Coil and Shock or Coilovers

[Dirty]

It is time to start spending some time on the old Hilux which first needs a suspension rework. The goal is linked front and rear on the old truck, and its purpose is a mixture of weekend playing with occasional road use. So it needs to be streetable-wild, if that makes sense. I am looking at around 3" lift, no body lift and chopping into the guards w- lifting tray to run 12" plus travel (14" is the goal, and larger if there is room).

The delema that I am looking at up front, is that I need to get coils and shocks for this thing, so should I just go coil-overs straight out, or do they suck when you have to drive on road and the rod ends bash out with road use? Coil-overs would be easier to mount up and a preferred option.

Also, this thing is on the path to be engineered. I will speak with my engineer on this when I next catch up with him but there is also a fine line with wasting his time on crazy ideas, so do coil-overs even land it the engineer-able category with the rod-ends?

Skool me please someone.

- David.

[zookisteve]

You cant engineer rod ends but you can engineer coil overs in nsw.

[Dirty]

You cant engineer rod ends but you can engineer coil overs in nsw.

This is what I assumed, but all the coil-over shocks I have seen are set up for, or come with rod ends.

And the option of converting a standard shock with an eye end seems flawed in that I don't see the eye bush lasting any length of time having to support the entire vehicle or the simple weld on ring arrangement not breaking off on most shocks.

So how do you get road legal coil-overs?

- David.

[B.D.R]

Go the Coil overs mate, you wont look back

The most important thing with them though is to get the tuning right, a badly set up Coil over is worse than a Coil and Shock set up, but a well set up one is awsome.

I'd be talking to an Engineer BEFORE you do it though, to make sure you do it the way he want's

[Zuri92]

you sound like you have your mind made up, but have you considered a very well set up leaf setup? you can get kits or even go full custom and still pay less but still have enough flex to push a 14" shock to its limits. it can and has been done many times before and it is engineerable

[dogbreath_48]

How does a cheaper coilover (say a foa 2.5 remote res) compare to a high end conventional shock and spring combo (maybe a koni 90 series - what are these worth?). For play/touring/dd duties. Is the only advantage of the coilover in this case the tune-ability? Is it likely a koni will be available with correct valving and length for a custom application?

[hillbilliywheelchair]

what about the air coiloversd they seem a good choice

[Dirty]

Spoke to an engineer and he was happy with rod-end in this application only as long as they have a rubber boot cover to protect them. So it would seem that coil-overs are a possibility

I have also considered getting the BOSS shocks as they have machined ends with female threads and making a bracket to hold a coil and using some sort of heavy-duty rubber bush to mount them and ,make a home-brew coil-over. But if I can engineer rod-ends I don't think I will bother.

I will have to do some pricing now, but the costs I have seen so far don't have a large amount of difference between the two setups.

And beyond an unexplainable dislike of leaves, I would like to go the coil-overs and run two spring rates sort of along the Flexi-coil idea, and coil-overs will allow a much more extended soft coil than what is available on the market with standard 6" flexi-coils.

And a 14" shock is the minimum, 18+ is where I would like to be, but final shock length will be based on the design I go with.

- David.

[GRIMACE]

my advise is to steer clear of the boss shocks.

[def90]

i didn't think they made them anymore?

maybe it was a couple shops wont stock them anymore?

[evanstaniland]

You cant engineer rod ends but you can engineer coil overs in nsw.

This is what I assumed, but all the coil-over shocks I have seen are set up for, or come with rod ends.

And the option of converting a standard shock with an eye end seems flawed in that I don't see the eye bush lasting any length of time having to support the entire vehicle or the simple weld on ring arrangement not breaking off on most shocks.

So how do you get road legal coil-overs?

- David.

i think you will find he ment rod ens as in link end, as that is what most people relate to rod ends

Evan