I plan on doing something similar with mine and possibly re valving the compresion because I feel the current aggressiveness of the bumps maybe hurting the performance of my ICON set up more than helping, but the/some protection is still needed for the harder hits. For stock it was fine but too much now with the addition of the 3.0s. If I feel the change works to an advantage I'll do a write up and maybe something similar could be done for the testing (obviously IF the test truck has the same bump kit).
Bleeding the bumps to zero for the test wouldn't make me warm and fuzzy as the truck owner. Id rather have stock bump stops and a frame brace kit. If a hard hit is taken by accident, the bled down bump will add zero resistance but just a place for all the remaining force to slam into. At least the factory rubber stop gives gradually increasing resistance.
Right on pirate. If the bumps are set at 0psi, then you would be asking the bump stop kit to do something it wasn't designed to do. Actually, not entirely true, the bump pad would do what it's designed to do: not deform. No good.
This would not accomplish the main goal of keeping the donor truck safe, isn't that the point? Sure, the shock performance won't be affected by an aftermarket bump, but that's a double edged sword.
I think like BigJ says, we don't have a donor truck yet and can't be picky. Ideally, in my mind, the donor truck should have a RPG Stage 1 kit or equivalent. Where does RPG stand on this? SDHQ? Outlaw? Could we approach them to provide a Stage 1 (or equivalent) kit to borrow for testing? Free promotion and you'll get your parts back guys...or maybe the kit can find a new home on the donor truck at a discount.
Then we just need a stock Raptor in the Southern California area...bolt on the "Stage 1" (sorry to use RPG branding) and off we go with 3 great sets of 3.0 Raptor shocks. I would allow such a scenario with my truck, sounds very solid.
