My friend works at a Timpte trailer dealer and hooked me up with some shocks. They come off of a new Timpte grain hopper. They are super stiff obviously, but what i'm wondering is: Is that what I want? It to be really stiff in the back? I removed my center leaf spring and with the stock shocks it was constantly bottoming out, especially when I'd do a hard launch, it would unload the suspension. With the new shocks it doesn't do that but I'd like to know if its possibly to stiff now?

Also, I ordered a set of CalTrac's so is a stiff shock good with that setup?

Dont mind the rust, it looks worse in the pic than it actually is... lol

 

No, your not gonna wanna run those with Caltracs. If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't be running caltracs on my rig. I drive it too much, and the Caltracs require you to install aluminium bushing in the front of the leaf spring. Between them and solid trans mount I feel EVERYTHING from the driveline...

If your really only worried about the best 60 ft and don't care about DD manors, your gonna want an easily adjustable shock and will probably wanna relocate the mounts...

 

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for the input. Any others?

 

you would probably be better off putting that middle leaf back in and removing the overload leaf. the caltracs are gonna stiffen up the rear of the truck. i have played with mine quite a bit, and found a happy medium between ride and traction. my shocks are pretty stiff, so im sure it will be much better when i throw some adjustables on here in the next couple of weeks

 

I've always thought that you wanted a soft shock in the rear to allow it to squat on a launch...

 

Yeah to a point, but when your axle is under power it actually wants to twist and lift one side causing a loss of traction on one tire, which in turn causes a loss in traction to the other tire, if you have an LSD or posi of course... I think that is a contributor to the squat at launch...

Another thing to look at is that you want the rebound to be very stiff so that when it does squat then the suspension stays down and doesn't bounce back up.

But either way in my case I have very limited suspension travel (as you can see in the pic above) so I kinda need it to be stiffer. With the stock shocks, if I'd launch on the street it would come right out of the hole hard and then you could feel the suspension bottom out and bounce back up, then the tires would start spinning.

I just need to put the slicks back on and try it on the street now. From what I can feel with the street tires is it doesn't bounce off of the bump stop anymore. With the slick I'll be able to try some WOT launches and really tell.

 

OK, gotcha...I looked closer at the clearance between your axle and the frame...planning a C-notch in the future?

 

The reason your ride is stiff is because you are riding on the overload! That has to be miserable with your leafs setup like that. You need to put the middle leaf back in and remove that clamp. Get a notch for your truck while you are at it. Then run the cal tracs. Try that setup out with the current shocks and see how it acts at the track. Right now your truck won't want to squat and you will always spin.

I run Cal Tracs and it rides great out back. I don't even notice a difference from when I didn't run them. I used urethane bushings in place of the aluminum bushing supplied with the Cal Tracs to promote articulation and soften the ride.

 

you want the truck to squat enough to transfer weight, but stiff enough to plant the tires

 

Actually it rode SOFTER with this spring setup than it did with both long leafs installed and the overloads removed (thats what i had before this but it wasn't low enough). It only got this stiff after i installed the new shocks. I think if i just replaced my factory bump stops with some low profile ones that should help alot.