How To: Adjust the Fox Shock Perch / Height / Level the Front

[Yukon Joe]

Good fer you man!

Yukon Joe
GLRE Support Raptor
WWW.RUNRAPTORRUN.COM

 

[Badgerscab6.2]

Good fer you man!

Yea. Now just wish I had done it before SDBR

 

[BigOlson]

So I just got a 2011 raptor and I need to have the front shocks rebuilt anyway so I'm considering having them reassembled on mid perch. I read all of this thread hoping to find out where the shock sits in it's travel stock, but didn't see any measurements. Went out and measured the hub to fender distance on the ground and then jacked up the wheel and measured again. I came out to 4.25" of droop travel. Given that there's 11.2" of total travel, I'm assuming the rest is bump travel, making it 7". So stock, it's setup with 62% (4.25/11.2) bump travel. Reading lots of posts, I know I ran across something saying off road desert style racing typically is setup at 50-70% bump travel. The perch mod raises the ride height by 2.5" at the top, and maybe 1.75 at middle. This would put the truck at 78% bump travel. Top puts it at 84% bump travel. Both of those seem outside normal setup even for off-road racing. Has anyone measured droop on a raptor on mid perch or top perch to confirm that they really lost that much droop travel? Other than aesthetics, bounce/droop is all this adjusts so I'm surprised there's not more info.

 

[uae rapor]

hello everyone, my name is sultan from dubai, i bought a raptor and am crazy about it, i like to level the front but do u guys think this trick will cancel my warranty ?

 

[hosseface]

hello everyone, my name is sultan from dubai, i bought a raptor and am crazy about it, i like to level the front but do u guys think this trick will cancel my warranty ?

Loaded question. Everyone is going to have a different opinion.

Personally, I say no.

Lots of others will tell you yes.

Do at your own risk.

 

[Jordan@Apollo-Optics]

Loaded question. Everyone is going to have a different opinion.

Personally, I say no.

Lots of others will tell you yes.

Do at your own risk.

It's highly dependent on your dealer, honestly. Mine doesn't seem to mind and has even fixed the alignment for free, but I haven't had any other suspension "problems" they've had to deal with so maybe they're just turning a blind eye until something potentially happens.

Like you said, do at your own risk.

 

[DieselD]

So I just got a 2011 raptor and I need to have the front shocks rebuilt anyway so I'm considering having them reassembled on mid perch. I read all of this thread hoping to find out where the shock sits in it's travel stock, but didn't see any measurements. Went out and measured the hub to fender distance on the ground and then jacked up the wheel and measured again. I came out to 4.25" of droop travel. Given that there's 11.2" of total travel, I'm assuming the rest is bump travel, making it 7". So stock, it's setup with 62% (4.25/11.2) bump travel. Reading lots of posts, I know I ran across something saying off road desert style racing typically is setup at 50-70% bump travel. The perch mod raises the ride height by 2.5" at the top, and maybe 1.75 at middle. This would put the truck at 78% bump travel. Top puts it at 84% bump travel. Both of those seem outside normal setup even for off-road racing. Has anyone measured droop on a raptor on mid perch or top perch to confirm that they really lost that much droop travel? Other than aesthetics, bounce/droop is all this adjusts so I'm surprised there's not more info.

Yes you are changing where the shocks rides in its travel. The lift is not free like some make it sound as it has to come from somewhere. In this case the higher lower spring mount is causing the spring to compress more at ride height which is pushing the shock out into its down travel further. This allows the front to rise the 1.5" or so but you now loose that height on the down travel of the shock.

I did the middle setup and noticed a loss of down travel right away. I was able to get the front suspension to max droop rather easy(on the street even) and actually had a pretty harsh clunk when doing so. I contribute this to the added spring tension forcing the shock to its max extension faster and harder. With the shocks in the stock position It was much harder to hit that max droop and when it did it was alot less noticeable with no abnormal noises. I ended up going back to the stock position as I did not feel the loss in down travel was a good thing. I think a aftermarket shock/suspension here is the correct method

With that in mind lots of people report never having a negative effect of running the middle setup. Also there has always been talk of the middle being the R&D stage in pre-production raptors however no real solid black and white proof is out there. So I suggest you give it a shot and see what you think and report back. Its easy enough to do and go back to how it was if you feel its not for you.

 

[Armyraptor]

I was working on this yesterday at an auto center on an Army base. The problem I ran into was they didn't have a deep socket big enough for the bottom shock nut/bolt. Does anyone know what size it is? That way I can take my own tools in there. Also at the top of the shock when removing is it the center bolt or the 3 nuts that you have to remove?

 

[Yukon Joe]

You can do the perch setting while on the truck. Have you watched the RPG video?

Yukon Joe
www.RUNRAPTORRUN.com

 

[Armyraptor]

Where's it at on that link it's just a video of havoc in the hills. Great video but not what I was looking for haha

---------- Post added at 10:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------

I found it just search mid perch mod on YouTube it should be the first one with a time of 9:17 I couldn't find the link to embed it though