I use my truck in a number of ways, I use it to wheel tactical trails on a regular basis and I also load the crap out of it includding a roof top tent and SD rack to take camping trips. I like to drive fast desert racer style and the one short coming I had was hard hitting tire stuffing bottoming out that would then rebound hard and throw you and the truck around.
I wanted to figure this out from a comfort and saftey stand point so I went the way of the desert racers and looked into jounce shocks. The part I liked about them over a standard poly bump stop is the fact the are tunable for compression, dampening and rebound.
The Light Racing (
http://www.lightracing.com/lightracingJounceIntro.html) units are from my research the ones to get. They can be adjusted first by changing the amount of compressed nitrogen in the shock body. This controls the amount of pressure needed to compress them. They also can be adjusted for dampening, this is the speed that they can be compressed. lastly they can be adjusted for rebound, this is how fast they re-extend after a compression cycle.
I choose to run them at 50 psi. this is about as low a pressure as they can be run. This gives me the softest contact and makes them make the least noise. this was the most important adjustment is what I found, at anything higher then this then were a bit bangy for my taste. I have them set on the second setting for dampening and the second setting for rebound both of these settings seem to do whatI like so I havent had to mess around with them. The dampening and rebound is adjusted with a allen wrench in the side of the shock body. the dampening is progressive so the more they are compressed the harder they are to compress. This is what gives them the soft touchdown and total lack of jarring under huge stuffs.
Installation was a breeze. I took the stock bump stops and just cut the rubber off and cleaned the area up with a grinder. The units have many different mount and contact options I chose the simple round thread in base and a domed contact tip. These made the most sence for the disco's rear end.
Once the area was cleaned up it was just a matter of sitting the mount in place and mig welding it there. Steve Rupp and I thought that by also welding the back side it would make the mount stronger against any twisting so we filled the holes on the back of the mount as well.
the units then thread into the mount and are held in place by a single allen set screw.
the unit is then bolted in place under the truck just like the stock bump stops were.
I actually installed taller spacers to give myself some free travel before contact and after I tested the units for a number of trips I swapped over to the 5" rovertym springs to maintain that same lift height without any spacers.
I now dont even really think of them much I have just started taking them for granted and I freely launch my truck off and over things I used to have to slow to a crawl for because they just suck up that force like its nothing and the truck drives out of it under much better control.
this is a great upgrade for someone that really uses there truck hard and runs it heavily loaded.
Thom
