- First Name
- Alex
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2022
- Threads
- 27
- Messages
- 258
- Reaction score
- 540
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
- Vehicle(s)
- 2021 2 door Badlands
- Your Bronco Model
- Badlands
- Thread starter
- #1
What’s up guys, Alex with Hammer Built here on my personal account. Apologizing in advance for this long post, but probably worth the read. After looking over all of the shock options available for the bronco (which trust me, it was difficult) I finally settled on Accutune’s new Ride Shocks. There’s some great shock options out there, but for how I use my bronco, these just seemed the obvious choice when it comes to price point and performance. The other shocks I was strongly considering were ADS and Dobinsons MRR.
Install
With the help of a buddy, we tackled this install in my garage on jackstands. In total, it took about 9 hours including a trip to autozone, a lunch break, and only a few mental breakdowns. Just kidding, install went about as smoothly as we could expect for two guys pretending to be mechanics. The hardest part was removing the OEM Bilstein shocks, and that was really the only challenge. One of the many things I liked about these shocks is the reservoir placement. It’s in the front of the wheel well where it’s easy to access but still protected, and not next to the exhaust manifold where the reservoir is exposed to all that heat. Three days later, I’ve been able to get my bronco aligned, put some miles on them, play with the adjusters, and I feel like I can give a sound first impression review.
The shocks came with both high and low speed adjusters fully open, and preload was pretty perfect right out of the box. I’m probably about 2.5” higher than stock, which is fine for me. You could probably get another inch by increasing preload. The ride was smooth and plush with the adjusters open but I had to toy around with them a little bit to achieve my personal ride preference.
Setting my adjusters
I like a firmer, sportier ride on the street so I set the low speed adjusters to 11 clicks in the front and 8 in the rear. I took a shot in the dark and decided to try this. Wow, too much. I felt like I could feel every little crack, pebble, or bump in the road and decided I guessed wrong. Time to reset back to fully open and try a more scientific way of dialing in the adjusters. I started out going over this tore up temporary road by my house and immediately noticed the rear end kind of shimmy, or like it didn’t maintain the best tire contact, then I went down a dirt road with a short section of washboard and that felt fine, maybe a little skittish if I was going faster or turning. I increased my high speed adjusters 1-2 clicks and repeated this process. The rough road was noticeably better and the dirt road felt more stable. So I kept that there. With the low speed adjusters fully open, there was too much body roll for my taste. In sport mode, when I punched the gas, I could really feel the front end lift up and the rear end sink. It felt like I was going to pop a wheelie. During hard braking, you could really feel the nose dive down. I increased low speed compression by 3 clicks in the front and 2 in the rear (less in the rear because less weight) this felt pretty good. Body roll was acceptable, cornering stability was decent. Honestly, I’d say at this level, it felt somewhat similar my OEM Bilsteins with preload collars as far as body roll. I took my bronco down this backroad by my house where there’s a bridge with some pretty sharp entry and exit points. You could probably get some good air if you hit it fast enough, not that I’ve been thinking about it or anything… it wasn’t necessarily square or sharp as in a high speed compression event, more like a steep bump. This seemed like a perfect spot to test low speed compression. As expected, it felt good, no complaints there. However, I just felt like there was more to be had. I increased the low speed compression 2 more clicks front and rear and went over the bridge again at like 65-70 mph. There it was. That was the sweet spot. I unfortunately didn’t catch any air, but it just felt perfect. Driving around with the adjusters at this setting (5/2 in the front, 4/1 in the rear), the road feel was a little more pronounced, but tolerable, and the handling was stable and sporty, yet soft enough to handle any surprise potholes, manhole covers, etc. and I felt that this was a perfect all around street driving set up.
I still have yet to test these out on trails but I have high hopes for their performance. These things are built around 37” tires and Accutune limited the uptravel to achieve that, so no more fender flare contact at full bump. I also installed their UCAs to replace the icons that I had before. These UCAs clear the shocks and hoses and also have much happier angles even at full droop. On top of that, they have the robustness of adjustable heim joints combined with the simplicity of a ball joint. I like that.
There isn’t much, but if there’s anything to complain about with these, it would have to be that the adjusters don't have as defined of a click as some of the other shock options. I really had to go slow and pay attention when turning them so that I didn’t skip over a click and miscalculate my adjustment. Other than that little thing, nothing else to really list as a con.
While this might sound like a biased review, these are my honest initial first impressions. Here is the link to the shocks/UCA bundle with free shipping
https://hpbuilt.shop/collections/br...5-inch-coilover-package-for-2021-bronco-front
Install
With the help of a buddy, we tackled this install in my garage on jackstands. In total, it took about 9 hours including a trip to autozone, a lunch break, and only a few mental breakdowns. Just kidding, install went about as smoothly as we could expect for two guys pretending to be mechanics. The hardest part was removing the OEM Bilstein shocks, and that was really the only challenge. One of the many things I liked about these shocks is the reservoir placement. It’s in the front of the wheel well where it’s easy to access but still protected, and not next to the exhaust manifold where the reservoir is exposed to all that heat. Three days later, I’ve been able to get my bronco aligned, put some miles on them, play with the adjusters, and I feel like I can give a sound first impression review.
The shocks came with both high and low speed adjusters fully open, and preload was pretty perfect right out of the box. I’m probably about 2.5” higher than stock, which is fine for me. You could probably get another inch by increasing preload. The ride was smooth and plush with the adjusters open but I had to toy around with them a little bit to achieve my personal ride preference.
Setting my adjusters
I like a firmer, sportier ride on the street so I set the low speed adjusters to 11 clicks in the front and 8 in the rear. I took a shot in the dark and decided to try this. Wow, too much. I felt like I could feel every little crack, pebble, or bump in the road and decided I guessed wrong. Time to reset back to fully open and try a more scientific way of dialing in the adjusters. I started out going over this tore up temporary road by my house and immediately noticed the rear end kind of shimmy, or like it didn’t maintain the best tire contact, then I went down a dirt road with a short section of washboard and that felt fine, maybe a little skittish if I was going faster or turning. I increased my high speed adjusters 1-2 clicks and repeated this process. The rough road was noticeably better and the dirt road felt more stable. So I kept that there. With the low speed adjusters fully open, there was too much body roll for my taste. In sport mode, when I punched the gas, I could really feel the front end lift up and the rear end sink. It felt like I was going to pop a wheelie. During hard braking, you could really feel the nose dive down. I increased low speed compression by 3 clicks in the front and 2 in the rear (less in the rear because less weight) this felt pretty good. Body roll was acceptable, cornering stability was decent. Honestly, I’d say at this level, it felt somewhat similar my OEM Bilsteins with preload collars as far as body roll. I took my bronco down this backroad by my house where there’s a bridge with some pretty sharp entry and exit points. You could probably get some good air if you hit it fast enough, not that I’ve been thinking about it or anything… it wasn’t necessarily square or sharp as in a high speed compression event, more like a steep bump. This seemed like a perfect spot to test low speed compression. As expected, it felt good, no complaints there. However, I just felt like there was more to be had. I increased the low speed compression 2 more clicks front and rear and went over the bridge again at like 65-70 mph. There it was. That was the sweet spot. I unfortunately didn’t catch any air, but it just felt perfect. Driving around with the adjusters at this setting (5/2 in the front, 4/1 in the rear), the road feel was a little more pronounced, but tolerable, and the handling was stable and sporty, yet soft enough to handle any surprise potholes, manhole covers, etc. and I felt that this was a perfect all around street driving set up.
I still have yet to test these out on trails but I have high hopes for their performance. These things are built around 37” tires and Accutune limited the uptravel to achieve that, so no more fender flare contact at full bump. I also installed their UCAs to replace the icons that I had before. These UCAs clear the shocks and hoses and also have much happier angles even at full droop. On top of that, they have the robustness of adjustable heim joints combined with the simplicity of a ball joint. I like that.
There isn’t much, but if there’s anything to complain about with these, it would have to be that the adjusters don't have as defined of a click as some of the other shock options. I really had to go slow and pay attention when turning them so that I didn’t skip over a click and miscalculate my adjustment. Other than that little thing, nothing else to really list as a con.
While this might sound like a biased review, these are my honest initial first impressions. Here is the link to the shocks/UCA bundle with free shipping
https://hpbuilt.shop/collections/br...5-inch-coilover-package-for-2021-bronco-front
Sponsored
Last edited:
is just the fronts.......
