Black widow suspension set up

Since I have been questions about my suspension set up.. I will detail my set up and answer questions about it. What worked and what didn't.. Hopefully, someone will learn for my experience and mistakes.


2012 SCrew

When I first got this truck I knew the environment I would be mostly driving in would be mud and jeep trails. And most of the trails are well worn and rutted by narrow jeeps. So I wanted to widen the Raptor to keep it out deep ruts. So I installed -12mm wheels this caused rubbing issues. So I had the front coil overs adjusted to the top perch..

This solved rubbing issues but caused bad harmonics in the front end. The passenger side and driver side were fighting each other over small bumps. So to solve this new issue, I ended up removing the front swaybar. With the additional preload on front coil overs body sway and roll was well under control. The additional articulation helped the front end stay on the ground on trails and allowed the torsen to work great..

Great set up for low speed trails and mud. Then Texas Raptor run came around.. This set up was horrible on the course.. The front was to stiff and the rear of the truck was sloppy and bouncy at speed.

So, I had RPG stage 3 bumpstop, national springs, raceline 1.5 upper control arms, and tie rods installed. This changed the whole feel of the truck. The back of the truck with progressive 11 leaf pack to stay on the ground and under control. The raceline UCA allowed additional droop without binding and additional piece of mind. After a 6 hour install, it was time to test out the new set up on the track. It was amazing the rear of the truck worked so well, but the front was still an issue because of top perch.. The front would "chatter" because of additional preload keeping the shock piston in the bypass zone of the shock. So there was little or no damping in compression or rebound..

Some of the negative caused top perch on my 2012..
The cv axles were running in near bind conditions all the time, and once in 4wd it would pinch the boots and tear them. Also the additional preload would cause the alignment to be knocked out easily..
So with 14,000+ miles on my truck I had two busted cv joints, two cross chopped tires from alignment issues..

So knowing I needed to be at mid perch height and adjustability in the shocks. More than what stock Fox shocks had to offer.. Started looking into upgrade options for the Raptor. Everything on the market is off the shelf shock adapted to fit the Raptor. Everything required the use of tools to adjust and set and no way to accurately set the shocks. Seeing Fox set up where you have to close the valves and count the number of turns of the wrench. There had to be something better out there, that met my requirements for a shock and my truck. Where I could have nice daily driver ride and be able to drive it hard on the weekends.

So I called several vendors and emailed several people and was pointed to ICON vehicle dynamics and their Raptor specific designed, tested and tuned shocks. Spent and hour or so talking to Brad on the phone while he was at SEMA.

Replacing stock shocks with ICONs, we noticed the rear shocks were blown.. The driver side was worse the passenger side. But still after 17,000 miles to have both rear shocks blown is kind of surprising. We replaced both axles and checked over everything.. The truck with the new set up was great.. And I will add to this as I put some miles on this set up.


-Greg

Good honest real world feedback. Diggin it!

Looking forward to your thoughts on the ICONs...

Great write greg, can't wait to hear your feed back on them after the Snoball run.

Lessons learned:

Top perch on 2012 and up is a no go..

It causes the cv axles to be in near bind conditions. And the additional strain caused by the torsen easily destroys the cv boots and joints.

If you are going to run at top perch on 2012 and up Raptors to clear 37" tires. I suggest upgrading to RCV axles to eliminate binding issues.

Negative offset wheels...

They are functional for mudding and gives the Raptor even more aggressive stance. It is causes rubbing and requires to be run at top perch (see above). It also causes more strain on front end components (wheel/hub bearings) and alignment issues.

Wheels.. I suggest +34mm (stock) to 0 mm and nothing wider because of above issues.

Shocks
Heated area of discussion. Here is my take and suggestions.

Stock fox shox are for street queens they do not allow ANY adjustments except for preload adjustment in front. They are great for occasional offroad experience and in my opinion they are just throw away shocks designed to meet minimum requirements of Ford Motor company.

Fox 3.0 are a step up from stock shocks.. They allow adjustability in the rear (with tools and guessing number turns) to control wild rear end. The fronts are less prone to heat fade but same amount of adjustability as stock shocks.. Unless you want to pull them apart and reshim them.. Good luck getting support from fox on tuning.. They will offer a shim kit, but not much support on shimming and tuning.

Kings 3.0 are the step up from Fox 3.0.. They offer great tunability but still need experience to tune them. Great for high speed desert applications, but heard several reports of being stiff for daily driver.

ICON 3.0 (in my opinion) the best solution for the Ford Raptor that is going to be driven to work during the week, and hard offroad during the weekend. They offer 10 settings of adjustabilty in front and 30 definite clicks in the rear. Without using a single tool. You can exactly set your front and rear for the driving conditions. Go "hard" to "soft" in one click on the front. For the Raptor that sees most of the time on the street and weekends in the dirt. These shocks are the clearly the best all around choice..

edit:
I wanted to add. I am not being paid or given discounts to mention one vendors product over another one. My intent is not to promote one over another, just give my first hand knowledge and experience with my Raptor and aftermarket products. This way other members can take an easier (cheaper) path to upgrading from learning from my experience.

-Greg

Speaking of costs Greg can you share how much you've invested into the ICONs and install? If not obviously no problem. Just trying to get a handle on where costs are with all this.

The ICONs from SDHQ retail at $5000 (as you know prices vary and the price on website is retail, it is best to call)

Install wise can be done in the driveway with a cutoff wheel or dremel to slightly modify rear spring mount and coil bucket.. I wanted WSI to install to help with cv axles and get everything done in timely manner.. It is not necessary to someone install it.. For me a couple hundred bucks was will worth the piece of mind having him help..

-Greg

Gotcha. And that's $5k retail for all four corners?

That is correct.. Including everything you need to install the ICON shocks to all four corners.

-Greg

10-4. Thanks.

Good write up Greg.