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Just brought my 250 home last night and already looking at lifts. It'll either be a 4.5 Carli, Icon, or small chance of BDS since I've got the hookup on that. Saving this thread for later.
Has anybody covered their 2.5" commuter to a backcountry or pintop and if so did you feel like it was worth the difference? BTW, I drive lots of nasty dirt roads and rough mistreated paved roads.
Has anybody covered their 2.5" commuter to a backcountry or pintop and if so did you feel like it was worth the difference? BTW, I drive lots of nasty dirt roads and rough mistreated paved roads.
I don't have a direct answer to your question of converting from Fox to King shocks but I have the Pintop with Carli Track bar on my truck and they are in combination an amazing upgrade.
I have not yet taken my F350 on what I would classify as nasty dirt roads that you describe (I am a dirt bike rider so nasty means really nasty to me) but on the dirt I have done and really rough broken pavement they are amazing.
My son has a Tacoma on King suspension and we have been on really rough roads with it and the faster we go the bigger our smiles get.
Again, I have gone from factory to Pintop and can't give feedback on Fox or Bilstein.
Installed the 4.5" backcountry 2.0 with fabricated radius arms and full leaf replacement this week. Also installed PMF dual stabilizer. I did not install the caster shims (carli instructions said to see how much caster the radius arms added, then add the caster shims if necessary). I think we hurried through the track bar install, and really didn't get it perfect. After the install, the truck had a horrible wander and oversteer. I didn't notice any bumpsteer.
Alignment showed the only measurement really out was caster, at 6.6 and 6.8. The alignment shop corrected it to 5.4 and 5.5,
and said that was the most they could correct it without pushing out the camber. They recommended installing adjustable ball joints to lower caster to their goal of 4. I mentioned to them that Carli recommends 4.5, but seemed to fall on deaf ears.
After alignment, the truck does drive better. No noticeable difference from stock at slow speeds, but still has some wandering and what feels like oversteer at faster speeds (maybe 30mph and up).
Does anyone think replacing the ball joints and further reducing caster will help? Or could this be more related to the track bar not installed properly?
I am by no means an alignment expert but I have done a lot of reading on the subject before adding Carli's 2.5 Pintop (no arms). My truck drives perfectly with caster at 3.6.
I have not come across caster readings as high as yours in my reading. Perhaps the radius arms make a difference but I too would be suspicious of the readings being incorrect.
In your place I would feel most comfortable getting another machine to read the numbers before modifying the truck further.
I have the 2.5" with 37 Toyo RT on 20x9 +18 offset wheels. I have not trimmed anything. I did heat up the little plastic body seam protectors at the back of the wheel well and push them back a little.
the tires do rub barely at full lock on the radius arms and drivers side of the sway bar
What's your backspace. Do you think there would be any rubbing with a +1 offset?
What's your backspace. Do you think there would be any rubbing with a +1 offset?
+18.
I think a 0 or +1 offset would cause the tire to rub on the back of the fender.
I replaced the tires with a set of 295/65-20s
If I go up to the 4.5" kit, I will run 37s again
Current setup:
Carli 2.5"coils
Carli 2.5 kings
Carli steering stabilizer
Carli track bar
STOCK rear springs (full deavers ordered)
37x12.5r20 ridge grapplers set at 45psi
The truck started with 2"spacer and 2" lift fox 2.0 shocks not carli tuned straight from fox. Then I added carli track bar. Swapped the spacers out and added carli coils and bump stop drops. At that time the truck had 35x12.5r20 ridge grapplers on it.
This truck is on rough farm roads and patched up asphalt a lot (50-60% of the time). I beat it pretty hard for 32k miles but was very happy with it.The last week the 35s were on it and the first week the 37s were on it I really beat on it. So i started noticing the truck was giving a lot of feedback through the steering wheel. Sure enough I checked the shocks and yep front driver shock was shot. So I bit the bullet after talking with carli and bought pin tops and steering stabilizer.
Well it was an instant improvement for sure but I'm still (5000mi later) noticing a lot of steering wheel feedback on the hwy (way more than when the 35s where on it when the fox shocks were new). The truck feels very stiff and rocks side to side in big rolling potholes significantly more than it did with the fox shocks. With the fox shocks I did feel the front bump stops contact a couple times a day. I dont think I've managed to even make them kiss with the pintops until I checked the pressure and they were @300psi so I dropped them to 225psi and now I think they do move easier. But maybe even more steering wheel feedback now.
Has anyone ever felt the pintops were valved too stiff. I read stories were people say they're actually looking for manhole covers and potholes that they used to go around. This has turned out to be opposite, I now have respect for the ones I would drive right over with the previous setup.
So my question is do you guys think the rear springs will fix the side to side harshness and overall stiffness.
I haven't had time to get it to the alignment to see if some of the hwy feedback when crossing expansion joints, asphalt patches ,pot holes etc is due to a worn ball joint or tie rod end. I did replace my drag link as it had some wear but it wasnt terrible.
I understand I do have a larger tire now and think some of these characteristics are to be expected but not all of them.
I think I have a couple different things going on, but just looking to see what you guys think.
Also, please know this is not a bash on Carli at all, I just wanna get this figured out
I've been contemplating this post for a whil. But didn't do it because I think their products are bad *** and I dont wanna trash them.
I really wanna make this work this thing has actually started to make my back hurt and causing extra fatigue on the same roads I traveled day in day out for 32000 miles with no trouble.
I have checked all the joints in the front end and cant find any problems. But have not had time to jack it up and check ball joints.
Installed the 4.5" backcountry 2.0 with fabricated radius arms and full leaf replacement this week. Also installed PMF dual stabilizer. I did not install the caster shims (carli instructions said to see how much caster the radius arms added, then add the caster shims if necessary). I think we hurried through the track bar install, and really didn't get it perfect. After the install, the truck had a horrible wander and oversteer. I didn't notice any bumpsteer.
Alignment showed the only measurement really out was caster, at 6.6 and 6.8. The alignment shop corrected it to 5.4 and 5.5,
and said that was the most they could correct it without pushing out the camber. They recommended installing adjustable ball joints to lower caster to their goal of 4. I mentioned to them that Carli recommends 4.5, but seemed to fall on deaf ears.
After alignment, the truck does drive better. No noticeable difference from stock at slow speeds, but still has some wandering and what feels like oversteer at faster speeds (maybe 30mph and up).
Does anyone think replacing the ball joints and further reducing caster will help? Or could this be more related to the track bar not installed properly?
How did they correct it? I’m moving from a 2.5 to a 4.5. I don’t have my oem caster shims and they list 4 different possibilities for my vin#. I asked about flipping the 1* shim in the 4.5 kit but they said that will mess up the camber. The radius arms are supposed to correct the caster like you said. The shims are for the 4.5 kit with out the arms..
I haven't taken it back. The u-bolts were loose on one side of the rear. Tightened everything up, and now drives just like stock. I will see how the tires wear for the next few months and get another alignment if needed.
The Carli instructions for the fabricated radius arms recommended keeping OEM shims and only change them if additional caster is needed during alignment. The alignment shop left my OEM castor shims in place.
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