drsubie

good luck, keep us up to date on this...I'm thinking about switching to the non-reservoir King set up for ease of installation (does the reservoir make it that much harder?)--vs maybe even switching altogether to the Fox set up (though I've already paypal'd Bajakits and I haven't been able to get a hold of them)...

TheWooginator

So as a little update I've done some experimenting with the front preload. I backed it all the way out and honestly, I didn't feel much of a difference. I've been testing it out on a dirt road near to where I'm working where there is some high speed washboard areas to really get an idea of how it feels. With the preload all the way out, the truck sits at or very close to the stock rake; about 1-3/4". I ran the preload back down today to get 1" of rake (about three full turns of the upper spring collar or about 1/2" of preload) which is right where I want it. Ride quality feels about the same. Need to do the rear leafs asap.

The next experiment is going to be to drop the sway bar out and see how it rides. With stiffer springs and a little preload for height, I'm thinking it won't be necessary anymore. Very little body roll with the Kings.

drsubie

Had a load of parts installed--I had originally planned to do the install myself, but my back has been bad as of late, so I gave up that plan and had a shop install front and rears along with alignment.

I did manage to put in a set of Roadmaster Active suspension springs for the rear--that in itself raised up the rear a bit.

I also upgraded my rims/tires to Fuel Trophy rims 18x9 +20mm offset along with Goodyear Duratrac 275/70.

Initial impressions? Body roll greatly minimized. Much better compliance over small bumps. On medium sized bumps/potholes I still notice a harshness, but not sure why this would be. I will have more comments once they are broken in more. I do have the rebound-adjustable option on the front coilovers, and they are set to max soft... I still need to play around with this more.

I left the front coilovers alone; they came with about 30mm of thread showing on the height adjust, which gave a near perfect 'level lift.' I haven't taken any direct measurements.

dwedel28

I can honestly say that kings run stiff. Icons are calved better for street use and light off road use. The kings do best in high speed off road. The compression and rebound are set up to handle the high speed. I've personally talked to king and icon. They said the pros and cons about their shocks. If ur street driving mostly I would do icon. King for offroad and street use.

drsubie

Have gone probably a couple hundred miles on my setup, so it's still probably not broken in yet.

On fairly smooth roads or with ripples, the Kings glide through. No complaints there. Best analogy would be "european car firm" like an Audi (I can only mentally compare it to my wife's previous A4). Not floaty like stock shocks.

On roads with bigger potholes, sharp transitions (like when they tear up a section of road to prepare for paving new road, leaving a sharp square transition point), there is a almost a harshness when the truck impacts this. This is similar to what I had with my 4runner w/ the Walker Evans coil over set up. With that set up, I ended up changing the bumpstops to aftermarket ones, thinking it would solve it, but it didn't.

So all in all, I'm kind of disappointed that the King OEM shocks would exhibit this harshness, and am left wondering whether I should have gone w/ the FOX, which people seem to rave about giving a "plush ride". I would have thought the King's would have valved/tuned their shocks for a "Cadillac plush ride but with improved handling than stock". Instead, it is more of a "European car firm, improved handling, but some harshness on medium sized bumps". Not sure what their intention was, maybe they tuned it for tearing it up on fire-roads? I can imagine on fire roads, the shocks would be exemplary (I've yet been able to test this).

If you intend to use your truck to drive 90% on paved roads (which I think most of us do), I would probably look elsewhere, or if you must have Kings, consider getting them re-valved....

Just my $0.02...

TheWooginator

You seem to be experiencing the same thing I am. I'm just not content with the way it rides for the money I spent. I shot an email off to Filthy Motorsports to see if they have any answers with respect to re shimming the shocks. I think this is going to wind up being the best bet to get them set up the way I want.

My springs on the front are 3-16-600's. Don't know what size shim stacks are currently in there or what weight of shock oil was used the last time they were rebuilt.

Even with the external compression fully open, they just don't seem to be soaking up harshness like I would expect them to. There's a certain part of the highway near my house that's just plain sh*tty and every other vehicle I've had or have seems to soak it up better than my F150 with the Kings. I'm not jumping my truck, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a plush street ride with the ability to bomb some fire roads.

If re-shimming is the answer, I'll probably be doing it myself to save $, so I'll post up about it when the time comes. I guess the nice thing about the aftermarket coilovers is the relative ease of rebuilding them. More to come.

drsubie

Well, if your tearing into your shocks and messing with the shim stacks etc, that would qualify you as an advanced user!

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but the King shocks, even the 2.5", were meant to be "OEM bolt-on and go." Meaning, I would assume, that no specific re-valving or custom valve job would be needed, and that it would be set up for "the majority of end users'."

I would think King would have interpreted this as "the majority of F150 users drive their trucks on the real world street, with potholes and speedbumps" and not some alternate reality that we are all doing high speed baja desert runs, jumps, and severe off roading.

I think you might send a email to King w/ a link to this thread--I'd be interested in hearing what they have to say to this...

t.mackenzie

How much droop are you guys running, are you sitting at close to the maximum height?
Downtravel is more important to soaking up bumps than uptravel is, this is why you see the short course offroad trucks and trophy trucks sit fairly low in their overall travel but when they take to the air the wheels drop down ready to take the huge hit coming.
That being said king did valve these shocks for very agressive driving, if your intentions wernt for agressive offroad driving it sucks having to shell out for a revalve job and possibly new coils

drsubie

The front shocks were installed at the height King shipped them with, which gave about a 2" "level lift" height, no where near "topped out".

I did manage to drive this weekend on a good fireroad, plenty of bumps. In this element, the Kings were great.

I also increased the rebound (I shelled out for the adjustable rebound option on the fronts) by about 10 clicks (I believe there were 25 clicks maximum), and interestingly, it did improve the "harshness", though I would have thought increasing the rebound would have made it worse.

Yes, the Kings do ride very firm; unfortunately, there is so little review/feedback on coilovers in general for the F150 (before the Fox coilover thread blew up), that there has to be a few "guinea pigs" or early adopters out there. Hopefully our feedback can help others in their purchase decisions...

TheWooginator

So... here's a little update: The guys at King are awesome to work with. Shot them an email and they got back to me within 24 hrs. I've gone back and forth a bit with Eric from their tech department and he recommended to me a 15 mil flutter shim stack for the compression stack on the shaft itself. No changes necessary on the resi compression stack. That being said, I've ordered a bunch of extra shims in different sizes in case the ones that are in there are already .015's. Should be at my door next Wednesday and with any luck, I can get them turned around before the weekend. More to come!!