I have been towing heavy (9000 lb) since I bought our '03 Excursion new. It was "wild" from the factory, but here are the changes that have made this a very very good tow vehicle in order of effectiveness:

1) Radius Rods from Landyot.
2) Hellwig anti-roll bar.
3) New greasable ball joints on front end.
4) Rancho shocks.

My X now has almost 110,000 miles and it is a very good tow vehicle. The radius rods are the biggest bang for your buck, but they are a bit hard to get and take a Saturday to install.

 

I see him on dieselstop.com

 

As Web posted, ford-trucks.com

Stewart

 

According to the chart, putting the V's up front will add approximately 1.5 inches, while putting the B's out back will lower the rear just over half an inch.

When I did my research before doing this upgrade, I read where some reported a level stance to their Ex after the V & B spring upgrade, while others reported a slight front-end higher than the rear-end stance. I didn't want to take a chance on being slightly lower in the rear, so I swapped out the OEM blocks in the rear of the Ex and added 3.5" F-250 4x4 tapered blocks.

Left side 3.5" tapered block: Part #F81Z-5598-FA
Right side 3.5" tapered block Part #F81Z-5598-GA

This not only gave me the slight rake I wanted (rear end higher than the front), but it gave me a little bit of cushion to offset the tongue weight whenever I hooked up our 4-horse bumper pull, and now our TT.

Stewart

 

I've seen the chart before, but I don't see anything about the B codes on there. From the looks of the chart V or W codes would work better for my application. IF there is some info on the B codes and some of the other springs mentioned, does anyone have a link to the proper info? I'm going to the local suspension shop tomorrow and I have to show up with some info as they are unfamiliar with some of the F350 springs.

 

I posted this in another thread about my new TT purchase, but it works here too because it illustrates how nicely the B's work with the larger blocks, when the TT is hooked up.



The following pictures were recently taken when I happened to park next to another 4x4 PSD while visiting Oregon a few weeks back. While far from a perfect comparison (you can see I was parked slightly more forward than the other Ex), it still shows the size difference with the spring swap.

Also, I can only assume the other Ex still had the OEM springs, and no other suspension mods.

My Ex is on the left in all pictures.

This is a shot showing the height difference using the mirrors as a measuring stick...

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Close up of the above picture...

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This shot shows the height difference using the rear wheel wells as a measuring stick....

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This is a close up of the above picture....

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In both pictures, I tried to put the camera at the same level as the mirror and the wheel well, in the respective frame.

Stewart

 

You must be looking right past it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Application---Code---Capacity-----Rate----Travel --------- V-10 ----- PSD
--------------------------------- /spring---to Max Cap ----height ----height
--------------------------------------------------------- change --- change
Exc V8 ------- B ----- 4100 ----- 330 ----- 5.02 ---------- -0.25 --- -0.66
Exc V10 ------ C ----- 4300 ----- 350 ----- 5.01 ----------- 0.00 --- -0.37
Exc PSD ------ D ----- 4700 ----- 380 ----- 5.14 ---------- +0.33 ---- 0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stewart

 

S harvey, so your saying that the B code springs, will give me less height in the rear? I two need two more inchs in the rear (lift kit package screwed me over). What could should i go with? It has to be exactly two inchs. So my rear can be 1 inch taller then the front (like the factory setting). Right now the rear is sitting two inchs shorter then the front (looks really weird). Sorry if i hijacked the thread. S harvey, you can pm if you want, so this thread doesnt get to off track.

 

That's exactly what I was looking at, but I missed the fact that the chart is for the front only, not the rears. The rear height change is obviously different. B codes it is.

Three final questions: You mentioned blocks somewhere with the B codes to prevent if not eliminate the sag while towing. I don't exactly know what a block is or how it works, can you enlighten me? What did blocks do for your ride quality and where can I get the ones you used?

 

Ummm, I'm a tad confused, do you mean is not for the fronts only?

The B's, C's, and D's are rear springs, and the first part of the spring chart applies to the rear suspension for Excursions.

Either way, I think you got it because you stated...


Blocks only raise the springs off of the rear axle. Here is a picture of the rear suspension of an Ex I found through a Google image search.



The block is the part sitting on top of the axle, between the two U-bolts holding the spring to the axle.

Here is the block, isolated from the rest of the picture.


I removed the smaller OEM Excursion block (IIRC correctly, it was a 2 1/4" block) and replaced it with a larger 3.5" tapered block (tapered towards the front) from an F250.

Stewart

 

Stewart,

The chart that Bruce put together is for front springs only. The springs listed in the Excursion section are the factory front springs available based on which motor was in the Excursion. All of the +/- stuff shows the change based on a spring swap relative to what you started with. For example, if I started with a V10 Excursion with C code front springs and put in D code (diesel Ex) front springs, I would expect a .33" lift. Likewise, if I put in U code F250 front springs, I would expect a 1.60" lift. This chart has been proven by several people to be fairly accurate based on actual experience.

We haven't been able to put together any good charts on the rear springs because the F250/F350 springs are variable rate (stock Excursion springs are single rate). The fronts are all single rate. It doesn't help that Ford has assigned the same code to front and rear springs over the years, even though they are in no way related.

Rob

 

RE REAR SPRINGS:
I do not see the point in monkeying around with spring rates. I like nice soft springs. I control riding height elevation with air bags. Installing a couple of air bags is a HELL of a lot cheaper and a HELL of a lot easier than monkeying with springs, especially since you cant always predict that the result will meet your own personal preferences.

RE SWAY BARS:
I am new to Excursions. I bought a creame-puff late '05 production Limited. I can not imagine what Ford was thinking of releasing these from the factory without a rear sway bar. It wandered when it was EMPTY! Scary when loaded. The addition of the Hellwig rear sway bar dampened the "sway" issue down to "barely noticeable".

I just came back from my first "run" - towing my "toy box", a 3,500+ 24 ft long box trailer ( translation - LOTS of "sail" area to catch air flow off of the big trucks) in which was a just a hair under 6,000 lb Packard V.12. No sway control on this trailer -standard 2 5/8 ball hitch. This was a 460 mi. trip each way on the Interstate from our mountains here in northern Arizona, across the Mojave Desert, to Los Angeles and back.

I dont care WHAT you do to a trailer - if it has enough "sail" area, it IS going to get induced "sway" when you are passed by a big rig moving at extreme speed. But with the sway bar, and approx. 50 lbs tire pressure or more, I found it at worst only a minor distraction.

We will shortly be towing our boat back and forth to Lake Mead. The boat trailer DOES have the "spring bar" system. The boat is a 28 ft. long Bayliner - weighs about 7,500 lbs - trailer is a three axle - it weighs roughly 3,000 lbs. The boat has at least as much "sail" area as the "toy" trailer - will be interesting to see what difference the "spring bars" make.

 

Going by your sig, you have a V10. That means if you swapped out your OEM rear springs and replaced them with B codes, you would lose approximately 1/4 inch in height.

For me, I made up the height loss, and offset the height gain on the front end by adding a bigger rear block.

Stewart

PS - Please call me Stewart, guys. When I registered on FTE I tried to use my first name, but it was taken, so I used S_Harvey. I should have registered with Stewart_H like I did at other sites.

 

Wait, wait, you mean that B versus C versus D code height info doesn't apply to the 250/350 springs? On all the threads and posts I read (back when I did my research), the info seemed to jibe with that info relating to the 250/350 rear springs, and it proved correct when I did my swap.

Now you have me doubting the info I downloaded into my brain!

Stewart

 

I didn't change the springs for ride height, I changed the springs for safety reasons only.

The Excursion is my wife's daily driver. She also uses it to tow her 4-horse trailer. There was absolutely no way on God's green earth I would let her tow anything with the OEM suspension on her Excursion. The wander issues it had were terrible. Hook up a trailer and the problem would have been compounded.

I didn't feel like attending my wife and kids' funeral so I swapped out the springs to the stock F250 springs and now it's safer to drive and tow tailers.

Stewart