FOX FACTORY RACE SERIES 3.0 ARE THEY THE RIGHT CHOICE

[Hoonigxn]

Hello everyone,

Recently added the fox factory race series 3.0 coilovers w/ camburg billet v2 uppers to my 23 wildtrak sasquatch. First dirt outing was at king of the hammers in johnson valley CA after putting about 500-800 miles of on road miles finding the right DSC settings. I noticed day 1 coming in through boone rd (have to take the whoops its tradition) the coilovers felt good but not great. Spent the day moving from spectator zone to spectator zone and along the way tuning the DSC adjusters to my driving style (Prerunning). It took until about day 3 to get the DSC adjuster combo just right to where i felt at a happy place with the coilovers.. HOWEVER i found the limits of speed very quickly. Seems like i could only push it to about 35 mph in spaced out small roller whoops while deeper ones i had to drop back to 15-25 mph sometimes slower. The up travel was very minimal in my opinion and felt like i was hitting the bumpstops on a lot of terrain. At a certain point i was running so stiff trying to compensate for the bigger hits and trying to push it faster that anytime i got to a sandy sections my rear end would chatter like crazy from the stiffness. It did feel good getting air and coming back down a couple times but nothing big to the point of damage. I did however get bucked around pretty good hitting whoops at 50+ on the road to chocolate, that's when it was time to back off and take it easy. I have not adjusted preload i left it at the out of the box height.

Now that all the fun hammers driving is done for now i have some questions about some upgrades and if anyone has first hand experience with these coilovers.

Can these coilovers be pushed to faster prerunning speeds with valve tuning and a spring change or am i at a hard ceiling limited by everything else on the vehicle.

If that is the case , I plan on potentially switching to a long travel kit either baja kits or camburg to allow for extra travel if the coilovers are capable of doing so.
I do plan on getting the hydro bumpstop kits for the front and rear before the next hammers.

If anyone has information on these coilovers please help

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[Blinkerfluid]

I'm not an expert, but I think you're probably just running into the limits of the vehicle. These things are heavy, and they only have ~10" of wheel travel with factory length arms. I don't think it's hard to over-run the suspension, even with great shocks. Even with the preload tightened up to lift the vehicle some, you're still only looking at 6-7" of upward wheel travel. I don't think I'd try driving a vehicle fast enough to stay on top of whoops that didn't have a very substantial cage with harnesses.

The 3.0s are going to let you run higher speeds longer without overheating, and they have the potential to provide the most dampening force, but I don't know what the factory tune specs are. You could maybe look into a custom shock tune to get the most out of the shocks from somewhere like accutune. Although, if you think you're going mid/long travel, I'd wait and do the custom tune then. That way you don't have to do it twice.

 

[Canyon Coolers]

You can do amazing tings with just the 2.5's if dialed in perfect. Your in a better position. I had to change springs more then once and had custom valving. So yes if you haven't done a deep dive into that stuff you may be leaving performance on the table. If you go long travel you'll be starting from scratch again on the front at least.

First Choice: Find a local shock tuner that will take you out in the desert for a day. They cost about $1000 but they will custom valve and adjust the shocks until they are perfect.

Second: Before that verify you have the right spring. Measure the front and rear weight at a truck scale and talk to tech support about your driving style.

55mph in the silt

Last: You may not need this but I think the rear is where these Bronco's get squirrely quick. I went with some rear bump stops. You may be set with the 3.0's

 

[AccuTune Offroad]

Internal bypass shocks are position sensitive and need to be riding in the correct zone. It may be worth reaching out to Fox to see if they have a recommended lift height range to be in. We have recommended specs for standard 2.5 shocks, which are based on the total shock travel. This would be a good starting point. Unfortunately we don't have ride zone info for these shocks and I don't see anything in their installation guide.

Unfortunately we don't offer tuning on these OEM fit IBP shocks. Due to their design, it's very costly to tune them correctly. We work on these types of shocks for Ultra4 4800 teams, and it's pretty intense process working with the internal bypass zones and then it becomes critical that the ride height on the vehicle does not change. I'm also not sure what spring rates these shocks come with, but they likely are using a 3.75 ID spring and limited in options, especially the rear since its a dual rate spring.

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