New shocks- Koni or Bilstein?
It's time to change out my shocks and I'd like some feedback on folks' experience with Koni vs Bilstein shocks. What have you noticed about ride quality? How have they held up? Some older revi...
Forum Discussion
ron.dittmer wrote:
Regarding the FSD shock absorbers not being effective enough on some rigs.
I wonder if it is most beneficial only when you have a minimal amount of load-margin when fully loaded on a trip. A short 24' motor home built on an E450 chassis is going to bounce down the road no matter what you do with exception to removing a leaf spring or two. The same fully-loaded rig built on an E350, the ride will naturally be much softer and so the FSD shocks can be more effective.
We own a rig that is 23-8" long end-to-end. It is built on a 2007 E350 with a GVWR of 11,500. On our heaviest trip, it weighed in at 11,480 pounds, right at the chassis limit. The rig is equipped with the older red Koni-RV adjustable shocks set to the stiffest setting, along with HD stabilizer bars. During that trip, I laid on the hard floor face up with my head resting over the rear axle. I felt every road imperfection like crazy. I would hope the FSD shocks could soften up just that very thing. I wish I had a good reason to replace our good condition, working red Koni RV adjustable shocks, but we were not blessed with money to burn like that.
Ron just hit the proverbial nail on the head. The E-350, even when fully loaded will give a far smoother ride than a comparable E-450. Our 2012 E-350, like Ron's, has a GVWR of 11,500 and we also run very close to that number on almost every trip. At 33,000 miles I replaced the worn out original shocks with the heavy duty Bilsteins and the ride improvement was off of the chart. It always rode and handled well but the addition of the Bilsteins took it to a whole new level.
:C
