I currently have a 2013 F250 with a Carli leveling kit and Bilstein 5100's, running Dick Cepek 37x12.5x20 with 60 psi in the front and 55 psi in the back. I've had this set-up for awhile now and the ride is rough, more rough than I think it should be. Perhaps this is the nature of solid axle 8,000 lb trucks, but it bounces on every bump on the road. Does anyone have any similar experiences or advice on what to do next to smooth out the ride? Lower air pressure in the tires? Different shocks? I appreciate any help.
Lower pressure in your tires will help smooth things out, and probably even out your tire wear. I find my truck rides much better with the 250lb fifth wheel hitch in the bed. Any weight back there will help it stop hopping.
At the end of the day, these solid axles are what kills us.
Out of curiosity, do you have add-a-packs or full leaf springs on yours? The Kings really show their capability with the full leaf springs and 17-18" wheels on 37" tires as that is with what they're tuned. They're probably the most resistant to 20" wheels of any shock package we offer.
The airlift bags likely aren't helping either as they're felt on any upward suspension movement.
I went from the 5100's to the 2.5" Kings, and it made no difference to me with the small stuff. The Kings do keep the truck more controlled when you hit something large. Both were an improvement over stock to me, FWIW
Drop tire pressure man trust me.. I have the same leveling kit with Toyo RT's.. I was at 65 when they were installed. Dropped them all down to 50 and it made a huge difference. I'm going to drop them down to 45/40 and probably leave it there :0
Tire pressures are too high and those tires ride super rough. The only tires we advise against running are the Nitto Trail Grappler, Goodyear Duratrac and Cepek Fun Country. All three ride super-hard and have been known to cause handling issues.
The Cepeks are rated to 3,750 @ 65psi so you're pretty close to max pressure. This means your tires are overly stiff for your unloaded truck given you're running 14,000lbs of load capacity on an unloaded truck. I would drop them to 40F, 35R and see if that helps.
If you're after unloaded ride quality, i would tell you to get our Fox 2.0 commuter shocks and some 37" Toyo R/T, but dropping tire pressure is free (always the best place to start).
5100s are an entry-level off-road shock. They add control for sure but they're not soft by any stretch.
All airbags affect upward movement of the axle, especially the double-bellow bags with a 1-1 piston ratio. Even with the valve-cores removed from the line, the internal volume of the bag cannot be purged quick enough through the 1/4" airline to not affect the rear ride quality.
That's a raptor, not an SD... The bags sit pretty far away from the cups. The Super Duty trucks are configured in such a way that the airbags usually sit in the cups at ride height (in all the kits I've seen).
The daystar cradles allow unhindered droop travel but 90% of Daily Driving is a compression obstacle. With the bags sitting basically in the cups at ride height and most obstacles being compression, Daily Drive is effected by the airbags, more noticeably on our leaf springs which travel way more than stocks.
You are correct in thinking that it is a challenge to improve the ride on an 8000lb truck with straight axles that have rear leafs stiff enough to support a small house.
Although the Carli level kit is a good first step in improving the ride it moreso just a "correct" way to level the truck. You will usually see a mild ride improvement in the front along with some added control but the rear of the truck will still be very stiff as nothing got changed.
In your case you negated just about any improvement in the front with that specific wheel and tire choice. I personally have have more ride complaints from customers running that tire along with a few others that Dan already mentioned. Combined with your current tire pressure I am not surprised that the truck rides worse.
I would start with playing with tire pressure to see if you can get the ride improved enough to make you happy before looking at other upgrades. With a tire with that high of a load rating I would mess around with 40-45 in the front and 30-35 in the rear when empty or lightly loaded.
Have the same setup and noticed the same on ride quality diminishing over stock and have attributed it to the bilsteins. I'll likely be making the switch to the carli tuned fox shocks before too long.
Yeah, my backcountry 2.5" Setup rides pretty good with toyo rt 35x12.50R18's set at 45F/40R but it's a pain in the arse to have to constantly be pumping the air pressure back up to 65 every time we haul the 5th wheel and then letting it back down for day to day driving. Not many other options though other than the stock ride all the time.
I have 315/70r17 duratracs that wore horribly, maybe 30K miles. Mostly my fault for not rotating them like I should. I am having some nitto terragrappler G2's installed in a few days. What PSI do you recommend me running? I have a 2.5 carli leveling kit with 5100 bilsteins and an add a pack leafs in the rear with stock 2" block
Nitto terra grappler g2. 315/70r17 load E 65psi max. I'm like 90% sure. I am also going to be using nitrogen so id like to find a happy medium and leave it for the most part. I don't haul hardly at all. Daily driver
The only 2 options would be to turn it off using an aftermarket programmer like an H&S or just try to ignore it. I ignored it on my '11 for a while before I added a tuner. On my '14 Ram there is no way to turn it off yet so I just deal with it because there is no way that I am going to run 65psi in my Toyo's especially when we get snow and ice on the ground up here.
Running those tires at 60 psi when empty will most likely cause them to wear quicker down the middle, ride noticeably stiffer, and have decreased traction in certain environments.
Okay, I'm a little un easy, but will run 50 upfront and 40 rear. It just feels so low on pressure lol, but again I never haul anything. Thanks for the advice
Has anyone went from the add-a-leafs to the Deaver leaf spring set-up, and if so, was there a noticeable gain in ride quality? I've been holding out to try different tires first as I was told the Dick Cepeks were some of the roughest riding, however they've got 55,000 miles on them and much more left so I may go ahead and change out the rear leafs for the time being. Appreciate the info.
The full leafs make a noticeable different from the mini packs but the overall improvement will still rely on which shocks you have and what wheel/tire combo you are running. A few of the Cepek tire combos will still negate some of the improvement and full leafs tend to work best with the Backcountry and Pintop shocks.
If you get rid of the add a leafs, lmk, I'd be interested in buying them.
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