Leveling with Coilovers & Upper Control Arms

[sethwick75]

I just bought a 2014 Silverado 1500 Z71 Crew Cab and I'm loving it. I want to level out the front end, to fit a little larger tire and make it look right, but I don't want to go with a spacer kit. Looking to improve the suspension travel and overall ride both on & off road, so I was thinking of going with an adjustable coilover (ie: Fox, Fabtech, King) to get 2"-2.5" of lift, plus add new uniball upper control arms.

 

Has anyone gone with route, without going up to 4" plus of lift? I don't want to add that much lift, but want to improve ride. The road live out is a single lane, private road and has a bunch of speed bumps. I want to be able to cruise right over them (at around 10-15 mph is all) without having to slow down, hence the set up I'm considering.

 

I used to have an '11 F-150 FX4 with Bilstein 5100's, but I felt like it didn't improve the ride when put under even mild wheel travel situations. Hoping others can vouch for a better experience going with a coilover system.

 

[sethwick75]

Side Note: Fabtech makes a complete kit that includes 2.5" Front Coilovers, Uniball Upper Control Arms, and Rear Shocks for around $2,400. I know it is WAY more expensive than a spacer kit, but I'm looking to gain significant improvements to the suspension, not just a cosmetic leveling.

[Kyleorsini]

you could add icon vehicle dynamics. they have a cople stage options for what you want.

 

theres also the bilstein 6112 that should be out hopefully soon. it is a coilover. you then would have to source out a UCA from another company.

[A.J. Curtis]

Lots of people have installed the Icon coil over kit, the fox 2.0 & 2.5 coilovers and the King 2.5 coilovers. Set under 3" lift. I'm on my mobile so I can not give you links but search for

"icon"

"King" or

"Fox"

on this forum and you will see lots of posts about them.

[A.J. Curtis]

Kings:

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/161238-king-coilover-shocks-installed/page-1

 

Fox 2.5:

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/190663-fox-25-cognito-results/?fromsearch=1

 

Fox 2.0:

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/181878-fox-20-coilovers-answer-from-fox/?fromsearch=1

My neighbor has the fabtech kit on his 6.2 NFC and likes it. As he has been going out on the trails more this last season he is going to be upgrading from the fabtech to the King 2.5's front and rear and then camburg A arm. I plan on doing the same swapping from my bilstein 5100 adjustables to kings and camburg a arms.

 

All of the coil overs are going to ride better then a spacer level lift & as a bonus you can adjust ride height. The basic 2.0's will soak up less then say the 2.5 or 3.0 body shocks.

[Crafty34]

I currently have the Rancho Quicklift which is ok for looks but crappy ride quality. I just pulled the trigger on the Kings and Cognito UCA's. I should be getting them installed the 1st week of December. I had the Icons on my 13 F150 and they rode pretty nice. I chose the Kings because I read that they will ride a little better than the Icons.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sethwick75]

Anyone used the customized King coilovers from Mazzulla Offroad? They have some incredible looking upper control arms.

 

http://mzoffroad.com/chevy-4wd-mid-travel-coilovers-14-15.html

 

http://mzoffroad.com/14-15-chevy-1500-uniball-upper-control-arms.html

 

This combo looks really nice. Expensive, but appears bullet-proof.

Edited November 15, 2016 by sethwick75

[BIGRED811]

Anyone used the customized King coilovers from Mazzulla Offroad? They have some incredible looking upper control arms.

 

http://mzoffroad.com/chevy-4wd-mid-travel-coilovers-14-15.html

 

http://mzoffroad.com/14-15-chevy-1500-uniball-upper-control-arms.html

 

This combo looks really nice. Expensive, but appears bullet-proof.

 

The Kings are on awesome option, however Mazzulla is a little misleading with the advertising. The $1799.00 is for the standard blue king Option.

 

For a daily driven truck, I would really recomend Icon Vehicle Dynamics. They use a digressive valving in their shocks, which is going to absorb the smaller stuff on the road a lot better than a King or Fox.

 

King and Fox are a great off road performance shock, Icon is perfect for daily driven, on road driven vehicles but still has the same performance off road as found with the King and Fox. They just spend a little more R&D testing on vehicles.

 

King and Fox do their tuning by weights of vehicles and what they find would work best based on that application, whereas Icon does real world testing on the vehicle to fine tune performance.

[sethwick75]

 

The Kings are on awesome option, however Mazzulla is a little misleading with the advertising. The $1799.00 is for the standard blue king Option.

 

For a daily driven truck, I would really recomend Icon Vehicle Dynamics. They use a digressive valving in their shocks, which is going to absorb the smaller stuff on the road a lot better than a King or Fox.

 

King and Fox are a great off road performance shock, Icon is perfect for daily driven, on road driven vehicles but still has the same performance off road as found with the King and Fox. They just spend a little more R&D testing on vehicles.

 

King and Fox do their tuning by weights of vehicles and what they find would work best based on that application, whereas Icon does real world testing on the vehicle to fine tune performance.

 

 

Thanks for the input. I'm new to all of this. I had an F-150 with Bilsteins on it, but before that truck my previous lifted truck was my '72 Chevy single cab, std bed with an 8" on 35's. Suspension has changed dramatically since I owned that truck. Unfortunately I sold that truck. Never should have! Still have a '72 Blazer, but with only a 2" spring lift.

[tyrich88]

 

The Kings are on awesome option, however Mazzulla is a little misleading with the advertising. The $1799.00 is for the standard blue king Option.

 

For a daily driven truck, I would really recomend Icon Vehicle Dynamics. They use a digressive valving in their shocks, which is going to absorb the smaller stuff on the road a lot better than a King or Fox.

 

King and Fox are a great off road performance shock, Icon is perfect for daily driven, on road driven vehicles but still has the same performance off road as found with the King and Fox. They just spend a little more R&D testing on vehicles.

 

King and Fox do their tuning by weights of vehicles and what they find would work best based on that application, whereas Icon does real world testing on the vehicle to fine tune performance.

Good info! I am looking into replacing my shocks eventually as well and seeing as this is my daily driver, the icons sound way better for my usage.

[ChevyRoofer]

 

The Kings are on awesome option, however Mazzulla is a little misleading with the advertising. The $1799.00 is for the standard blue king Option.

 

For a daily driven truck, I would really recomend Icon Vehicle Dynamics. They use a digressive valving in their shocks, which is going to absorb the smaller stuff on the road a lot better than a King or Fox.

 

King and Fox are a great off road performance shock, Icon is perfect for daily driven, on road driven vehicles but still has the same performance off road as found with the King and Fox. They just spend a little more R&D testing on vehicles.

 

King and Fox do their tuning by weights of vehicles and what they find would work best based on that application, whereas Icon does real world testing on the vehicle to fine tune performance.

 

Good info, I've heard the exact same thing.

 

$2800 for the King/Mazzulla setup is pretty steep for not off roading every week haha.

[tyrich88]

Anyone priced out an Icon set up?

[A.J. Curtis]

Anyone priced out an Icon set up?

The Icon stage 1 kit with 2.0 shocks starts @ $1,800.00 with no upper control arm & prices go all the way up to $4,147 for the complete stage 5 kit which has larger 2.5 shocks with remote reservoirs.

All of the Icon kits I am referring to are for 1-3" of lift.

 

http://iconvehicledynamics.com/shop/455-complete-suspension-systems

[ChevyRoofer]

Anyone priced out an Icon set up?

 

The Icon stage 1 kit with 2.0 shocks starts @ $1,800.00 with no upper control arm & prices go all the way up to $4,147 for the complete stage 5 kit which has larger 2.5 shocks with remote reservoirs.

All of the Icon kits I am referring to are for 1-3" of lift.

 

http://iconvehicledynamics.com/shop/455-complete-suspension-systems

 

Looks to be $ 2800 as well for the same style kit. Same price as the Mazzulla and King kit. If they were the same price, I'd def go Mazzulla/King.

[A.J. Curtis]

 

 

Looks to be $ 2800 as well for the same style kit. Same price as the Mazzulla and King kit. If they were the same price, I'd def go Mazzulla/King.

Yes but the basic Mazzulla kit does not include the rear shocks which are an extra $783.00

so the Mazzulla kit with King coil overs $1,799 + rear king shocks $783. + control arms $1,000 = $3,580.00

 

If you do not need 2.5 shocks with reservoirs you can get a complete 2.0 kit from icon for $2,813

 

I still think the King set up would be better but that depends on how thick your wallet is