Project Tundra, Installing the Ultimate Bolt On Off Road Suspension From Icon Vehicle Dynamics Part 1

You can see how the external bleeds control fluid flow in the middle ride zone of the shocks. At the limits of travel you can see how the topping out and bottoming out is controlled by the shock piston as you pass the bleeds.  This prevents the suspension from crashing through the travel with position sensitive damping. The high speed damping is controlled by the knobs at the end of the bleeds. The rebound is adjusted at the top and the compression at the bottom. Each adjuster has 24 clicks.

All of the shocks use high quality FK spherical bearings on the ends.  If you didn’t know, FK bearings are some of the best available. Using bearings takes a lot of the side load off of the shock shafts and lets all of the suspension movement travel through the dampers instead of flexing rubber.

The Stage 9 kit came with a billet aluminum upper control arm.  The arm is stronger and stiffer than the stock stamped part.

The upper control arms pivot on FK heim joints.  These give the ability to adjust more camber and caster into the alignment, which is a good deal as the stock suspension has limited adjustment range.  We like the pinch bolts and the adjustment collars.  This way you can adjust the upper arm without unbolting the control arm from the chassis.  This makes doing alignments when setting up the chassis a lot easier.

One of the cool features of the Icon control arm is their Delta Joint. The Delta joint has the low compliance and friction of a spherical bearing with the long term durability of a OEM ball joint.  The Delta joint has more articulation than the OEM ball joint, important for the Icon suspension’s longer travel.  The shank of the Delta joint is longer than stock which helps correct the roll center preventing it from getting too high and potentially causing jacking when the truck is raised.  The Delta joint is sealed from the elements and is greaseable for long life. It also has a 5 year warranty.

8 comments

  1. What the F**K??? I have kings on my white tundra rock warrior because of project tundra, now you’re telling me i need to drop a boat load of money on this?? Thanks a lot guys.

    1. Kings are extremely good shocks but ours broke and we found out that their customer service was not the greatest. We simply cannot wait for 6 to 8 weeks just to get our trucks shocks looked at. I explained that our shocks had obviously defective springs but they were not concerned with that. They is nothing wrong with what you got, Kings perform really well. I just made the choice that I felt that after getting a nonplussed treatment for what was a techical issue, not abuse and since to get the truck fixed faster my only alternative was to buy new shocks, I decided to give my money to a different company and at the same time upgrade to a more hardcore system. To be fair, King makes shocks not suspension systems or packages and they do not sell anything off the shelf that is equvalant to the Icon system.

      1. Funny, We had the opposite experience. The Icon struts we put on a 2015 Tacoma promptly blew the seals out and Icon couldn’t be bothered about it. Swapped to comparable Kings and haven’t had any problems out of them.

      2. I actually just ordered all the parts to rebuild my Kings. Honestly never dealt directly with king but through Filtymotorsports which is one of their larger distributors. Great response and customer service. If I lived out west and could go flying through the desert when I wanted I would definitely be more interested in something like the icon setup, but in florida its dirt roads and rarely anything too hardcore. Your experience with the springs had me concerned so i ordered replacement parts just to be on the safe side.

        I use the Camburg tubular upper control arms, same kings you guys have, and a 1.5″ rear lift shackle. Survived many salty winters in new england and lots of abuse. I’ve only replaced the UCA bushings (mainly because i went way too long without greasing them.)

        1. The spring problem was bizarre, the spring suddenly shattered into over 20 small pieces just driving down the street! When changing arms, be careful and look to see if its going to affect bumpsteer. We drove a Camburg complete system and although it had a lot of travel, it also had a lot of bumpsteer which made it feel sketchy sometimes.

        2. I guess dealing with a distributor is the way to go. The guy on the phone was most unhelpful and kurt just shy of being rude which annoyed me because I am a professional asking professional questions. Thus I decided to spend my money elsewhere even though I loved the product. Maybe the guy was just having a bad day but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

          1. Their loss i suppose. FYI Camburg makes a few different types of control arms depending on your needs. they do make a long travel kit with extra long UCA/LCA’s. Mine are essentially the same dimensions as the factory ones but with a uniball located to give you more positive caster which allows for a much better return to center when you are on the throttle. The only negative impact i’ve found is more feedback due to the uniballs but it doesn’t bother me at all.

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