a replacement under warranty, bought Fox TRD Pro shocks, and gave the Falcons to my BIL……. and the new re-designed supposedly fixed shock started leaking badly in less than 5K miles for him too.

 

LOL…I forgot, I was looking for them too. I went with fox 2.0 instead…



you should get those sumo springs or ras helper if you tow a lot

 

Too bad to hear about the QC at Falcon. They looked promising.

No need for Sumos or RAS; been running airbags for several years. I also played with the pressure in those to see if I could affect a change.

So I might be back to 6112/5160s. Anybody know anything about the fancy “black label” version? Or did the run out yellow stickers due to co… supply issues…?

 

Follow the link I posted on post #27. Seems they are updated from the yellow stickered ones

 

Nothing but issues and terrible quality. I owned a wrangler and this is widely known within the overall community.

 

My experience with Terraflex/Falcon was good...they warrantied the front shock that was leaking and it was easy to throw on...well, easier then I thought it would be at least...the whole setup has been sublime though when properly working...this winter will determine if the issues were fixed or not....

 

We just not going to mention the bilstein 8112 8100 combo? Its not under 2k, but bilstein has made a reputation for being the best quality for their price range. Check out this fascinating video to see the engineering of how and why.

Thats the upgrade from 6112/5160 combo I'm saving up for once these are shot

 

You are wanting it to handle, ride comfy with a mixture of terrains and weights, all while not breaking the bank? You're searching for a goldilocks setup, you need to compromise and my suggestion is that you design for 75% of your normal operating conditions.

Some takeaways for you:

1.) increase your rear spring rate with a new spring pack. not AAL mixed with OEM.
2.) increase your shock piston size (oe is <2", suggestion is 2.5 or larger) to help control the added "nominal" weight and more importantly dissipate that heat generated to curb shock fade.
3.) @Winning8 made a fantastic recommendation of DSC equipped Fox shocks, even better pair that with custom valving (@AccuTune Offroad) to get the most of the adjustability range of your shock package.
You in particular would benefit greatly from the Low Speed Compression knob on the remote reservoir to help with low piston speed handling (body roll when corning).

-JS

 

tl;dr

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW0koCZBnj8/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaaE3J_hOAb/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmwYGRAnZ0v/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

look weird when mount the camera on LCA…lol

 

8100’s look pretty slick, but they are way outta the budget. Also, they are for lifted applications IIRC; the fronts are designed for a minimum 2” level, which I’m not after.

 

My experience with Falcons has been good. I’ve had them a year with zero problems. I do tow a boat on some pretty long trips, but I don’t use mine the way you do so I can’t make a fair recommendation. I’ve been happy with them.

 

Yup, a Goldilocks setup is what I’m after. Who isn’t??

I agree it is about making the right compromises. Part of that compromise is budget. Another part is downtime and reliability as I rely on this truck daily. As I noted earlier, I was happy with the compromises required by a 6112/5160 setup but tried something else thinking I might gain a little here or there. That didn’t work and ended up with too many compromises. So I upped the budget by almost double to see if there was anything in that price range that would net more gain.

It appears as though the 6112/5160 setup is king of the best for the money category in my use case. After that, there appear to be only diminishing returns. A set of accutunes, for example, would be nice, but cost way more than double the $1200 I would spend for all four corners on 6112’s. And I can’t afford the downtime required for test and tune to have shocks sent off to be revalved or even rebuilt every 30k miles. Adjusters on the shock itself would be a welcome addition but I’m not seeing anything that gives me that option for less than double the price of 6112’s. That is why the falcons were so appealing - I could “tune” the rears according to the load on the back of the vehicle, which varies.

Dobinsons are probably the last contender that I’m looking at. I reached out to them and they noted that their setup is valved slightly more aggressively than 6112’s. That might be a good thing, might not. The rear shock body being larger than 50mm is what is most appealing about them to me - which also happens to be my biggest reservation with using the 5160’s again. I agree with you that a larger diameter shock body would be advantageous for me. But I haven’t been able to find much feedback on them.

As for rear spring rates, having airbags let’s me vary the spring rate as needed - but at the expense of rear travel. This is a compromise that I understood going in to it and I am willing to make. I usually drop a little pressure in the bags when leaving the pavement, even with a trailer or full load out. Sure, I risk bottoming out a little more, but I gain control. And I never let all the air out of them. This is why I’m going to rebuild the spring pack with a 3 leaf kit and frankenpack it - to get a more progressive pack and hopefully tune the curve a little better at both ends. OE durability appears to better for spring packs as I’ve spoken with lots of folks that have custom packs made up, only to have them sag in a year or so.

 

Budget is certainly something I can understand, just keep in mind the shocks we offer would be tuned for free ahead of time based on your needs. No additional cost. Also, the option to have the shocks sent back in for a revalve or rebuild is not even on the table with the other shocks you mentioned. All the other shocks would just be a gamble on ride quality vs dealing with someone like us that would be able to work with you on that specific thing. Just something to consider. If you do have any questions about the products we offer, shoot me over a message. Happy to help.

 

Hey everyone, I looked quite a bit on the forum and haven’t seen if you can definitively use your existing Bilstein trd pro red coil spring on say a 5100/eibach pro truck stage 1 replacement strut. I have a 2017 tundra trd pro and am mainly on roads as a salesman in const. So just looking for a great riding replacement utilizing my existing strut. Looking at eibach stage 1.

seeing if anyone has reused their Trd pro coil and if it would work with a smaller diameter shock tube such as 5100 2” size.

Did my best to research I promise lol.

 

Well guys, eibach got back directly with me on using the old bilstein trd pro spring from my setup for stage 1 and that is not applicable since spring is ground down on bottom.

does anyone know of a strut/shock that works utilizing and old trd pro bilstein spring? If not it literally makes the old trd pro system useless and I’m a little upset by that.

I’d give 6112’s a look but trying rid the cost of the extra springs. I’d like to see if a strut only option that works.