BDS Coil over kit
- Thread starter sickdiesel
- Start date
this will set you higher than being leveled. its a decent kit and would do well for mild off roading or street driving. depending on how they have it valved, you may not feel much difference in ride as the new trucks ride really well. The way i have mine valved, you can tell its on coilovers between same body style trucks. unless you hit something big like a pot hole, curb, decent rock, etc, thats when you really know. The sway bar and valving are what really make or break the ride.
if you do do the front, you will notice the rear feels like it rides harsher. now that you soften up the front, the rear isnt forced to work as much as the front. but again, this comes down to shock valving and how stiff that rear spring pack is.
pull the sway bar end links off and tie the bar up out of the way and see how you like the ride. its not going to corner on rails but the ride should improve. it would be a decent comparison of the coilovers with sway bar on and light valving stack. (light in comparison to the truck lol, it will be a heavy stack compared to what most off road guys see in these shocks. you can always change the shock valving if you dont like it)
if you do do the front, you will notice the rear feels like it rides harsher. now that you soften up the front, the rear isnt forced to work as much as the front. but again, this comes down to shock valving and how stiff that rear spring pack is.
pull the sway bar end links off and tie the bar up out of the way and see how you like the ride. its not going to corner on rails but the ride should improve. it would be a decent comparison of the coilovers with sway bar on and light valving stack. (light in comparison to the truck lol, it will be a heavy stack compared to what most off road guys see in these shocks. you can always change the shock valving if you dont like it)
Theyre supposed to be valved specifically for the truck but who knows lol, id hope so for the price!
i removed the sway bar on my old white LBZ race truck when it had coilovers and it definitely helped the ride but had quite a bit more body roll to it. but that truck wasnt street driven much so it didnt bother me. I take this one through the mountains often, so not sure if id like that or not.
well two things
1. the valving should accommodate the driving style AND the truck, not just the truck. when they say its "valved to the truck", its a marketing ploy to act likes its valved really well for the truck over stock stuff but in reality, its just a generalized valving inside that bds put in to make it nice on the road, still feel nice off road and add a little performance. if you actually pushed the kit, you would find the limits very quickly. what you feel the most is a spring rate working WITH the valving and thats not till you make the suspension move a significant amount. i can easily see this in the commercials ive seen on tv and on youtube. its pretty easy for me to see it with all the shock tuning ive done over the years
2. body roll with no sway bar and coilovers is going to MUCH different and worse than torsion bars and no sway bar. the reason is spring rate. the torsion is so much stiffer that is will resist sway a LOT more than coilovers will. i drove my truck for 3 years with out sway bar end links on my 8" lift and it had a little more body roll but nothing i really noticed as horrible. tried it with the coilovers last weekend and holy hell was it bad! it all comes down to spring rate for that issue.
thats why i suggest trying it on torsions and saying it would put you close to what the coilovers will ride like with the torsion bar still attached. the softer spring rate you get on the coilovers will induce more body roll than you feel now with the sway bar attached. valving can counter it some but not much, spring rate does the most along with the sway bar and its mounting location/leverage point.