Recent content by blueherron96

Everything is back together and she's sitting on her own weight again! Just need to get the alignment dialed in and she'll be ready to hit the dirt.

Picked up shocks earlier this week. Cerakote on the bypasses came out awesome and hopefully the revalve on the coilovers helps smooth out the chop. Got everything back from powder coat yesterday and started slamming it together. Bumper is on and the bed cage is in. What a major PITA to get...

The factory replacement gen 1 kings that you have are only 6.69" stroke. You can cut the shock buckets out and replace with conversion buckets to run a gen 2 raptor coilover. The gen 2 Fox FRS coilovers are a true 8" stroke with 7.85" of usable stroke. This will get you to the advertised 15" of...

Axle is painted along with all the areas on the frame I had to weld. From here on out things are going back together for the final time!

We use them all the time on race cars (granted not seeing quite the abuse of an offroad truck) without issue. Even if they do get seized in the rod ends, I anticipate I'll be having to replace rod ends every year so not a big deal.

Had to make some custom misalignment spacers for the traction bars. Had a chunk of 1" aluminum sitting around so I decided to use that instead of the "industry standard" 17-4 stainless. I hate working with stainless but if the aluminum ones don't last I'll make some out of stainless next winter...

Next up is the front bumper. I wanted to go to a frame cut bumper because I was sick of killing skid plates in the dunes with the ADD bolt on bumper. The biggest problem was going to be dealing with the coolant tank for the intercooler on the whipple. I also didn't want to spend $2k+ for a...

Been a bit since I've updated this but have made a lot of progress in the last 2 months. The bed cage is complete and fully welded. Trying to pull it out of the bed by myself with limited room in the shop was interesting but not awful. Getting it back in after powder coat will be fun...

I used a graphite coating called slip plate. It definitely does a good job reducing friction between the leafs. We'll see how it holds up long term. Really don't want to be having to recoat every year because wrestling the springs in place with the coating is a major PITA. So far I haven't been...

Sitting on its own weight for the first time since November!

And this is where we are currently. Got the limit straps installed and am finally done cycling the suspension. Now it’s time to give these deavers a proper coating so they don’t rust so easily.

While I waited on limit straps to show up, I started working on the new layout for the bed cage. After using the bypass rack and bed support system for a year there were some things I really didn’t like about it and wanted to move some things around and add additional items such as an easily...

Now it’s time for the highly debated topic of traction bars. The deavers alone were not enough to stop the wheel hop with the added power from the Whipple so I needed some kind of axle wrap control system. I looked at every available option on the market and really didn’t trust any of the claims...

Once the deavers arrived, I got those torn down so I could start cycling the suspension. I’m trying to get everything I can out of this spring over setup so that means pushing the boundaries on up travel. Deaver recommends to not exceed 1” of negative arch on the spring. I ended up at 1.5” of...

So that brings us to the winter of 2025. The big project this winter is a major overhaul of the rear suspension adding the 16” bypasses thru the bed. I started with cutting the shock mounts and front bed mounts off the frame. Replaced the bed mounts with some reinforced ones from TSW AZ. Got the...