Silver lake suspension
Thread Starter
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2015
Posts: 149
Likes: 0
Silver lake suspension
Hey guys I live in Michigan and I mainly do light wheeling on state trails so mostly seasonal roads.. And I also go to silver lake sand dunes quite a bit my 07 2 Dr Jk is stock suspension and tires right now. I'm wondering what would give me the best suspension for the dunes they have lots of whoop sections and i want something that will absorb some of these I was planning on doing a AEV 2.5" with the bilstein 5100's or BDS's lift with fox shocks or bilstein. Ultimately I think king coilovers would be sick but everyone has a budget and that's not in there.. Lol
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2013
Posts: 499
Likes: 0
I go to the dunes a few times per year and live about an hour south of them. I have had two Jeeps on the dunes, an 01 TJ and a 14 JKUR. My TJ had a Skyjacker lift with Skyjacker shocks. My JKUR has a Mopar stage 3 lift. This lift comes with Fox reservoir shocks and Teraflex speed bumps. The JKUR is quite a bit smoother over the woops compared to the TJ. I think the Stage 3 lift runs right around $2400. It comes with 6 control arms, 4 springs, 4 Fox reservoir shocks, front speed bumps (these are basically a bump stop that is a shock), limit straps, and a few other things. I was able to buy mine for $2250. I think it's actually a fairly good price, especially considering it has the Mopar name on it.
JK Jedi
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,222
Likes: 376
From: Southwest Reno, NV
The longer wheel base of the JKU is a big part of the difference in ride over a tj. As far as a bolt on solution for doing speed whoops, don't expect too much. You should be looking at a tuned system with shocks set up for what you are doing. I would skip the 5100's and look more at the 7100's or some of the adjustable king or fox shocks where you can at least adjust the compression.
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 333
Likes: 0
From: Schererville, Indiana
Just looking to piggy back off the Silver Lake aspect here. I've had my jeep in all sorts of terrain. Mud, rocks, trails, dunes, snow, etc. I'm not a big crawler guy with this jeep, I hate washing the mud out lol, but sand dunes is the perfect place for me to play. With that said, I have been looking into coil over setups on a very shallow basis. I am interested in learning more and about specific kits. The evo kit looks promising. Currently, I am on 3.5 inches of lift, 35 inch tires, regeared to 4.88s and have a 3.8 6speed. All I really want is to knock those whoops out like a sand rail haha. And maybe do some small dune jumping. Teach me the ways of coilovers!
JK Junkie
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 3,697
Likes: 2
From: Grosse Pointe, MI
I practically grew up at Silver Lake. Love the place.
At Silver Lake, you want shocks that work and stay working. You can have a good setup, but start driving the whoops and the shocks heat up and start to suck. That's the logic behind adding a reservoir to the shock. The greater fluid capacity and location outside the main body, help to keep the fluid cooler and prevent performance declines. Next step would be a bypass shock, which is more or less a tunable reservoir shock (but they can get pretty complex and extremely adjustable).
The next major consideration for that type of off-roading is total travel and up vs. down travel. More travel is obviously better, but the JKs are limited unless you move to something like coiloves, but even then it takes a custom setup to gain any meaningful travel. Setting that aside, it is useful to focus on up travel vs. down travel. The dunes are a place where you want a lot of up travel so you can soak up the bumps and small jumps (though I wouldn't jump with a stock axle under there...). Most off-the-shelf lift kits solve the big tire clearance issue by removing most of the up travel, thereby making them garbage for the dunes. However, that is something fairly easily solved.
Hydraulic or air bump stops are another sort of must have. If for no other reason that preventing damage do to over compression or hard impacts.
Lastly, coilovers are great if you can spend the money and do the work to install them. Where a bypass shock is great, it does not offer adjustment of the coil. Your standard lift kit coil is what it is. With a coilover, you have many coil combination options and then tunability of those coils. If you plan to run a heavy JKU fast and at places like Silver Lake, you probably want a combination of coilovers and bypass shocks.
So, for a quick recap, if you don't have a ton of money, get a simple lift kit and spend the few extra dollars for some remote reservoir shocks. The more you spend on shocks, the better the experience will be there. After that, tune your up-travel (that is essentially free) to maximize it. If you are running 37s and stock fenders, leave the Jeep at home and get something for the dunes.
At Silver Lake, you want shocks that work and stay working. You can have a good setup, but start driving the whoops and the shocks heat up and start to suck. That's the logic behind adding a reservoir to the shock. The greater fluid capacity and location outside the main body, help to keep the fluid cooler and prevent performance declines. Next step would be a bypass shock, which is more or less a tunable reservoir shock (but they can get pretty complex and extremely adjustable).
The next major consideration for that type of off-roading is total travel and up vs. down travel. More travel is obviously better, but the JKs are limited unless you move to something like coiloves, but even then it takes a custom setup to gain any meaningful travel. Setting that aside, it is useful to focus on up travel vs. down travel. The dunes are a place where you want a lot of up travel so you can soak up the bumps and small jumps (though I wouldn't jump with a stock axle under there...). Most off-the-shelf lift kits solve the big tire clearance issue by removing most of the up travel, thereby making them garbage for the dunes. However, that is something fairly easily solved.
Hydraulic or air bump stops are another sort of must have. If for no other reason that preventing damage do to over compression or hard impacts.
Lastly, coilovers are great if you can spend the money and do the work to install them. Where a bypass shock is great, it does not offer adjustment of the coil. Your standard lift kit coil is what it is. With a coilover, you have many coil combination options and then tunability of those coils. If you plan to run a heavy JKU fast and at places like Silver Lake, you probably want a combination of coilovers and bypass shocks.
So, for a quick recap, if you don't have a ton of money, get a simple lift kit and spend the few extra dollars for some remote reservoir shocks. The more you spend on shocks, the better the experience will be there. After that, tune your up-travel (that is essentially free) to maximize it. If you are running 37s and stock fenders, leave the Jeep at home and get something for the dunes.
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 333
Likes: 0
From: Schererville, Indiana
I practically grew up at Silver Lake. Love the place.
At Silver Lake, you want shocks that work and stay working. You can have a good setup, but start driving the whoops and the shocks heat up and start to suck. That's the logic behind adding a reservoir to the shock. The greater fluid capacity and location outside the main body, help to keep the fluid cooler and prevent performance declines. Next step would be a bypass shock, which is more or less a tunable reservoir shock (but they can get pretty complex and extremely adjustable).
The next major consideration for that type of off-roading is total travel and up vs. down travel. More travel is obviously better, but the JKs are limited unless you move to something like coiloves, but even then it takes a custom setup to gain any meaningful travel. Setting that aside, it is useful to focus on up travel vs. down travel. The dunes are a place where you want a lot of up travel so you can soak up the bumps and small jumps (though I wouldn't jump with a stock axle under there...). Most off-the-shelf lift kits solve the big tire clearance issue by removing most of the up travel, thereby making them garbage for the dunes. However, that is something fairly easily solved.
Hydraulic or air bump stops are another sort of must have. If for no other reason that preventing damage do to over compression or hard impacts.
Lastly, coilovers are great if you can spend the money and do the work to install them. Where a bypass shock is great, it does not offer adjustment of the coil. Your standard lift kit coil is what it is. With a coilover, you have many coil combination options and then tunability of those coils. If you plan to run a heavy JKU fast and at places like Silver Lake, you probably want a combination of coilovers and bypass shocks.
So, for a quick recap, if you don't have a ton of money, get a simple lift kit and spend the few extra dollars for some remote reservoir shocks. The more you spend on shocks, the better the experience will be there. After that, tune your up-travel (that is essentially free) to maximize it. If you are running 37s and stock fenders, leave the Jeep at home and get something for the dunes.
At Silver Lake, you want shocks that work and stay working. You can have a good setup, but start driving the whoops and the shocks heat up and start to suck. That's the logic behind adding a reservoir to the shock. The greater fluid capacity and location outside the main body, help to keep the fluid cooler and prevent performance declines. Next step would be a bypass shock, which is more or less a tunable reservoir shock (but they can get pretty complex and extremely adjustable).
The next major consideration for that type of off-roading is total travel and up vs. down travel. More travel is obviously better, but the JKs are limited unless you move to something like coiloves, but even then it takes a custom setup to gain any meaningful travel. Setting that aside, it is useful to focus on up travel vs. down travel. The dunes are a place where you want a lot of up travel so you can soak up the bumps and small jumps (though I wouldn't jump with a stock axle under there...). Most off-the-shelf lift kits solve the big tire clearance issue by removing most of the up travel, thereby making them garbage for the dunes. However, that is something fairly easily solved.
Hydraulic or air bump stops are another sort of must have. If for no other reason that preventing damage do to over compression or hard impacts.
Lastly, coilovers are great if you can spend the money and do the work to install them. Where a bypass shock is great, it does not offer adjustment of the coil. Your standard lift kit coil is what it is. With a coilover, you have many coil combination options and then tunability of those coils. If you plan to run a heavy JKU fast and at places like Silver Lake, you probably want a combination of coilovers and bypass shocks.
So, for a quick recap, if you don't have a ton of money, get a simple lift kit and spend the few extra dollars for some remote reservoir shocks. The more you spend on shocks, the better the experience will be there. After that, tune your up-travel (that is essentially free) to maximize it. If you are running 37s and stock fenders, leave the Jeep at home and get something for the dunes.
I know what I have isn't ideal for duning and I make sure to drive it that way. It's a simple lift with monotube shocks and proper brackets here and there. Mix this with my mud tires and I know my jeep isn't a duner. With that said, its fun to cruise around and I can easily walk up Test in 2nd or 3rd gear depending on the whoops. It goes everywhere, just slowly. I beat on my quad for when I want to go fast!
So if I were to do this step-wise, here is how I perceive it:
1. Hydraulic bump stops. I was eyeing the teraflex kit anyway.
2. Beef up the axles. I already have artec front and rear armor kits. This includes LCA skids, C gussets and a truss for the front, and a truss and LCA skids for the rear.
3. Full set of adjustable control arms. Rock Krawler? Am I way off in assuming parts such as drag links, tie rods, and steering stablizer are LESS important here than when rock crawling for example?
3. Either remote reservoir shocks, then a set of coilovers, or just go straight to coilovers??
JK Junkie
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 3,697
Likes: 2
From: Grosse Pointe, MI
Thanks a ton for this!
I know what I have isn't ideal for duning and I make sure to drive it that way. It's a simple lift with monotube shocks and proper brackets here and there. Mix this with my mud tires and I know my jeep isn't a duner. With that said, its fun to cruise around and I can easily walk up Test in 2nd or 3rd gear depending on the whoops. It goes everywhere, just slowly. I beat on my quad for when I want to go fast!
So if I were to do this step-wise, here is how I perceive it:
1. Hydraulic bump stops. I was eyeing the teraflex kit anyway.
2. Beef up the axles. I already have artec front and rear armor kits. This includes LCA skids, C gussets and a truss for the front, and a truss and LCA skids for the rear.
3. Full set of adjustable control arms. Rock Krawler? Am I way off in assuming parts such as drag links, tie rods, and steering stablizer are LESS important here than when rock crawling for example?
3. Either remote reservoir shocks, then a set of coilovers, or just go straight to coilovers??
I know what I have isn't ideal for duning and I make sure to drive it that way. It's a simple lift with monotube shocks and proper brackets here and there. Mix this with my mud tires and I know my jeep isn't a duner. With that said, its fun to cruise around and I can easily walk up Test in 2nd or 3rd gear depending on the whoops. It goes everywhere, just slowly. I beat on my quad for when I want to go fast!
So if I were to do this step-wise, here is how I perceive it:
1. Hydraulic bump stops. I was eyeing the teraflex kit anyway.
2. Beef up the axles. I already have artec front and rear armor kits. This includes LCA skids, C gussets and a truss for the front, and a truss and LCA skids for the rear.
3. Full set of adjustable control arms. Rock Krawler? Am I way off in assuming parts such as drag links, tie rods, and steering stablizer are LESS important here than when rock crawling for example?
3. Either remote reservoir shocks, then a set of coilovers, or just go straight to coilovers??
I'm in the camp that if you are going to do coilovers, a custom install is the way to go. Not saying you can't bolt them in, but I don't think the value is there.
Focus on making sure you are getting all the travel out of setup. Don't have 11" of travel and use only 8" because you have to run a ton of bump stop. Trim whatever and get the 11" of travel.
Trending Topics
JK Jedi
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,222
Likes: 376
From: Southwest Reno, NV
Teraflex speed bumps are a can filled with foam, they use fancy working and a long description to confuse you on what they actually are. Look for a true hydraulic bump stop that will offer you the ability to adjust the pressure. The speed bumps will work better then the standard foam bumps but for that kinda money buy the real thing.
Like others have said the weight of the JK and lack of up travel make it difficult to build a go fast in the whoops vehicle. I would also be concerned about the stock front housing with the number of broken tubes that are out there.
Like others have said the weight of the JK and lack of up travel make it difficult to build a go fast in the whoops vehicle. I would also be concerned about the stock front housing with the number of broken tubes that are out there.
Thread Starter
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2015
Posts: 149
Likes: 0
So with me having a 2 dr JK what lift would be the best Setup I'm thinking some 2.5" lift with fox resi's and sounds like maybe kings hydro bump stops. I'm stuck between 33's and 35's obviously for the dunes the 33's would offer more power?