Your not compressing the coil... it just moves the coil seat/plate up 2"
...at least that is what my Rancho's did on my '05 F150 and i believe that the Bilstein's are set up the same way.

 

Of course you ARE compressing the coil! What else is lifting the truck?

 

I have had the 5100s on my truck for about 6 months and about 20,000 miles...

At first they are stiffer and hit pretty hard over small low speed stuff (like crawling over a speedbumb) but work very well at the higher speed washouts and whoops. I have mine set on the highest setting and the truck was perfectly level.

I would not run a spacer on my rig personally unless it was a 100% street truck... altho lots of peeps run them with good luck.

This last weekend I was cruising around the sand dunes and after going through a set of whoops pretty fast the drivers side tire starting rubbing all out and stuffing the tire all the way into the wheel well. The passanger side never rubbed at all.... So one is now blown. See Pic.. It say about 3/4" higher when they were first installed.

I am now upgrading to aftermarket coilovers

So if you like to romp your truck (who doesnt?) then i think it is cheaper in the long run to go with the aftermarket coilovers that you can adjust from 0-3" of lift.... They are $1000-$1200 for a set up front.. Bilsteins ran $225 for the pair... and Ranchos are about $350.....I did not get my moneys worth out of the Bilsteins.

I have herd good things about the Rancho set up (quik lift), and you don't have to swap springs with that set up... they are a Beeeotch to swap! I had 4 spring compressors on mine at one time and I still thought they might fly apart! Very dangerous.....

So I say:

Street Truck-- Spacers
Light Off Road -- Bilsteins or Rancho shocks
Whoops n Jumps -- Aftermarket Coilovers


Hope this helps!

 

Any examples of these aftermarket coilovers you would recomend?

 

Where would you get the installation done? Does this affect the warranty at all? I've got a truck ordered and was wondering if it would be better to wait until the warranty expires before I do any modifications.

CG

 

I am going with the Icon Coilovers... I have read they have more R&D in their products than anybody else: http://www.iconvehicledynamics.com/


King Shocks & Fox also make them, they cost more than the Icon set up.

Sway A Way & Camburg both make them for $1050 a set... butit will be a few months before they release the ones that fit 2009-2010 trucks (04-08 only right now)

The Icons are $1200 for the front or $1400 with back shocks too

 

Nope. If the spring were compressing, the frame/body would not raise/level, which it obviously does. A coil-over uses the shock/strut as a mounting place for the upper and lower spring perch. If you raise both, you have basically increased the distance between where the top of the coil over mounts to the frame, and where the bottom mounts to the control arm. The effect is that the body frame sits further from the control arm (aka higher). The same thing happens when you add a spacer to the factory coil-over, except that you have added solid length that cannot move like a shock. This is also why companies who sell leveling struts say that you can "lose suspension travel." With spacers, if you were to compress the coil-over completely, you would hit the internal bump-stop before the frame and suspension actually ran out of clearance. I don't know why they say this could be damaging, as the coil-over unit doesn't know or care that the frame is sitting up higher. It just bottoms out when it's reached its limit of compression. So you have less upward suspension travel than an upgraded coil-over, but no less than you did without the spacer. Now, if you had a jounce bumper mounted on the frame that the control arm is supposed to hit, and you use spacers, then the coil-over will bottom out and the jounce bumper will not impact the control arm, because you've moved them two inches further away from each other without increasing the ability of the coil-over to travel that two inches. Then you're likely to find out what a blown strut looks like.

As for downward travel, I can understand the danger of extending the suspension travel by 2" without taking into account the rest of the suspension components' travel limitations. If the control arms over extend and put weird stress on tie rod ends, axles, etc., there's no telling what could happen. The thing about this is, it's going to happen with spacers or a leveling shock/coil-over, because both extend downward travel or droop. The only way I can see to absolutely protect the suspension components is to limit the downward travel (when the truck is airborne, for instance) by tethering it with some sort of cable system or steel rod. But, how often are we really going to fully extend the suspension of our trucks. And how many times would it take to cause damage?

That's my take and understanding of the situation, at least! Feel free to correct me if you know better!

 

This is correct

 

 

I think you technically are compressing the spring. When you move the coil seat/plate up, it pushes the spring up against the top cover of the strut assembly.