Everyone knows that I posted my truck on here yesterday and how everyone was saying how bad all my cv angles and joints are.(Daystar 2.5 Level Kit) I talked to the dealer(who installed kit) this morning and of course they want me to take it back to stock. The trouble is my 325 60 18 tires won't fit stock and it is going to cost me again to uninstall the level and the AAL.

I'm thinking about putting the smallest autospring kit I can that will still allow me to clear my tires. (1 5/8 Version) But I don't know if that will be enough.
Can everyone with the autospring setup chime in and tell me how thier ride quality is and the size kit you are using. From all the autospring pics I have seen even the 2.5 kit angles are much better than my daystar. Hopefully the ride will be better also, because mine rides like a log wagon. I realize that with both kits I will be wearing out parts quicker than stock, but with my current setup, I think I am accelerating this process.

Any feedback with you level kit would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading,

jrbhc8

 

I put the AS 2.5" kit on my 05 Lariat 4x4 Screw along with the 1.5" AAl last March and have had no issues at all. Couldn't tell a bit of difference in the ride or handling. Have been waiting for BFG to get their new line of K/O's on the market, so now it's wheels and tires. Still debating between the 305/65/18 or going a little taller with the 285/65/20.

Overall cost will probably dictate which ones I go with, damn 20's are expensive.

 

If you have the daystar kit cant you just take the strut out and shave down the urethane spacer on top of the strut a little and drop the front of the truck down. I have the 2" as, but I cant say anything about ride quality because I switched from p tires to load d tires at the same time.

 

I have a friend with a 2.5" daystar, and his angles and ride are a lot better than what you have going on. I think there has to be somehting else going on in there. Whats your distance from the ground to the middle of the front wheel well?? Just curious of how much actual lift your getting. You said you don't have the adjustable ride height Bilsteins right? Can you take a picture of you coilover.

 

Here's some pics...

 

 

I'm talking with Daystar about the problem right now, hopefully we can get something figured out becuase this is just miserable

If you have the daystar kit cant you just take the strut out and shave down the urethane spacer on top of the strut a little and drop the front of the truck down. I have the 2" as, but I cant say anything about ride quality because I switched from p tires to load d tires at the same time.
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--But does your truck bounce when it goes over evey bump. It's almost like I have front hydraulics installed, and if you hit a rythym of bumps you better hope you don't get stomach sickness.
I am being very serious.

jrbhc8

 

those angles seem a bit steep (well the uca) your cv angles are similar to mine- maybe a bit more steep- the only thing i can think of is that the bilsteins gave you some amt. of lift as well? heres a pic of my 2.5" Autospring...

 

The following are just my opinions (and sorry so long)...

I installed the 2 inch AS and 1.5 AALs last year and have been very satified with the results. The ride in the rear has stiffened up a bit as can be expected with the AALs, but the front ride quality remained nearly identical to stock (same tires as stock). I did not go with the Daystar kit because I did not want to take apart the coils, so the AS kit was great for installation at the time. After a few K on the old designed AS spacers, I was getting a little UCA-coil contact as was everyone else. I thought that I could live with it (you play, you pay), but the coil was actually getting fairly mangled. I called Kevin at AS and we talked about the situation a little bit. Basically, these trucks behave differently from one another depending on who supplied Ford with coils that week of build (stiffer and weaker coils) leading to slightly different ride heights and so on. Kevin understood my concerns and offered me an even exchange for the new "off-set" spacer, and I just paid shipping back to him. Very good customer service, IMO. This contact issue was gone and has not been back after 12K. As for the Daystar kit, some have never had a resolution of the rubbing issues that I know of, but they may be working on a better spacer. The Daystar also compresses the spring to afford the "lift" in the front which will obviously make for a rougher ride.

Lastly, I differ with the masses on the "extreme CV angles" look on these trucks. Granted your pictures do look a little sharp, but I have yet to read a post here or anywhere else that says a spacer ruined by CV joints. I have read about ball joints going bad, but not CV joints. A CV joint is truely a modern marvel if you consider how it performs at stock angles. If one merely turns the steering wheel to the sharpest point, you are already past the greatest angle a spacer is going to put you at. You have to be able to think in 360 degrees around that half shaft. I feel that the harmful angles of the half shafts is a bogus theory, IMO. If someone is willing to provide evidence of a spacer directly causing harm to a CV joint of a 4X4 F150 of any kind, I will definitely listen. Also, I just came back from a prairie doggin trip in WY last weekend with 1.2 inches of rain. This resulted in driving about 30 miles one way to the ranch through fairly rough "grease(gumbo)-covered" roads in 4wd. I inspected everything the other night to find nothing wrong, so maybe I am lucky or this spacer has done nothing to harm my front end. I prefer the second.

 

Just got back from a dealer 30 miles away who has installed a couple of these daystar kits. They had one on the lot which had much better angles than mine, and the only thing different was that it had its stock shocks.

Daystar should be contacting me Monday to talk about the issue. The tech at the dealership said that maybe the bilstein shock was so stiff it's holding up the front end therefore giving me all the rub. His reccomendation was to replace them back with the stock shocks and then see what happens.

I had the idea of running just the top half of the daystar kit, if the shock swap doesn't work out. How do these idea?s sound to everyone I'm not a specialist on suspension, so I really don't know how to solve this problem.

jrbhc8

 

Well,
Sticking with the Daystar kit will afford a rougher ride, but if the front end lowers because of the shocks, then main problem solved. I can see I would be reluctant to switch out leveling kits since you are vested in one already. Good luck.

 

I appreciate your info and opinion KSpencer, I'm going to come up with a list of options and whenever I get ahold of daystar again, I'll go through what I've came up with for them. Hopefully sometime next week I can start messing with the suspension and trying some options out.

I'll keep everyone posted.

jrbhc8

 

if those are bilstien 'heavy-duty' or off-road shocks, that's why your truck rides so hard. Spring spacers, while they do screw up the geometery of the suspension to some degree, do very little in terms of affecting the ride quality itself.

 

The daystar does give a rougher ride becuase you have to compress your coil, which messes up your factory spring rate making a much stiffer ride. Plus the heavy duty shock ain't helping none, I think that it's a bad combination of the compressed spring, and the heavy duty shock, plus the full 2.5 inches of lift.



I think that I'm going to pull the daystar and install the autospring 2.0 inch version and still keep my bilsteins. I talked to Kevin at autospring, who was very helpful, and I hoping that this will solve the rough bouncy ride. The bilsteins make it rough, but both Kevin and I agreed that it shouldn't be bouncy. The bouncy is coming from the daystar kit beacuse of the compressed spring.

jrbhc8

 

I think that you have just described the exact problem...Daystar + HD shock = too much lift. That is a fairly stiff setup, and even going to a 2 inch kit would help. I'll bet the shocks have a great deal to do with the problem. Hope everything works out for ya.