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Budget build shock ?

9K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  775Toy 
#1 ·
So I'm doing a budget build 84 Toyota. The typical 63s in rear and ruf. I don't plan on driving this thing daily, but it will be street legal and occasionally be driven on highway to and from the trail/work or beer run. I got some credit at summit racing and was looking into the 14in procomp es3000 shocks due to there price and availability. From what I read searching online they are hit or miss. But most guys are using them on the streets daily which I won't be. My main concern isnt ride comfort or high speed ability so much as ability to flex well? From what I've read is they are a gas charged rather than a stiffer nitrogen charged shock. Would this mean they are softer and flex better ? Thanks for any helpful info.
 
#2 ·
alot of the guys i know use the billstien 5125's. they're inexpensive, have about 14" of travel and work well for my heavy ass truck, and my buddy runs them on his 4runner and they work good on a light rig like that also. the only thing about them is that your bumpstops have to be set to keep them from bottoming out, the internal valving does not do well with this. the only shocks i've seen do ok with that are rancho's, but IMHO they bring the suck.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Thanks for your replie , I have looked into 5125s, they are double the price of a es3000. I'm sure it's a much better all around shock but again double the price. For what I'm using this thing for I just want a simple cheap shock for my bucket build. And wanted to see if my thoughts of gas vs nitrogen shock reflected on flex?
 
#7 ·
^^^^^^ This is what I did. '87 toyota RUFs and 63"'s. I Took it out with no shocks and found a big rock to play on, stuffed the tire fully into the fender and measure where my springs went flat, or close to, and then did my best to flex it out to full droop the other way and measured that.

Once I knew how much travel I was going to get, I set up my bumpstops to keep the springs from going negative and went to O'rielly and bought some cheapo blue shocks, house brand nothing fancy, and mounted them in. I used the Ford shock towers for the front and made some mounts for the rear. I think I used 8" travel up front and 12"(?) in the rear. I set them so that I would still have about 1" of shock travel on either extreme.

Made a huge difference in ride quality, as mine is a DD, but more importantly, it hasn't seemed to give me any issues running the trails, Fordyce and Rubicon included.

IIRC, I put up the part numbers in my build thread. Essentially, it involved just taking some time looking at the specs with the parts monkey and finding something to fit. WAAAAYYYY Cheaper than any fancy shock you see advertised anywhere. Spend the budget where it matters, not in shocks for your rock crawler.

Also, going from 0 shocks to 2 shocks is an amazing difference, going from 2 to 4 is equally as great, so I highly reccomend 4 :D :smokin:
 
#10 ·
Ya I don't plan On spending anywhere near 100$ a shock . That is why I asked about the es3000 cause it's cheap, in stock locally @ summit racing and I have credit there. This is my budget bucket , tired of smashing my lifted 2000 f150 on local trails and hunting trips. I figured this toyota would be cheaper to budget huild than buying a rhino or wrecking my daily driver.
 
#11 ·
If you have a cool autozone guy...he will let you go in and search through the shocks and find the longest ones...then even though there not as long as some offroad shocks you can mount them up the arm a little if using links to get more out of them and you can also angle a little extra on leaf springs and get more travel from them...just equals cheaper
 
#12 ·
I am running the Pro Comp ES9000 and love them to death. IIRC i paid 130 bucks for all four with boots and replacement poly bushings.
 
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