Blind shock tests

Edit 2: Dirt King Tested Fox, Bilstein, King & Dirtking shocks:
https://youtu.be/Ug9n5r6oIcE?si=2cFCn5ZFRYtc0a70

Edit: SEASON 2:
https://youtu.be/9s271Ln-6QI?si=bkAmWR30ufhewj4N


So WheelEveryWeekend & Overland Outfitters have been working on a video series comparing different shocks for tacomas while they don’t know which set they are testing.

I have been very intrigued by this since I first heard about it when I had Ian rebuild my shocks right before he was going out to do these tests, the videos are finally coming out.

Curious who you guys think will win? I already watched the fox video at the time of this post, I am surprised what they had to say. I’m not sure what spring rate but if I had to guess I am wondering if it has a 700# spring because I’ve ridden in a few fox equipped vehicles and I thought they were a little better than my kings in term of smoothness.

Part of me wishes they would have tested with bigger than stock tires but I understand why they used a bone stock vehicle to start. My kings were harsher offroad until I removed my sway bar and put on larger tires.

Here is their intro video on the series:
https://youtu.be/u7cygv76f8Y

Shock test #1: Fox shocks
https://youtu.be/yDOyx22_Nxk
Shock Test #2: Elka Suspension
https://youtu.be/znzAGNeURoQ
Shock Test #3: Icon Vehicle Dynamics
https://youtu.be/ov4NncbKv2M
Shock Test #4: Bilstein
https://youtu.be/js0yxfIHf-Y
Shock Test #5: King Shocks
https://youtu.be/kjAPXXf5XXA

Final Conclusion: https://youtu.be/sJEkSmewcQE

 

I would guess Accutune would agree with their assessment of the Fox setup.

Accutune flat out says about the 2.0s on their website...

"When it comes to valving neither Fox 2.0 Coilovers nor King 2.0 Coilovers deliver optimal performance without being re-valved" and "Fox’s stock valving is considerably worse than King’s stock valving, however Fox will valve shocks however we’d like."

Its probably not a stretch to assume they feel the same about the 2.5s and of course why their advice and business is to revalve/tune them.

 

Hope they test out bilstein 5100.

 

They’re testing all the 2.5” top of the line oem travel length shocks in this test. They’ll be testing Bilstein 8112s from Bilstein, Fox 2.5” w res Factory series, Elka 2.5” w reservoir, King 2.5 w res, Icon 2.5” no res bc they couldn’t get in time for video

 

Thanks to @WormSquirts for doing this, can’t wait to see the final video’s

 

Yea, this is the greatest idea ever for us tacoma lovers. Really happy they did this! Sitting here hitting refresh waiting for the new episode to drop... I hope the kings do well LOL

 

Hey, thanks for following along with the series! Stoked to finally be getting these out into the world.

One thing I quickly wanted to say is that we set the truck up how a typical customer would be building their truck; so no swaybar and 285/70R17 tires. Aired to 35psi onroad, and 18psi offroad.
All shocks were tested with 600# coils, and no adjusters to keep things fair.

Once all the videos are out, I'm going to do a follow up video answering some of the questions I've seen pop up in the Youtube comments. If you guys have any questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them in that video!

EDIT: a little insider tip, all the episodes will air at 10am PST each morning until they are all out. @05 4x4

 

I’m curious to see how the Bilstein 8112s and 8100 smooth body’s do. I’m running these with 600# spring and rxt stage 2 leaf pack. I’ve been happy with it. I’ve been back and forth on switching to my 650# springs I have sitting in the shop and pulling the sway bar off

 

pretty sure it’s the clear “winner” for a simple bolt on solution based upon some things I saw posted in another forum/thread. The thing we all have to keep in mind as these are off the shelf tunes with no adjusters. Adding adjusters and/or having the shocks tuned by accutune or a competent shock tuner can make any of these products better than they are in the stock configuration from the manufacturer. The manufacturer is tuning the shocks either for a specific purpose or as a catch all where it does everything okay following their tuning strategy. Either way excited to see this being done. I think the only criticism I could have for the test we be talking about the speed through the whoops. Noting the speed as they did in the fox video helps to and it would have been cool if they said let’s do the whoops in 5 mph increments in each setup to see how violent it gets starting at 15 or 20 till they felt unable to control the vehicle.

 

Could you share link to that forum/thread please?

 

We do a lot of our own shock tuning in our shop, and Ian tunes even more shocks than us by a huge margin, including for several race teams. Of course tuning the shocks helps substantially, but if we tuned them ourselves first, they would all ride pretty much exactly the same after, and there would be no point in doing the testing. If you're in the states, please consider purchasing your shocks from https://www.wheeleveryweekend.com/ and he can tune any shocks before shipping them out the door. If you're in Canada, we are happy to offer tuning as well.

We decided to do it this way because in our opinion, the shock company's stock valving should get you 80-85% of the way there, and be good enough for most people. The last 15-20% would have to be tuned to specific vehicle setup and driving style, which is for the guys looking for that extra performance. Most people are happy to just bolt on a set of shocks and run them as they are, so those are the people this test is aimed at.

As far as your criticism, that is one of 2 regrets I have, and would do differently next time. I would film the whoop section in a more "scientific" way for the nerdier people like me. We did hit them all with the same speeds so the testing is consistent, and some shocks we were able to go a lot faster than others. I think the gist does come through in the videos though.

The only other regret I have is that I would add a couple hundred pounds in the bed. By the time we thought to do that, we had already shot the first test and swapped shocks, so we couldn't change it up. I don't think it really would have changed the results all that much, but it would have probably kept the back from bucking so bad, which affected all 5 sets of shocks equally.

It was a huge learning experience as far as how to actually produce these videos, and we put in a tonne of work on them to hopefully help a lot of people out! If the series does well, I would like to do it again with other suspension setups in different budgets etc.

 

Subbed, these are great videos!

 

Kind of pointless with revalvable shocks IMO.

If you're spending the money for 2.5" performance shocks, you should get them valved to your application and preferences.

 

not going to spend time looking for it. @WormSquirts said something that I believe got ninja edited not long after being posted as I think he realized what he just spelled out. Either way in a couple days it’ll be a moot point so just sit back and enjoy the daily video release.

I think just the lengths you guys went through to do this as a blind study says a lot. One of these days I’ll make it across the boarder and come say hi.

I bet 90% of the people who don’t order from shops like accutune that tunes them before being delivered never change the valving.

 

I agree, but a lot of people might just buy what comes from the factory and assume that it will be fine. This (so far) is a good comparison of what you get off the shelf. It helps drive home the point that you need to think about what you've done with your truck mod-wise, what you do with your truck on and off road, and what your ride preferences are -- and get your shocks valved for that.

 

Great videos, thanks. Looking forward to the rest!

 

If I had to guess nearly 90% of all buyers of these shocks would buy them off the shelf, have someone install or maybe install them themselves and would never think about tuning them.

The videos clearly state that the test is to see what shocks perform the best off of the shelf in order to help the consumer be more informed about their purchase.

 

Although generally I do agree with your comment these are a different level of shock. At almost $5000 for a set of Bilstein 8100s that is an entirely different level of purchase.

 

True, but money doesn’t equal common sense for some people.

 

Let’s be honest 99% just buy them for the bling and out the box performance. None of the customers I have installed suspensions on have followed up with manufacturers service intervals until shit hit the fan and need to replace parts. Not even basic upkeep of the UCA’s.

Glad you guys are putting up unbiased material for the dudes about to drop some major coin in suspension. Keep up the good work@WormSquirts

#trailboss approved