Would love to hear the feedback between the two. What do you think about the Overland shocks? I have essentially dismissed them but they are a very affordable option.
How much was the coating? As they say, buy once, cry once. Maybe I should just go with a King 2.5 Leveling kit and get them coated vs messing around with the Fox shocks.
I'll be happy to share, just make sure to ping me or something towards December and I'll let you know. Forgive the long response, I figured I'd give more details than less since I was in your shoes recently.
As for the Overland shocks, I can't compare directly for the shocks alone, since you need the shocks for the springs. I also got the whole Thuren catalog basically (Sway bar, front and rear track bar, springs and shocks). I also installed 37" Falken AT3Ws and 17" AEV wheels at the same time, so this is far from apples to apples. That said, comparing those mods over stock it's a night and day difference. The truck is much more comfortable on the highway as it absorbs all the imperfections well over stock. When I would go over expansion joints or the like the rear of the truck would not stay planted over them, it would hop a little and you could feel it. Any bumps in the road would also cause you to sort of hop out of your seat, not drastic but noticeable. Both of those issues are now gone and I can cruise on dirt roads with decent sized ruts without much issue. In part due to the smaller wheels over stock and larger tires but also in part to the springs and shocks. It will be interesting to compare the Kings but from what Chris at Thuren tells me it's a vastly improved ride.
That said, everything comes with a compromise and truck height is one. I'm not super stoked with how tall the truck is now, both from a visual standpoint and also a daily use standpoint. These trucks sit pretty high from factory and my suspension lift and tires didn't help matters. I am planning on AMP steps for sure, I'm trying to see if there is a way that I can customize some sliders to work with the steps as well, although it's gonna be a but of work to make that happen. I would say if I could do it all over I may opt for a 1-2" front spring and a -0.5" rear, which I initially looked into but I also was thinking about off road performance and wanted to have as much travel as possible. I made the call to go a bit taller with the 2.75"/1" combo and I'm happy overall with the caveat I had mentioned.
If you look at Don's truck (
) I think the look is basically perfect and he is running 37s as well (although I believe Nitto or Toyo which are closer to a "true 37" than the Falkens which measure out at about 35". That said, the setup I'm currently running does leave me space for 40s if I decide to go down that route in the future (which was something I wanted to leave the option for).
The Cerakote option isn't cheap ($280 for the body front alone, another $100 for the front resi), but I figure if you're dumping close to 2k on shocks for the front alone it makes sense to protect them and if $400 is the difference from me spraying them off and having them look "new" for longer than 1 season it's well worth the price of admission.
It all comes down to what you expect from your truck and what your budget is. (forgive the tangent) I'm blessed to be able to afford these toys due to an awesome gig in a well paying sector and outside of a mortgage I keep all other costs down low. I don't try to "keep up with the joneses", I just have a few hobbies I toss money at and everything else is cheap (no expensive clothing, no designer shoes, no daily trips to starbucks or expensive dinners or drinks out, etc.) In "the end" it's very likely that I'll have more money in mods done to this truck than the initial cost of the thing so if I ever sell it I'll take a bath. Luckily Cummins power means I should be good for at least 20 years if I keep up with the maintenance.
One last thing to consider would be that the Thuren rear springs are going to lower your payload by a bit so if you tow/haul heavy often you're going to want to look at timbrens/sumo helpers or bags. This isn't a huge thing for me since I'm only towing a trailer (that I don't yet own, stupid covid) a few times a year for trips and a small bass boat a buddy lets me borrow. Just something to keep in mind since the rear springs/shocks are going to play a decent part in how the truck rides.
All that said, the truck performs great on and off road. I took a trip up to northern VT a month ago with a bunch of other off road guys and there were some heavily modded toyotas and jeeps there. While some of them had to flex to the point of having wheels off the ground at multiple points and needed to be careful with picking lines I was able to basically bulldoze right over everything. The amount of travel in the springs/shocks was superior to everything there except for one jeep who had slightly smaller tires and prob a hair more ground clearance pumpkin-to-pumpkin. I only missed one trail due to it being a UTV trail and I wasn't ready to pinstripe my new baby quite just yet.
If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me or respond and I'll do my best to answer them. I also had a lot of time comparing Carli vs Thuren and you can see where I landed so if you're interested in more that's prob best a convo in PM.
