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| The front shocks raised the front of our truck 3″. We felt that this was too high and we had too much body roll when combined with the increased grip caused by our wider tires. This was causing annoying early and aggressive stability control activation. We could have gotten rid of this by turning the system off but we reduced the ride height by about 1.25″ which helped a lot and was still 1.75' higher than stock. |
Getting rid of a lot of chassis forward rake also ended up reducing our caster to zero. Our front suspension was now also at 1.6 degrees positive camber. This was not good for front grip at all. We adjusted our front suspension to the maximum limits of the eccentrics and were able to get 2.5 degrees positive caster and 0.8 degrees negative camber. We set the front toe at 1/16″ toe in. This made a huge difference in how the truck handled and will help long term tire wear as well. If we could have our way we would want even more caster and negative camber, we would like around 5 degrees postive caster and 1.5 degrees negative camber. We will study the geometry of some of the aftermarket upper arms to see if they will help in this regard. We wonder how all of the other raised trucks on the road must handle as if we raised the front of our truck any more, we would not be able to align the truck anywhere near a decent set of numbers. Most likely on road handling and tire life doesn't concern many truck people!
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The rear shocks are also very tough with a large 2.5″ piston and a 3/4″ shock rod. Compared to the car stuff we are used to, true truck high performance shocks move an amazing amount of fluid through the valve system which means a large amount of control force and a great deal of sensitivity can be dialed into the shock. The remote reservoir and large fluid volume also make the King shocks highly fade resistant.
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The King shock has about 25% more travel than the stock TRD Spec Bilstein. The TRD shock is actually very impressive for an OEM spec shock and would make a great upgrade to a base model Tundra.
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Like the front shocks the rear shocks are also inverted to reduce unsprung weight and feature a spherical bearing in the lower mount. |
