Made a full weight pass with about 1/4 tank of 93 to see what it would do;
Woke up early and elected to swap the shocks. Did the RH side first because I knew the LH side would fight me. The install was quick but the LH side didn’t disappoint. Needed to use an impact so I just waited until this evening to finish up. Set the remaining Viking to full soft and set out to work. The SRA didn’t know what to do. The damping characteristics between the two shocks was totally different but it was impossible to gauge pros/cons.
Couldn’t resist seeing how it would act and I made a dragy pull. This was full weight, full tank of E85 and still runs pretty decent;
Weight reduction really helps!
Fast forward to this evening and I knocked the driver side out in about 20-25 minutes using proper tools.
This meant totally dropping the lower traction bar mount. No surprises here. The u-bolts are quite long and have to be removed to extract the lower shock bolt.
Buttoned it up and set out for a quick test drive. The roads nearby the house have mostly been resurfaced over the last 5 years. Sent my initial thoughts to my friend Reed, “It still rides like a lowered truck, but it doesn't have the crash/bang and stupid choppy BS that it did before. That Westlake torture cruise is gonna tell me everything I need to know about it tomorrow.“
He also has a lowered F150 and we used to carpool. The “Westlake Torture cruise” is what he called our 100 mile round trip commute. It’s a mix of fresh asphalt, jointed concrete, washboard-like rippled country road, big dips, potholes, uneven lanes; you name it.
So, I’ll report back after that tomorrow.