If you are measuring your travel so that you can decide what shocks to buy; Do you keep your spring plates attached when cycling through the travel? Seems like this could be very difficult as most techniques for ratcheting up a spring plate are usually only to move it up a little bit, not all the way to its max. But then disconnecting the spring plate all together seems like you might get false measurements. Has anyone dialed down the tension on the spring plate to almost nothing so that you get the correct arch but have little resistance?

Just take the bar out?!

OK I wasn't sure if the spring plate would just wobble around behind the torsion cover without the bar holding it.

12 inch stroke shock is suitable for anything from a mild woods buggy to a $500,000 class 1 race buggy. a 14" will work but is on the long side and not really needed. I had 14" 2.5 fox coil overs on my old woods buggy and they were WAYYYY over kill. 12" 2.0 shock will get the job done

_________________
Maybe you should chug on over to mamby pamby land....

So RaceBugg I have measured my travel and right now its a little over 11". I can even trim my top bump stops and get more like 14". If I get a 12" shock i'll have to limit myself to more like 10" travel once I get bumpstops and limit straps on and everything right?

It all depends on where you mount your shock. My race buggy has around 21" travel in the back with 12" coilovers. The further forward you mount the shock on your arm, the more travel you can get out of it. also means heavier springs and working the shock harder. I wouldnt worry about working a good shock too hard in the woods. I would reccomend cutting off your down stops and getting some decent limit straps with an adjustable clevis on them so you can fine tune your down stop and not break cv's.

_________________
Maybe you should chug on over to mamby pamby land....

When you are measuring the travel you want to drop the trailing arm down to where the CV binds and bring it up 1". That will be your lower travel limit.

_________________
Water cooled Dry Sumped Subaru Powered Turbo Charged Fuel Injected 2500CC Tank. Oh Rah! He who dies with the most Toys not only wins, He also wears them out!

Yeah I did cut my bottom spring plate stops. And I have 930 cv's. I put an angle finder on it right now. I'm at around 23/24 degrees with the arm bottomed out. I've got my finger on the button about to order some FOA 14" w/ remote resi shocks. I'm looking at the 12" ones and they are only $5 less. I agree with using an adjustable clevis. I plan on going that route for sure.

I am going to crank down the stock bug torsions and see if they can hold the rail up. (1200 lbs). I may not even get a ride on them (Except test rides down the street), because I am going begin working on an air bag install as soon as I'm done with this 3x3 install.

I think one thing you guys mentioned that I hadn't thought of. Its not like I'm mounting the shock at the farthest point of the arm. It's going to be somewhere 4 or 5 inches up at best. Farther up the arm I'd be getting more like 8 or 9 inches of travel I bet. What do you guys thing about the remote resi vs. emulsions?

I took the resivors off my king coil overs on my race buggy to save weight (i have 2.5" triple bypass shocks right behind them to control the arm). I dont think you need them in the woods, but they do help out a little.

_________________
Maybe you should chug on over to mamby pamby land....

also before you order, keep in mind a 14" stroke shock will be harder to mount (its a looong shock), will weigh more and may limit your up travel. trust me, all you need is a 12". either way I'm sure you will like them!

_________________
Maybe you should chug on over to mamby pamby land....

Your right I'm def gonna get a 12" shock.