Hey

Im in the midst of a coil swap. 01 7.3l ex. Bone stock. 180k miles

I am looking at the alignmemt sleeves and there is alot of choices.

Doing the swap to eliminate wander and the other obvious benifits. Trying to make it easier to drive, and looking for a smoother ride.

Planning on rancho 9000 shocks and for now, stock coils, and stock ex rear spring (mine arent sagging) and suppliment the spring with air bags or ras. May try a b code, but want to see where im at with the swap since so much is changing. I do not want a stiff ride or significant lifts. Ill be changing the steering gear.


Based on my reading, i should go with lots of positive caster, but with the coil swap, do i still need alot of caster? Would a bit of camber help anything?

Looking for some advice.

 

Sounds to me like you have many different products and ideas all jumbled together in your head and are asking for a bigger mess to sort out than you may have now.

step 1. Get your coil conversion done.
step 2. Take it to an alignment shop and request they set the alignment to 5* positive caster. 0* camber and .01* toe in.


skip the twin-tube rancho shocks and buy a mono tube style shock like the KYB monomax or Bilstein 4600

RAS is just a “add a leaf” and is not needed as the rear springs have adequate spring rate,

if you are running stock size tires inflate them to the psi on your door jamb placard not some crazy psi billy bob recommend.

 

My single biggest suggestion to anyone doing a coil swap is to budget sufficiently to address the stock track bar issues, otherwise just stick to leaf springs.

i suggest either the Baja Customs or the one from PMF

https://bajacustoms.com/trac-inator.html

 

If I were going to use the stock f250 radius arms ( and i would not ) i would add the BD caster adjusters to the them otherwise you need to adjust caster using ball joint concentric shims.

https://us.bddiesel.com/products/cam...31285815836741

 

Absolutely the tracinator. It is the only part of my suspension not from pmf. The only reason for that is I wanted to be rid of that ball joint. Both choices are well made but the tracinator, using a uniball, is far easier to service when the time comes over the ball joint.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Im really just after what people have done for alignment and which sleeves to get.

I know the track bar ball joint is an issue. I am replacing it. I dont want to lift or get large tires, so i think the stocker will work with new parts. The track bar ball joint isnt that hard to service. I have a ball joint press that makes quick work of it.

I have most of the parts already for the swap. Im replacing everything just about.

What are you running for alignment? How did you achieve that alignment? This is what i need to know. My alignment shop thinks i should get a 2* alignment sleeve which should net between 4 to 5 degrees of caster. Is there any benefit to adding a bit of camber too(0.3*)?

 

You're going to get about 2 inches of lift with a D60 and stock coils. I have a 6 inch lift and kept the front on par with the rear with 4 inch coils when I did my swap.
I went with a PMF long arm 4 link, so that is where my caster adjustment comes from. The BD caster adjusters that Pirate recommended are what I would also suggest if going with radius arms.
Afraid I can't help you with the camber question other than sticking to spec for even tire wear. I didn't add any camber, nor request any. I set my caster and toe then had a shop check it out and fine-tune it on their equipment.

I've got a ball joint press and that one for the track bar still holds the crown as being the worst one I've ever fought with. That was on stands in my garage. The thought of having to go through that under the rig..no. Just no.
But as far as the track bar discussion goes, it's more about never having death wobble or bump steer than anything else. It's all axis and planes and stuff digging into it, but the short version is the baja customs tracinator
has the best thought-out geometry available. The PMF will at least eliminate the rubber bushing on the frame end and provide much higher reliability over stock. A lot of folks throw money into alignments, steering, and front-end components
several times over trying to cure death wobble, never once touching the track bar.

 

I answered your alignment questions and I understand your build goals. More importantly i have done many coil setups and have hundreds of hours testing setups from alignment, spring rates, sway bars, ride heights, shock valving ect. I am giving you the benefit of my own work, not something i read on the internet.

you can use +2 ball joint shims if you want but the BD adjusters are a better option.

you can replace the trac bar ball joint every 15,000 miles if that is your choice but I bet the first time you experience the notorious death wobble you will thankful you know where to buy the fix. Baja customs tracinator. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking this is just a off road product for large tires. It is the design Ford should have used for stock tires.

 

Im sorry if i offended you.

Perhaps this is a more controversial subject, and i should just keep to myself.

Thanks for your help and i greatly respect your expertise.

 

Doesn’t offend me in the least.

we can have a never ending conversation on different aspects of caster, camber and toe and the relationship to handling but at the end of the day it is subjective so opinions will differ. Set yours up to your liking.

the coil sprung suspension as built by ford has serious flaws, i pointed out a few of the more important fixes, do as you will with the knowledge i passed on.

more caster vs less. The stock coil suspension can use less caster than the leaf spring setup but because of it’s design geometry it still has more caster change through its cycle than I prefer and the reason I don’t use the stock radius arm.

bottom line, caster, camber, toe are adjustable and you can tune them to your preferred settings. I shared my preferences and i have tried dozens to arrive at the ones i shared.

 

You have inquired about camber.

i set mine to 0*

if it was a race car and i was trying to shave fractions of a second off lap times and tire wear was of no concern then yes sure, you can run some negative camber but the only thing you will get with negative camber on your street driven excursion is accelerated tire wear.