Bypass shock tuning

Colibri · Post by **Colibri** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 7:20 pm

I know there's at least a few of us on here that have bypasses out back, I'm curious how you guys are tuning and setting up your shocks? Maybe we can all pool our experiences and get a knowledge base going for people interested in stepping up their suspensions?

Mine are carli unchained spec'd kings, 3" diameter 4 tube. All 4 of my tubes have 15 turns of adjustment. Around town/daily driving I'm usually at 7 turns out on the lower compression and rebound and 5 turns out on the uppers. I run on the heavy side carrying a full size spare and a transfer flow toolbox/auxiliary tank with 40 gallons of fuel and tools etc. Street ride is compliant and comfortable and I can just barely touch the rear hydros if I jump railroad tracks or something. I'll go 2 turns in on everything if I'm hitting the dirt for a while. That's too stiff for the street though in my opinion.

I bottom out the adjuster and mark it with a sharpie and make a corresponding mark on the tube, then count turns out. Generally if I need to make an adjustment I start with closed tubes and gradually open them till I'm in the ballpark for weight or terrain changes.

What's everyone else doing?

Post by **DamageWagon** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 9:18 pm

I have King 2.5 2-tubes out back with help from Thuren, but the shocks are not straight from him so i believe there are some small differences.

I do the same thing as noted above for adjustment. Bottoming the set screw is your "zero".

With the camper and no swaybar I'm running 8 turns out on comp and 3 turns out on rebound. The rebound being 3 turns out is for sure stiff, but it acts like a light swaybar and does a great job of controlling body roll, and the comp being 8 turns out is soft, but nobody ever complained about riding in a Cadillac

.

How I tune bypasses is to expect the first few turns to make a huge difference. There is an asymptotal curve to the amount of flow compared to the amount of turns out. Closed is closed, 1 turn out allows flow and makes a big difference compared to closed. In contrast, the difference between 14 turns and 15 turns is very minimal because you are already flowing a lot. Start small and pay close attention on the first few turns.

If you encounter heavily varied terrain it can be very beneficial to adjust your tubes. It is worth it to crawl under my truck when I've transitioned from high speed forestry roads to low speed rocky rough tracks, just for the point of ride quality and body roll control.

Colibri · Post by **Colibri** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 10:09 pm

Good info Marcus! Interesting the way you're using the adjustment with your camper, it goes to show how much range there really is in a good shock.

nts007 · Post by **nts007** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 11:04 pm

How do you keep the underside of your truck so clean!!! I can't even wash the truck and drive home without it getting a good layer of dust

Colibri · Post by **Colibri** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 11:20 pm

Hahaha it's normally covered in dust, its freakishly clean right now though. Had it at the car wash and been in the city for the last week since. But also no road salt and I'm not near the coast either so no rust or corrosion to worry about. I would have a stroke if I had to deal with what your climate does to vehicles NTS

Post by **Pit Slave** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 11:34 pm

I'm sure you'd have a bird if you seen my shocks, hahahaha!

Yeah, I smoked 'em, sometimes you just gotta #sendit

Post by **DamageWagon** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 11:41 pm

Pit Slave wrote:I'm sure you'd have a bird if you seen my shocks, hahahaha!

Yeah, I smoked 'em, sometimes you just gotta #sendit

Do you still have shocks? I thought you had a puddle of rusty shock oil under your truck?

Post by **Pit Slave** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:58 am

Absolutely. Going olde skool... Getting some lever shocks, lol.

Yeah, I smoked 'em, sometimes you just gotta #sendit

nts007 · Post by **nts007** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 1:06 am

Thuren told me today I need to wrap the Kings I'm getting with 3m or something to protect them from the rocks and corrosion.

gtomike60 · Post by **gtomike60** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 6:19 am

nts007 wrote:Thuren told me today I need to wrap the Kings I'm getting with 3m or something to protect them from the rocks and corrosion.

I'm planning on doing that to mine when I get them.
I'm also going to run the Overlands during the winter so the Kings don't end up looking like Pitslave"s

gtomike60 · Post by **gtomike60** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 6:21 am

Thanks for thinking of this,Colibri...the info will come in handy for sure

YouTube · Post by **OffroadTreks** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:23 am

Ditto what Mike said. Damagewagon has talked me into this route, and like you I end up carrying a lot of heavy stuff but then go off and have fun.

Mike-H · Post by **Mike-H** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:54 am

I don't have Bypassee on the PW but I have them on my wife's Rubicon. We use it for fairly slow speed exploring. We've both been beat up enough in work trucks we generally don't enjoy high speed banging around. Ours are backed out pretty far until it got a wallowing fee and bottomed easily, l then turned them in a little. But they are tuned for comfort ba performance.

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