So after 10 years of driving my little samurai with nothing bigger than a 30 inch tire, I finally bit the bullet and am going to lift it.. Im the only one in our group of about 10 Samurais that runs anything smaller than a 33. a couple of them are up to 41's. I have almost every thing on this samurai that you could ever want except the height.. So my question is what should I do for shocks?

I'm doing a spring over with a 2 inch lift spring. I already bought shock hoops for the front and the relocate for the back. But what shock is going to be the best for me. I'm looking at the Bilstein 5125 in the 10" travel but I'm not sure if I'm going to have that much travel..

I want something that's going to ride nice but that's not stiff. The bummer part is that I have the old-man emu shocks that I just put on a couple of months ago that I'm gonna pull off and I just had 5 new BFG A/T put on at the same time. Probably going to sell them if any ones interested. 30x9.50x15 I'll sell them cheep.

So does any body run the Bilstein shocks, how do they ride? Are they to stiff for that Samurai? I do run front and rear 8k winches and a full size spare on the back. Should I get a stiffer shock on the back because of this?

What do you think? give me options and some pics
Thanks

Im completely happy with the bilstein 5125s on my junk. Ran "white" shocks fro many years on my leaf sprung toyotas and after running the 5125s ill never buy a white shock again. Just a better overall ride and control of the suspension. my .02.

I run 5125's also. 12" on the front and 10" out back. They are a pretty stiff shock, but with the weight of bumpers/winches it will ride like a caddie!

Spring over and a 2 inch lift spring is going to put you really tall. What tire are you going to run? If you need the clearance, I'd suggest just a spring over, and a little fender trimming to fit. Driveshafts angles will be better as well as steering. You'll have a better center of gravity as well.

Im going to a 33. With the weight of the winch bumpers on the front and back its not much of a lift anyway. Fender trimming is not an option for me. Its nicer than it was new and im not goin to cut any thing to fit. I had a hard enough time cutting stock front bumper mounting arms off.. It mainly a road warrior till winter then it doesnt see pavement till the snow melts. Its still a daily driver and see's 120 miles a day. Even my old Samurai with 33's got driven daily.