- First Name
- Matt
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2023
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 32
- Reaction score
- 138
- Location
- Anaheim, California
- Vehicle(s)
- 2024 Bronco
- Your Bronco Model
- Badlands
- Thread starter
- #1
OK, first off let me apologize for the length of this post. I am still leaning towards the Fox 2.5's as well as UCAs.
Any comments/input is welcome.
Background: I am looking at a couple more inches, insert joke here, on my 2024 Badlands Sasquatch, to follow up with 37" tires. I was looking at Fox and King's. I am going to post a response to me from someone I trust and ChatGPT's response to his dissertation (luckily I know smart people!)
Response:
There are differences in valving style.
On top of this you have to weigh longevity, cost, cool factor, and if your gonna get them re valved/tuned and rebuild costs. I’m assuming you’re looking into the 2.5” reservoir range and around 2-3 inch lift height. Just to preface with adjusters, compression adjusters react to the “speed” of the piston so a mid speed adjuster or single adjuster is calculated on the average travel speed of the coilover while a low and high speed compression adjuster allows you to control the slower shaft movements (body roll, brake dive, suspension flex) and fast movements (bumps at speed, jumps) independently. So I’ll write you a book and let you know what I would look into.
Progressive/Kings: All Kings are a progressive valved shock. Meaning as the shock compresses in its stroke, it’s starts out soft and increasingly adds resistance as it compresses. The Same effect happens on the rebound of the shock where it’s softer as it starts expanding and gets stiffer towards the end of its travel downward. This makes that cushy soft pillowy feeling in the “ride zone” (that 1-2” that the vehicle constantly travels when on the road) but sacrifices handling, turns, brake dive on the road and performs worse and worse with more weight (out of the box). Weight will blow through that Cushy “ride zone” and honestly just make the softness of kings pointless. This is why you see pre runners and ultra 4 trucks have such crazy body roll on the street. While those specific shocks are custom re valved, they are done so for the exact amount of race weight to be in their optimal zone. A daily driver/overlander has varying weight of course. So while unloaded or at weight for which you have re valved to, the kings will be soft on the road, soak up the small bumps really well but also you are gonna have more brake dive, more body roll in the corners, and be weight sensitive. It’s a beautiful blue, and if you are running 60 mph in the desert, keeping weight consistent, want bragging rights, and to look cool. Kings are great. Lastly keep in mind what everyone else looks over, the name is “King Racing Shocks” that means they need to be rebuilt every 30-40k miles and if you don’t do that, your just gonna be wasting suspension. Average rebuild price is around 1/3rd of what you bought the whole set for. Also I personally don’t like the adjuster being only compression in the mid speed and having 20 clicks. Too many clicks to keep in mind and too fine of an adjustment level to feel much difference from a few clicks.
Linear/Fox/Elka/Falcon: Linear valving is most related with Fox shocks as they are the big players in this. Linear shocks have no bias in their compression or rebound which is great for all around. It yields the best versatility but heavily relies on adjusters or re valving to dial in the ride. So if you like tweaking on the go and having something to work right out of the box to get it perfect, linear is great. Linear valved shocks are also a spectrum with Fox being on the more progressive side and something like the Falcon being more on the digressive side of linear. The downside is that they are a jack of all trades so even the most progressive fox shock will never be progressive like a King and the most digressive linear valved shock like the Falcon will never be a bilstein or Icon. These are may favorite category for daily driving. Especially the Fox performance elites with the high and low speed compression is just a killer coilover and being that the adjusters have 7 and 12 clicks respectively make it a user friendly experience. I’m also a huge a fan of the Falcon coilovers as they have the simplest and easiest adjustments (just 3 positions) and ride similar to Fox but not as refined. Lastly fox performance elites usually last around 60k in my experience while the BP-51s have lasted so long that ARB rebuilds them for free with a lot of guys putting 100k on them.
Digressive/ icon/bilstein: So digressive valving is the most common style of shock as it is typically the most road friendly handling and performance wise as well as handles weight both sprung and unsprung very very well. It’s the complete opposite of progressive meaning that in the travel of the shock when compressing it starts off firm and softens up as it compresses and same process when in rebound. The “ride zone” often sits in the firmer area so the small bumps and details on the road are going to translate but taking turns and slow crawling feels really really planted. This is why a lot of rock crawler builds use just bilstein 5100s since they don’t need the cooling of a larger diameter and reservoir but just the digestive control. Now with weight in specific, a digressive valved shock just doesn’t get impacted by sprung rate (anything about your suspension) as much as the others as long as your spring rate is set up. This is why Icon got so popular with overland builds because they are a pure digressive built shock that offered different spring rates so you could just load the crap out of the vehicle with the right spring. Personally speaking, I use digressive on overland builds or heavy builds (bumpers, tire carrier, roof rack, winch, sliders, cargo etc) as well as crawlers, jeeps, 3/4 and 1 ton stuff. The downside to digressive is that they are commonly referred to as “stiff” feeling if unloaded or driving it casually. You can really hit a speed bump hard with these and it feels like it’s actually working and smooth. Lastly digressive are the most “bulletproof” of the categories often lasting 60k miles before rebuilds and taking the most abuse.
Now from how I see your bronco is set up being a daily driver and overland rig, but not being extremely heavy I think I would order your choices like 1. Fox (performance elites) 2. Icons 3. Kings
Ok and last thing are my suggestions to look into and thoughts. Icon has gone out of favor in my book ever since being acquired by Randy’s worldwide (they also own Yukon gears and carli suspension) about 2 years ago and their quality has just gone down and I’ve seen too many of them leak and rust prematurely which is really sad since they have built this name from a great product. From what I know now is that they have gotten better and even the guys that work there have noticed this but still being a really expensive set of coil overs, I think it’s still too much of a financial investment to take the risk on them being better now. Everything past their single adjuster model also is gimmicky but sounds great for advertisement and parts are proprietary (bushings, seals, collars, brackets.)
I personally would look very strongly into Bilsetein 8100s if they fit the budget. They are like the Fox performance elites with adjustability and even more control but have a price tag. Also, ultimate bragging rights and cool factor without the blue. Upper control arms are must. Nothing uniball or heim style just do a normal ball joint. Bilstein used to make some fantastic ones and so does a company called “elevate” just tubular ball joint style with bushings on the frame side to save yourself headaches and noises. And Cam bolts. SPC part # 86252. Qty. 2.
Thank you for attending my Ted talk.
If your goal is to lift 2-3 inches, you will also need a track bar bracket and or an aftermarket track bar in the rear. If you want it to be dialed, I would also do trailing arms at 3 inches of lift. The pain in the ass is that on the bronco you have to drop the gas tank for the passenger side trailing arm to install but worth it for travel. These can also be added post lift and later on and shouldn’t be any more expensive to install after the fact labor wise. Again I’d stay away from heim style joints and go with rubber bushings for longevity and noise over the minor performance upgrade. The ready lift falcon kit is a complete kit with all of that but comes with the falcon coilovers. Not bad but if those bilsteins are in budget do those.
ChatGPT's response to nephew's write up:
My read: he’s mostly right, and for your Bronco as you’ve described it before, I’d land in almost the same place with one tweak.
My plain-English takeaway
For a 2024 Bronco Badlands Sasquatch that is mostly a daily driver + overland rig, not a full-time desert missile and not a heavily armored rhinoceros, I would rank them like this:
1. Fox Performance Elite 2.5
2. Bilstein 8112/8100 family
3. King
4. Icon, with caution
That is very close to what he said, except I’d probably move Bilstein above King for your use case.
Why
Fox Performance Elite 2.5
This is the “least likely to make you regret your wallet” choice. FOX’s Bronco 2.5 Performance Elite line is current, available, and aimed right at the use case of improving comfort, articulation, and control, with dual-speed compression tuning on the adjustable setups. FOX also publishes low- and high-speed compression tuning guidance, which matters because these shocks reward a little knob-fiddling instead of requiring black magic and a moon phase.
Why I like it for you:
This is the smart-guy sleeper pick. Your nephew called out “8100s,” but the current Bilstein Bronco halo option is really the B8 8112 ZoneControl CR / DSA+ family, with 8100 as part of the broader premium off-road lineup. Bilstein says the Bronco 8112 DSA+ setup gives position-sensitive damping in compression and rebound plus external 3-way adjustability, with up to 0 to 3.3 inches of ride-height adjustability depending on model. That is an extremely spicy spec sheet for a vehicle that still has to behave on pavement.
Why I’d seriously consider it:
He’s right about the appeal. King has enormous cool factor and that “I probably own an air compressor, a fire pit, and opinions about bypass tubes” aura. But for a daily/overland Bronco, their reputation still leans more toward plush, performance-oriented off-road feel and more maintenance/rebuild commitment than many owners really want. AccuTune’s valving overview broadly supports the tradeoff he described: more progressive setups feel smoother over small chatter, while digressive setups feel firmer and more controlled on-road.
So unless your goal is:
Icon
This is where I agree with his caution. Icon still has Bronco kits on the market with CDCV and travel-focused hardware, including Sasquatch-specific 2-3" lift systems. But if you already have a trusted source telling you recent quality consistency has been shakier than ideal, I would not make Icon the expensive experiment truck.
On the geometry parts he mentioned
This part of his advice smells correct too.
If you go to roughly 2-3 inches of lift, supporting geometry parts start becoming less “accessory” and more “don’t be weird about alignment later.”
A few examples from current Bronco lift offerings:
Ball joint vs uniball
For daily driving and longevity, his bias toward ball-joint UCAs is very reasonable.
Uniballs are great for strength and articulation, but they are typically less sealed from road grime and can be noisier / higher maintenance in real-world daily use. That tradeoff is echoed by aftermarket UCA guidance across the space.
So for your Bronco:
If this were my money on your Bronco, I’d do one of these two paths:
Best overall balance
FOX 2.5 Performance Elite
plus
quality ball-joint UCAs
plus
rear track bar correction if you go near 2-3 inches
That’s the cleanest all-around answer.
Best premium nerd choice
Bilstein 8112 DSA+ / premium Bilstein setup
plus
ball-joint UCAs
plus the same geometry cleanup items
That’s the “I enjoy engineering and also like things to feel composed” route.
What I would skip
Your nephew gave you good advice.
My polished version of it is:
Any comments/input is welcome.
Background: I am looking at a couple more inches, insert joke here, on my 2024 Badlands Sasquatch, to follow up with 37" tires. I was looking at Fox and King's. I am going to post a response to me from someone I trust and ChatGPT's response to his dissertation (luckily I know smart people!)
Response:
There are differences in valving style.
On top of this you have to weigh longevity, cost, cool factor, and if your gonna get them re valved/tuned and rebuild costs. I’m assuming you’re looking into the 2.5” reservoir range and around 2-3 inch lift height. Just to preface with adjusters, compression adjusters react to the “speed” of the piston so a mid speed adjuster or single adjuster is calculated on the average travel speed of the coilover while a low and high speed compression adjuster allows you to control the slower shaft movements (body roll, brake dive, suspension flex) and fast movements (bumps at speed, jumps) independently. So I’ll write you a book and let you know what I would look into.
Progressive/Kings: All Kings are a progressive valved shock. Meaning as the shock compresses in its stroke, it’s starts out soft and increasingly adds resistance as it compresses. The Same effect happens on the rebound of the shock where it’s softer as it starts expanding and gets stiffer towards the end of its travel downward. This makes that cushy soft pillowy feeling in the “ride zone” (that 1-2” that the vehicle constantly travels when on the road) but sacrifices handling, turns, brake dive on the road and performs worse and worse with more weight (out of the box). Weight will blow through that Cushy “ride zone” and honestly just make the softness of kings pointless. This is why you see pre runners and ultra 4 trucks have such crazy body roll on the street. While those specific shocks are custom re valved, they are done so for the exact amount of race weight to be in their optimal zone. A daily driver/overlander has varying weight of course. So while unloaded or at weight for which you have re valved to, the kings will be soft on the road, soak up the small bumps really well but also you are gonna have more brake dive, more body roll in the corners, and be weight sensitive. It’s a beautiful blue, and if you are running 60 mph in the desert, keeping weight consistent, want bragging rights, and to look cool. Kings are great. Lastly keep in mind what everyone else looks over, the name is “King Racing Shocks” that means they need to be rebuilt every 30-40k miles and if you don’t do that, your just gonna be wasting suspension. Average rebuild price is around 1/3rd of what you bought the whole set for. Also I personally don’t like the adjuster being only compression in the mid speed and having 20 clicks. Too many clicks to keep in mind and too fine of an adjustment level to feel much difference from a few clicks.
Linear/Fox/Elka/Falcon: Linear valving is most related with Fox shocks as they are the big players in this. Linear shocks have no bias in their compression or rebound which is great for all around. It yields the best versatility but heavily relies on adjusters or re valving to dial in the ride. So if you like tweaking on the go and having something to work right out of the box to get it perfect, linear is great. Linear valved shocks are also a spectrum with Fox being on the more progressive side and something like the Falcon being more on the digressive side of linear. The downside is that they are a jack of all trades so even the most progressive fox shock will never be progressive like a King and the most digressive linear valved shock like the Falcon will never be a bilstein or Icon. These are may favorite category for daily driving. Especially the Fox performance elites with the high and low speed compression is just a killer coilover and being that the adjusters have 7 and 12 clicks respectively make it a user friendly experience. I’m also a huge a fan of the Falcon coilovers as they have the simplest and easiest adjustments (just 3 positions) and ride similar to Fox but not as refined. Lastly fox performance elites usually last around 60k in my experience while the BP-51s have lasted so long that ARB rebuilds them for free with a lot of guys putting 100k on them.
Digressive/ icon/bilstein: So digressive valving is the most common style of shock as it is typically the most road friendly handling and performance wise as well as handles weight both sprung and unsprung very very well. It’s the complete opposite of progressive meaning that in the travel of the shock when compressing it starts off firm and softens up as it compresses and same process when in rebound. The “ride zone” often sits in the firmer area so the small bumps and details on the road are going to translate but taking turns and slow crawling feels really really planted. This is why a lot of rock crawler builds use just bilstein 5100s since they don’t need the cooling of a larger diameter and reservoir but just the digestive control. Now with weight in specific, a digressive valved shock just doesn’t get impacted by sprung rate (anything about your suspension) as much as the others as long as your spring rate is set up. This is why Icon got so popular with overland builds because they are a pure digressive built shock that offered different spring rates so you could just load the crap out of the vehicle with the right spring. Personally speaking, I use digressive on overland builds or heavy builds (bumpers, tire carrier, roof rack, winch, sliders, cargo etc) as well as crawlers, jeeps, 3/4 and 1 ton stuff. The downside to digressive is that they are commonly referred to as “stiff” feeling if unloaded or driving it casually. You can really hit a speed bump hard with these and it feels like it’s actually working and smooth. Lastly digressive are the most “bulletproof” of the categories often lasting 60k miles before rebuilds and taking the most abuse.
Now from how I see your bronco is set up being a daily driver and overland rig, but not being extremely heavy I think I would order your choices like 1. Fox (performance elites) 2. Icons 3. Kings
Ok and last thing are my suggestions to look into and thoughts. Icon has gone out of favor in my book ever since being acquired by Randy’s worldwide (they also own Yukon gears and carli suspension) about 2 years ago and their quality has just gone down and I’ve seen too many of them leak and rust prematurely which is really sad since they have built this name from a great product. From what I know now is that they have gotten better and even the guys that work there have noticed this but still being a really expensive set of coil overs, I think it’s still too much of a financial investment to take the risk on them being better now. Everything past their single adjuster model also is gimmicky but sounds great for advertisement and parts are proprietary (bushings, seals, collars, brackets.)
I personally would look very strongly into Bilsetein 8100s if they fit the budget. They are like the Fox performance elites with adjustability and even more control but have a price tag. Also, ultimate bragging rights and cool factor without the blue. Upper control arms are must. Nothing uniball or heim style just do a normal ball joint. Bilstein used to make some fantastic ones and so does a company called “elevate” just tubular ball joint style with bushings on the frame side to save yourself headaches and noises. And Cam bolts. SPC part # 86252. Qty. 2.
Thank you for attending my Ted talk.
If your goal is to lift 2-3 inches, you will also need a track bar bracket and or an aftermarket track bar in the rear. If you want it to be dialed, I would also do trailing arms at 3 inches of lift. The pain in the ass is that on the bronco you have to drop the gas tank for the passenger side trailing arm to install but worth it for travel. These can also be added post lift and later on and shouldn’t be any more expensive to install after the fact labor wise. Again I’d stay away from heim style joints and go with rubber bushings for longevity and noise over the minor performance upgrade. The ready lift falcon kit is a complete kit with all of that but comes with the falcon coilovers. Not bad but if those bilsteins are in budget do those.
ChatGPT's response to nephew's write up:
My read: he’s mostly right, and for your Bronco as you’ve described it before, I’d land in almost the same place with one tweak.
My plain-English takeaway
For a 2024 Bronco Badlands Sasquatch that is mostly a daily driver + overland rig, not a full-time desert missile and not a heavily armored rhinoceros, I would rank them like this:
1. Fox Performance Elite 2.5
2. Bilstein 8112/8100 family
3. King
4. Icon, with caution
That is very close to what he said, except I’d probably move Bilstein above King for your use case.
Why
Fox Performance Elite 2.5
This is the “least likely to make you regret your wallet” choice. FOX’s Bronco 2.5 Performance Elite line is current, available, and aimed right at the use case of improving comfort, articulation, and control, with dual-speed compression tuning on the adjustable setups. FOX also publishes low- and high-speed compression tuning guidance, which matters because these shocks reward a little knob-fiddling instead of requiring black magic and a moon phase.
Why I like it for you:
- Better street manners than a race-first setup
- Enough adjustability to tune for road trip, trail, cargo, and “I accidentally drove into a pothole the size of Nevada”
- Strong support ecosystem and lots of Bronco fitment/options on the market
This is the smart-guy sleeper pick. Your nephew called out “8100s,” but the current Bilstein Bronco halo option is really the B8 8112 ZoneControl CR / DSA+ family, with 8100 as part of the broader premium off-road lineup. Bilstein says the Bronco 8112 DSA+ setup gives position-sensitive damping in compression and rebound plus external 3-way adjustability, with up to 0 to 3.3 inches of ride-height adjustability depending on model. That is an extremely spicy spec sheet for a vehicle that still has to behave on pavement.
Why I’d seriously consider it:
- Strong on-road control
- Premium engineering and adjustability
- Great fit for a Bronco that has to do both commute duty and real trail work
- If you shop Bilstein, make sure you’re looking at the current Bronco-specific 8112/DSA+ offerings, not just generic “8100” talk. The naming gets alphabet-soup fast.
He’s right about the appeal. King has enormous cool factor and that “I probably own an air compressor, a fire pit, and opinions about bypass tubes” aura. But for a daily/overland Bronco, their reputation still leans more toward plush, performance-oriented off-road feel and more maintenance/rebuild commitment than many owners really want. AccuTune’s valving overview broadly supports the tradeoff he described: more progressive setups feel smoother over small chatter, while digressive setups feel firmer and more controlled on-road.
So unless your goal is:
- frequent fast dirt running
- strong brand preference
- willingness to service/rebuild on schedule
Icon
This is where I agree with his caution. Icon still has Bronco kits on the market with CDCV and travel-focused hardware, including Sasquatch-specific 2-3" lift systems. But if you already have a trusted source telling you recent quality consistency has been shakier than ideal, I would not make Icon the expensive experiment truck.
On the geometry parts he mentioned
This part of his advice smells correct too.
If you go to roughly 2-3 inches of lift, supporting geometry parts start becoming less “accessory” and more “don’t be weird about alignment later.”
A few examples from current Bronco lift offerings:
- BDS packages a 3-inch Bronco lift with FOX Performance Elite coilovers and heavy-duty upper control arms, which is a pretty strong hint that UCAs are not decorative jewelry at that height.
- TeraFlex sells a rear track bar bracket specifically for 2-4 inch lifted Broncos to correct track bar angle, improve handling, and help recenter the rear axle. That lines up directly with your nephew’s note about needing a track bar bracket or adjustable track bar if you’re in that lift range.
Ball joint vs uniball
For daily driving and longevity, his bias toward ball-joint UCAs is very reasonable.
Uniballs are great for strength and articulation, but they are typically less sealed from road grime and can be noisier / higher maintenance in real-world daily use. That tradeoff is echoed by aftermarket UCA guidance across the space.
So for your Bronco:
- Ball joint UCA = smarter daily-driver choice
- Uniball = more compelling if you were prioritizing hard off-road use over long-term street civility
If this were my money on your Bronco, I’d do one of these two paths:
Best overall balance
FOX 2.5 Performance Elite
plus
quality ball-joint UCAs
plus
rear track bar correction if you go near 2-3 inches
That’s the cleanest all-around answer.
Best premium nerd choice
Bilstein 8112 DSA+ / premium Bilstein setup
plus
ball-joint UCAs
plus the same geometry cleanup items
That’s the “I enjoy engineering and also like things to feel composed” route.
What I would skip
- King, unless you want the race-brand vibe and are truly chasing higher-speed off-road performance
- Icon, unless you have a specific trusted installer who has very current positive experience with their Bronco kits
- Heim-heavy joints for a mostly street/overland rig, because squeaks and maintenance get old fast. Like a drummer who discovers double bass and forgets restraint.
Your nephew gave you good advice.
My polished version of it is:
- Fox is the safest and best-matched choice for your use case
- Bilstein may actually be the most interesting premium alternative, possibly even better for your kind of driving
- King is more specialized than you probably need
- Icon is the one I’d approach with a raised eyebrow and a flashlight
Sponsored
