I could be wrong, but I think sag the 25-30% sag on a mountain bike is referring to how much the shock is compressed at ride height, which would mean your down travel (shock extension) is the same distance, leaving 70-75% for the shock to compress (uptravel) at ride height.

The answer to your question is a bit more loaded as it depends on what you’re doing. It’s also a heavily debated topic in the off-road segment. So I’ll give you an answer that’s probably longer than you wanted. And take this all with a grain of salt lol. Generally if you’re planning on jumping the truck at all, you’ll tend to lean towards less downtravel (I’ll just say DT and UT from here on out) and more UT giving you more compression to handle the weight of the truck landing. If you’re going high speeds in the desert, through whoops, you may be somewhere in the middle-ish as you want the compression to soak up the whoops, but you also need the tire to rebound fast and far to dip into the whoop and keep the truck level. For off-road crawlers it’s relatively common to run more DT than UT (sometimes even up to 70% down vs 30% up and even more aggressive than that in some cases). For the typical daily driver and light off-road weekend warrior, my personal opinion would be to try to retain as close to the same DT as stock. Most people say they get a harsh ride after they lift their truck, but I’m a firm believer the harsh ride is primarily the result of lost DT (so any pothole you hit means you’ll fully extend your shock and feel a hard jolt as a result), and not necessarily the result of stiffer shocks. I’ll have to go measure the DT/UT ratio on my truck at ride height to see where they sit naturally.

 

Correct, sorry, I reversed it. 25-30% uptravel.

I have seen some crawlers run a "droop" setup where they basically have almost no uptravel and all downtravel. This helps in off camber situations to reduce how much the body leans in the downhill direction and rolls the truck since the shocks are almost bottomed out at static height. Doesnt make for a pleasant ride though if you are going more than 2mph.

Assuming these trucks have 9-10" which are the numbers I have kinda heard thrown around, I would think being about in the middle is decent for a daily. If your wheel is needing to drop more than 5" on the street, well, im impressed

Until someone actually goes out and measures their wheel travel though, and where it sits at static height in that range, I am not sure anyone can claim a spacer is the correct answer.

I do know taht with my 5100's on the second from bottom setting(0.8" lift according to Bilstein) I have just a hair over 5" between my 315/70's and my flare. Even with the swaybar disconnected I can't get the tire to touch the flare in flex. Maybe I could on a hard hit where the bumpstop gets crushed. But either way I think I have about 3-4" of up travel which probably means I have about 5-6" of downtravel.

 

Are your bumpstops whole or cut? The bumpstops sent with new strut assemblies are another issue. They are typically too large to begin with. Even with a Bilstein strut at 0 lift, the strut will nearly ride on the bumpstop. If the bumpstops were trimmed properly, you'd be hitting the fender liners. I nearly do so with my set up.
Here are my 6112s after install and the truck settling. Even at the .5" height they were set at at this moment, there was maybe .5" of strut travel, if not less. I had trimmed the first two ribs off of the bumpstop to mitigate this, as the ride was severely harsh at first. Now I have them adjusted to 1" of total lift, and here is a picture to show the current ride height while level.











I have better pictures of the droop, but dont currently have them with me on this phone. The Bilsteins have 5-6" of available strut movement depending on the size of the bumpstop. Most other struts are this way, as well as the factory ones. The key to building a proper offroad set up and maximizing travel, is to have your desinated tire size selected, and build around that. If I were to not have my 2.25" Strut Spacer, my 35's would eat into my fender liners and fenders; and it would be wasted travel in the regard to usable space. The only way to acheive the downtravel (and overall travel) that I currently have, is to use a strut spacer; whether that be with factory struts or aftermarket. As I position the strut lower using a spacer, this allows the strut travel to remain the same, lets say 4" of uptravel / 4" of downtravel. If you adjust an adjustable strut to the same height as the spacer advertises, you are taking 2" or so of strut travel, so now making the strut 6" uptravel / 2" of downtravel, creating less overall downtravel.

 

I agree with all you've said.

I dont know where the 5100's sit as they have a dust shield around the upper portion of the shock that blocks the entire view of the shaft and bump stops. I dont remember the bump stops being as stout as the 6112's though.

When I run it without my swaybar connected though, its pretty smooth.

On another note, do you know the spring rate on the 6112's? I got a set for my Lexus GX that are the HD version, and they are apparently 700 in-lb and really like em.

 

Not exactly sure of which GX you have, but the only thing I could find reference was a 600lb and 650lb set of coils. There was one website the referenced HD ones, but they didn’t specify the coil ratings.

 

Not all of the newer 14 gens have IWE’s installed in them, so mine are turning all the time.

 

Interesting. I knew they moved to electronically controlled on many or most of the 21+, but I didn’t know that some models have neither. I’m curious if that is package specific, or if it’s dependent on trim level?

 

Not sure, I have been following some of the conversation on the IWE posts, this was something new to me so I actually had to look to see what it was. I have a Lariat package but after seeing people post their Lariat packages its seems I kinda got the bottom end of the scale of one, but no complaints on that as I wish it didn’t have as much tech.

 

All TOD(4A) trucks post '21 lost the IWEs. TOD Hi-Lock trucks (Temor 402a/Raptor) retained them.

So a 21 Lariat would have it, but a 22 does not.

Also, when thinking about wear from these turning, it's important to remember that the wear is not on the driven surfaces of the CV or the gears. The wheel is back-driving the drivetrain, which also offers the benefit of keeping fresh lubricant covering the front gears, bearings, and seals. This would also be very low power, just enough to move everything.

 

I run my truck in 4Auto often for this exact reason. Also because I think a lot of water will build up in the front diff over time of no use so I like to get it hot to burn off condensation.. I know a lot of people say the fluid comes out milky when they change it.