Recently as I was driving I noticed a lot of clunking up front so I went to investigate and found that my front passenger shock bushings were...um...gone.
I debated getting new bushings, new front shocks or all 4. Given that my TJM XGS tiger gold adjustable (seriously TJM?) were about 70k old and already shedding parts and rusting badly I figured an upgrade might be in order. I debated KONI (can’t get em), OME (Pass), and others like the FOX ifp but settled on the ICONS as they had the best rep/price ratio. I ordered my VS 2.0 0-3" inch lift shocks for about $150 a shock from a shop in Arizona that shipped quickly and dealt very fairly to me. I’ve only had them on for a few weeks but thats not going to stop me from giving you my 2 cents, for what thats worth.
Initial Impressions
Pulling new shinny toys out of the box always has a fantastic allure and these were no excpetion. They appear to be made well with no signs of carelessness or a lack of attention to detail. The hardware was complete and the instructions were well laid out.
Technology
Reading into these shocks I find that they are a linear compression curve with a digressive rebound curve, though only slightly digressive. What that means is that on compression the bigger the hit the more the damping, but on rebound more damping occurs initially with the rate tapering off with the speed and magnitude of the stroke. This is done to aid in chassis control as it means the truck returns to mid-stroke faster to prevent the proverbial tail from wagging the dog.
You don’t want a strong digression as it means that your rebound curve isn’t available at the most severe events but this effect seems mild.
Aside from this distinction these are very much like any other nitrogen charged Monotube shock with a floating piston which keeps pressure (about 200 PSI) on the oil chamber to prevent oil cavitation and fading. They have aluminum 2 inch bodies and higher quality materials but otherwise they aren’t too dissimilar to the OME or other gas charged shocks.
Daily Driving
One of the reasons I spent the extra coin on these is because they are rebuildable and revalvable. Also because ICON does the first revalve for FREE in the first year. Im going to take them up on it.
My truck isn’t that heavy (5500 lbs wet) and neither are my springs. I am using the TJM progressive rate 50mm springs which have 180lbs/in rate for the first few inches and 220 lbs/inch on the rest of the coil. As a reference the stock springs are 160 and the OME mediums are 220. A light, near stock weight truck on near stock rate springs is obviously not how these were tuned. I suspect they were tuned more for the medium or even heavy rate coils with trucks that have a lot of additional weight. Result? They are WAY overdamped for street driving. Harsh bumps and little travel.
Rebound is nice, but I like a heavy rebound. It does mean that the wheels take a lot longer to drop into holes now and there is more movement on down travel events than I’m used to. Still I can live with that for the AMAZING chassis control. It’s going to be about tuning with these.
Touring
On fire roads, and badly graded stuff they are okay with some weight in the back. Truthfully I don’t travel that heavy when its just me so I am only just flirting with the heavy rate on the springs. Washboards are kinda brutal with these settings. The truck never feels out of control but with the additional stiction and spring force from a gas charged and the overdamped compression curve they were far from comfy. As the adjustable TJM as a reference as well as having the adjustable shocks on the GX I can feel confident in saying this is simply a case of too much damping. Again.
On more rolling terrain the chassis control is magic - no bottom outs, chassis is composed, nothing unexpected at all. Sharp corner stuff like rocks and edges are super harsh right now. Again with the tuning. This one is going to be trickier to justify though since I really liked the bottom out resistance so I will have to be careful.
Also, these suckers got HOT. I took a couple of thermal reading and got 200+ often. I compared that to a truck with bilstien 5100's and a truck with OME nitrocharger sport and they weren’t even close to as hot (130's usually). Was this just the aluminum shedding heat faster? Because they were overdamped? New? I don’t know but it wouldn’t be advised to touch them after a long hard set.
Crawling
I don’t have the free height or stroke specs of these shocks but I do have pictures that show that they don’t mind stretching themselves out.
There is DEFINITELY more stroke in here than the TJM. For better or worse, I think it would be a problem with linear coils but the progressives keep the spring nicely seated. I can also tell you that the extra stroke DOES pay dividends on the trail.
I know video flattens technical terrain right out but these ruts are BIG (nearly 3 feet from peak to trough). I’ve done this hill many times before and getting up without the use of lockers was a rarity.
With these and the sway disconnected I had a much higher success rate.
As I said before, the wheels don’t drop into the holes as fast as they used to so there is a little more chassis movement but once they do they allow the springs to really reach down and grab. This is a small but valuable win.
Quirks
You gotta have quirks these days. The stiction on these is noticeable when parked and camping inside. There is a small but noticeable force required to initiate travel and when you do it makes a slight noise. It took a little getting used to sleeping in the back on the first night. Probably doesn’t help with the small bump compliance either, hopefully thats a break in thing.
Also the rear shocks came with dust covers for the shaft, the fronts did not. I bought 2 sets thinking it came bare on both axles but only needed one. Run covers, save your shaft from wear...thats not a double entendre.
Verdict
Too early to tell, but I will keeping close tabs on how they react in certain situations so I can with with the ICON techs to find a shim stack that works for me. Overall I think I am going to really like them.