King Long Travel Question

Does the King Long Travel front coilovers require new lower control arms? Can you raise your truck to 3" with these? I know King recommends only 2-2.5" with OEM versions.

Having lift installed Monday. Talked with shop today and they happen to have King Long Travel front and rears in stock for my 4runner. Not much more price wise over what I'm getting now. Might upgrade but need to understand exactly what the differences are between long travel and OEM Kings. Kings site really doesn't break it down. I'm looking to maximize ride height for tire clearance.

 

If you’re going to get long travel, I would suggest getting new lower control arms and links in the rear. Long travel shocks are often designed to be fitted with long travel components such as total chaos or dirt king components (upper and lower arms, plus rear trailing arms to allow proper articulation of the rear axle). Trying to fit them in stock settings will not work. If you don’t need the long travel, don’t get it. If you do, you’re going to have to buy a lot more than just the shocks. Are you going for looks or for utility? Keep in mind coilovers need to be rebuilt approximately every 40k miles, and unless you’re doing the work and recharging of the shock it’ll be a couple hundreds dollars.

 

Thanks. That's what I was thinking but wanted to make sure.

 

Just clarify, are you getting long travel or extended travel?

 

He might of said extended travel versus long. This shop knows what they're doing. This is their specialty. So I'm not worried of getting wrong product installed. We are going to talk more about it on Monday.
I was just trying to understand the difference and will it allow for a 3" lift without issues. King recommends 2-2.5 max.

 

If you’re getting extended travel you can run them just fine. Just make sure you know the difference between long travel and extended travel before making any purchases. I know people who crank them beyond 4” of lift, won’t ride great but doable. King recommends below 2.5” for quality of ride and performance.

 

Extended travel is just an internal spacer that gets removed, you just need upper control arms for extended travel. Long travel is a whole different beast.

 

Extended Travel Shocks = Upper Control Arms to fully take advantage of the extra travel. SPC, Total Chaos, Dirt King, Camburg are some of the companies that make UCAs that are commonly used. This is a fine system for basically an OEM set up and will give increased articulation without a huge dent in your wallet. On my 5th gen I have the Ext Travel Kings set to 2.5" and a 285/70/17 with Total Chaos UCAs and my Caster set to +5 degrees to help with tire clearance in the rear of the fender well. This system performs quite well and is usually where a good percentage of us land in our upgrades of suspension.

Long Travel Shocks = Exponential cost and modifications increase to make it work ie: Longer UCAs and LCAs required, longer CV axles required, Limit Straps recommended, and more extensive fender mods or aftermarket fenders to eliminate rubbing as well. There are also more moving parts to maintain on a regular basis.

King recommends 2 - 2.5" of lift because once you preload your springs to gain 3 -3.5" of lift you lose a lot of the ride quality you just paid a premium for and you might be disappointed. With this amount of preload your not allowing the shock to fully dampen your ride the way it was designed to do.

Your install shop can explain all of this in greater detail hopefully.
Good Luck!!