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[BlueOvalF22]

Just for reference I have king coilovers, an Svc bypass rack, and icon rear bypasses with icon leaf springs.

I wouldn’t do a cantilever setup. There’s no point besides keeping bed space and the motion ratio of the shocks is all off. Ideally you want a 1:1 ratio of shock to axle movement which is why all 4 link setups tuck the shocks right up against the cap and mount them completely vertical. I also wouldn’t do an RPG RST kit unless you added triangulation or welded it to the frame. Because these trucks are leaf sprung there is a ton of axle movement side to side and front to back and the rpg kit sacrifices rigidity in the name of saving some space. The truck pulls so much more compression and droop travel in the rear with the bypass rack that I would never do stock replacement shocks again. I own a home remodeling company and use the truck for work and don’t even notice the bed space they take up.

I also wouldn’t buy Fox coilovers. They’re a 2.5 piston, not a 3.0, and the icons have a 3.0 piston while still being internal bypass and having a pretty well engineered bump zone. I absolutely love my icon bypasses but they don’t make the bedcage length ones anymore. I wanted icons and only bought kings because they were in stock and I wanted the finned reservoirs.

I have camburg’s uniball upper control arms with the poly bushings and love them, but the heim arms have the advantage of letting you weld shut the alignment slots on the lower control arm, and adjusting caster/camber with the helms. This keeps your alignment from being thrown off off-road. Other than that the heim arms really offer no advantage other than using a 1.5 uniball instead of a 1.25.

With stock width control arms up front, I wouldn’t do a front bump stop kit. Unless you crank your coilovers way up, the front has such little compression travel that you’ll be in the bump stop all the time.

I don’t know if I’d bother with aftermarket tie rods until you bend a stock one. I drive my truck pretty damn hard and also have heavy 37” KM3’s and my stock tie rods have been completely fine.

1. Lower slots.
Weld washers on the lower arm slots after adjustment and you are good to go.

2. A four link is not a 1:1 motion ratio.. For the same reasons the front end on even a stock truck due to the shock being inboard ball joints of the A arm.. Properly designed and valved a cantilever is just fine as far as motion ratio and shocks. It's just a lot more pivots and complexity to maintain. They are not mounted completely vertical on a linked truck, much, much less angle than on a leaf spring truck for sure. Be it the lower shock point or the axle on the lower trailing arm, they both travel in an arc as it cycles. So the actual shock travel won't even be 1:1 with even the vertical movement of the lower shock pivot.

3. Having poly with zerks on the inboard side of both upper and lower arms is a lot faster to lube up those pivots than heims. It's also a lot quieter in the cab with a bit of isolation from NVH.

4. Baja kits mid vs SVC mid are really comparable.. SVC goes a good bit wider than baja kits and gets about the same travel as the baja kit gets at just 2" wider by losing the coil bucket. H&M went

5. Fox coil overs.. Yes OEM style bolt in nternal bypass fox 3.0's are a 2.5 piston because that 1/2 inch between the inner and outer tubes is a different internal bypass design than the kings Non-internal bypass 3.0 fox coil overs and 3/0 kings on a mid or long travel kit are 3.0 pistons.

6. A front bump stop can or not depends on your main front shock. A bolt-on upgrade regardless of Fox, King or Icon will have bottom out built into the shock. A basic universal no internal bypass coil over will not have a bypass or bottom out built into it. This is why most of the time you see a separate bumpstop and a separate bypass shock they are next to a coil over with no internal bumpstop and no internal bypass.

 

[Jakenbake]

The mid and long travel kits are not the same and are not capable of the same amount of controlled travel. The mid travel kits like SVC are meant for the people who just want something plug and play. Stock coil bucket, stock length shocks, reversible. Then you have kits in the middle like the Baja kits kit that ditches the coil bucket in favor of a shock hoop and it runs 10” shocks instead of the stock length. On the long travel end you have kits like the HM or Blitzkrieg long travel kits that are wider, completely do away with the stock upper control arm mounts, stock coil bucket, and do best with an engine cage

I agree they are not same, but from addressing the OP’s question as to can it be built as you go, they are more so lumped into two categories. Categories in that case would be build as you or buy once and install at once.

When you are talking about the SVC midtravel are you referring to the podium package or what they call the midtravel? On Baja kits website they offer a “race” kit that they call long travel which does cut the coil bucket off and then they have the “pre runner” which is factory length components. The pre runner kit would be similar to the SVC podium package.

 

[II Sevv]

I agree they are not same, but from addressing the OP’s question as to can it be built as you go, they are more so lumped into two categories. Categories in that case would be build as you or buy once and install at once.

When you are talking about the SVC midtravel are you referring to the podium package or what they call the midtravel? On Baja kits website they offer a “race” kit that they call long travel which does cut the coil bucket off and then they have the “pre runner” which is factory length components. The pre runner kit would be similar to the SVC podium package.

SVC doesn’t offer the podium package anymore. I called them last week trying to clarify what they have and haven’t discontinued and they no longer sell the dual shock front kit

 

[Jakenbake]

SVC doesn’t offer the podium package anymore. I called them last week trying to clarify what they have and haven’t discontinued and they no longer sell the dual shock front kit

I noticed it has been off of their site for a while, but assumed still available. That is good info. Plenty of other companies offer dual shock stock track width lowers though for those that are looking.

From a cost of parts standpoint it really isn’t much more expensive to get their mid travel vs a fully built podium. I wonder if that played into the decision to not offer it?

 

[II Sevv]

1. Lower slots.
Weld washers on the lower arm slots after adjustment and you are good to go.

2. A four link is not a 1:1 motion ratio.. For the same reasons the front end on even a stock truck due to the shock being inboard ball joints of the A arm.. Properly designed and valved a cantilever is just fine as far as motion ratio and shocks. It's just a lot more pivots and complexity to maintain. They are not mounted completely vertical on a linked truck, much, much less angle than on a leaf spring truck for sure. Be it the lower shock point or the axle on the lower trailing arm, they both travel in an arc as it cycles. So the actual shock travel won't even be 1:1 with even the vertical movement of the lower shock pivot.

3. Having poly with zerks on the inboard side of both upper and lower arms is a lot faster to lube up those pivots than heims. It's also a lot quieter in the cab with a bit of isolation from NVH.

4. Baja kits mid vs SVC mid are really comparable.. SVC goes a good bit wider than baja kits and gets about the same travel as the baja kit gets at just 2" wider by losing the coil bucket. H&M went

5. Fox coil overs.. Yes OEM style bolt in nternal bypass fox 3.0's are a 2.5 piston because that 1/2 inch between the inner and outer tubes is a different internal bypass design than the kings Non-internal bypass 3.0 fox coil overs and 3/0 kings on a mid or long travel kit are 3.0 pistons.

6. A front bump stop can or not depends on your main front shock. A bolt-on upgrade regardless of Fox, King or Icon will have bottom out built into the shock. A basic universal no internal bypass coil over will not have a bypass or bottom out built into it. This is why most of the time you see a separate bumpstop and a separate bypass shock they are next to a coil over with no internal bumpstop and no internal bypass.

1. In theory you can do that, but you won’t be able to perfect your alignment, weld everything to your lower control arm, and make sure your caster and camber don’t move throughout the entire process. Also, if you get a different brand of tie rod that happens to be slightly longer or shorter or angled slightly differently, your caster and camber will now be off as well as toe and you need some way to adjust that. Hence the heim arms.

2. It’s not exactly 1:1 but it’s far closer than a cantilever setup. With a cantilever setup to make up for the shocks being so short you need to replace shock travel with lever arm movement and it’s just not as effective as using a traditional bed cage setup. Most 4 links that are designed from scratch are completely vertical for all intents and purposes. Sure, they might be 88.5 degrees instead of 90, but they’re essentially vertical compared to a stock setup where they’re mounted to the axle.

3. I didn’t mean that they perform exactly the same for the money, I was talking about the amount of bolt on vs cutting and welding involved.

5. that’s true but he sent internal bypass stock replacement coilovers which is are a 2.5 piston

6. they technically have a “bump zone” built in but it’s really not enough on a 6000+ pound truck with all of the weight biased towards the front. Without a bump stop or a secondary bypass you need to run so much compression valving up front that the ride is really sacrificed everywhere else

 

[II Sevv]

I noticed it has been off of their site for a while, but assumed still available. That is good info. Plenty of other companies offer dual shock stock track width lowers though for those that are looking.

From a cost of parts standpoint it really isn’t much more expensive to get their mid travel vs a fully built podium. I wonder if that played into the decision to not offer it?

From what Jeff said, nobody really bought the kit so it made more sense to prioritize marketing towards the mid travel kit

 

[II Sevv]

A brenthel luxury prerunner. Notice the vertical or visually vertical shocks. I wouldn’t do a cantilever if for any other reason than engineers building half million dollar tricks have decided the geometry is incorrect.

 

[BlueOvalF22]

A brenthel luxury prerunner. Notice the vertical or visually vertical shocks. I wouldn’t do a cantilever if for any other reason than engineers building half million dollar tricks have decided the geometry is incorrect.

View attachment 163707

That is mostly vertical for crew cab clearance.

A bit of angle here...




Race trucks ran cantilevers, its aall about putting weight behind the axle here.



The mezzanine arm rear kind of took over for the same reasons.

 

[BlueOvalF22]

From what Jeff said, nobody really bought the kit so it made more sense to prioritize marketing towards the mid travel kit

Honestly a few of the lower boxed arms look the same.

The baja kits std width looks like SVC's discontinued one.

A baja kits lower arm in std width.

Get the fox lower eyelet from a fox 3.0 bolt on

FOX-213-01-272 $68 per

Then put it on a 8" plain jane non bypass universal 3.0 coil over (king or fox threads the same), you'd need to fab a bolt on eyelet conversion mount to bolt onto the shock bucket. A 10" could be done with more fab.

Then I'd do the king compact threaded body 2.0 x 2.0 bump stops with cans welded on like the brenthal kit does. Way more adjustable.

Then a pair of piggy back shocks with the upper mount and dimensions depending on what you did with the coil over.

 

[BlueOvalF22]

I have been down this path. 1st trip was doing all the upgrades you mentioned. The second time I replaced most of the first updages and went mid-travel. The upgrades you mention are great but the truck keeps its stock geometry so its a mild improvement. With Mid Travel you change a bunch of the geometry and the difference is very noticeable. Its an entirely different truck with midtravel. If you love to offroad skip the above and think about mid travel. Team SVC is great they will tell you how to step into it if you need to. DM me if you want to discuss

If I go mid I'll do the brenthal mid.

It requires welding but I've got that down. It's not quite as wide. I've seen a rig with a set of front fenders and on the bed they drilled out the middle inner fender spot welds and used paintless dent repair pull pads as pull points on the fender to pull it out about 2" then welded in a fabricated inner fender that didn't have that pinch weld on it like the stock two-piece one that is really a base truck part with a raptor spec spacer on it.