Mrwalker97

I have a 2004 Ford F-150 FX4 with a 6 inch rough country lift. I hate the cheap shocks and would like to get fox shocks or another brand that is of better quality. But I'm not sure how to go about buying socks with my truck lifted 6 inches (rough country brand). Do I just buy shocks made for a 6 in lift and that's it? I really don't wanna F up my truck so that's why I am asking! Thanks in advance

Florida_F150

There are two kinds of Rough Country lifts. Do you have the one with the "strut spacers" which uses your factory struts and puts a spacer on top if it to lift the truck's front end? Or do you have the version of the lift with a "lift strut" which will have completely replaced your original strut with a new Rough Country strut that lifts your truck.

If you have the strut spacer on top of the original factory strut, then you can just replace the factory strut with any other brand's factory-sized strut and it will sit under the strut spacer just like the one you have on right now.

If you have the Rough Country "lift strut" then you'll have to do it a different way by seeing if there are other lift struts you can buy or a 6" coilover setup.

Mrwalker97

Yes it is the actual strut replacement. So all I would have to do is find shocks that are made for a 6 inch lift?

Florida_F150

So just to confirm, your truck should have these on it right now. These are the Rough Country 6" lift struts:

http://www.roughcountry.com/premium-...rut-23003.html

If that's the case, then I'm not sure if you'll have a lot of options for replacing them with another brand. Maybe someone else can chime in. Just a little background:

Most 6" lifts these days that I've seen have one of two types of lift: There's a "standard" version, which uses both the factory coil spring AND shocks. They use a strut spacer on top like I describe in my previous post. The second version is the "coilover" version where they completely scrap BOTH the coil spring AND shocks altogether, and replace them both with a coilover. That version is usually somewhere around $1000 - $1500+ more expensive than the standard version (the coilovers are expensive).

If you have a lift strut like the link above, then you have a more uncommon type of lift, that's somewhat in between the standard version and the coilover version. In your case, they KEPT the factory coil spring, but scrapped the shock, and replaced the shock with the lift strut. That eliminated the need for the strut spacer. In order to do what you want to do, you have to find another manufacturer of a 6" lift strut. I looked online for a bit, and I didn't see many. I think this one from Bilstein MAY work, but I'm not sure. You'd have to call and ask:

http://performancelifts.com/rcd-2004...5-b316-t1.html

There may be others, but I didn't immediately see any.

Your other option if you wanted to spend the money is to just go with new coilovers. You'd scrap your current lift struts AND your coil springs, and you'd replace them with the expensive coilovers that come with the upgraded lift kits by other brands like FOX, King, Icon, etc. But you'd be looking at well over $1000 I'd think.

Hope that helps.

Captain 1

Get in touch with the guys at Stage 3. They should be able to recommend something that will fit your needs.