- First Name
- Caleb
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2021
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- 865
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- Location
- Sacramento
- Vehicle(s)
- 2021 Bronco/1996 Jeep XJ/1957 FC-150
- Your Bronco Model
- Big Bend
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- #1
Hey guys! As a lot of you know, with our large Bronco group (Gold Country Bronco's). We have a unique opportunity to compare a ton of different Bronco parts, systems, trims and lifts neck and neck. I have several videos coming on my Youtube (popo_patty). Now while I have been wheeling the Rubicon for years in my jeep and have owned and wheeled my Bronco for about a year and a half now. I'm still learning a lot and relying on shops, tech assistance from various companies like Accutune, King, Radflo, Icon and more for my help. This is a humbling journey for me as I seek to learn through trial and error and share my findings with my group and ya'll. That being said my current project among many is Bronco Suspension.
First up are the top dogs (other suspension reviews coming later). I have 3 Broncos currently dialing in Radflo, Icon Stage 7 and King coilovers on 37" tires. All three are 4 door and are very similar trims, builds and weights. Obviously no side by side comparison is perfect and this one isnt going to be super scientific. More of a real world perspective from the three owners and showing you the good, the bad and the ugly. The full review will be in the video coming out sometime in May.
As of now, I am dialing my my personal Bronco on Kings and my neighbor is dialing his on Radflo's. Our mutual friend on Icon has the lift installed but is awaiting his 37's still. All three of us are running JKS max clearance kit and Metalcloak trailing arms (coming soon).
My Radflo buddy and I just went out and flex our Broncos on some rocks and here are the initial impressions. But first off let me say, these require way more work then originally anticipated to clear properly.
King Bronco:
2021 4 Door Big Bend Sasquatch running Kings, stock wheels, SPC UCA, Hammerbuilt tire carrier, JKS clearance kit, DV8 liners (not worth the price, see my other thread), Metalcloak rear bumper, RC front bumper with hidden winch mount and Warn winch. BB bushing and braces (housing ready for install as well). Waaay more mods but these cover the ones related to suspension and weight. I also have sliders (heavy), and some random skid plates.
Radflo Bronco:
2021 4 door Base Sasquatch running Radflo's, stock wheels, JKS clearance kit, Icon UCA, stock front bumper with JCR winch mount and winch, 4wheelparts rear bumper, BAMF tire carrier, full aluminum skids, Califabrication sliders (freaking awesome sliders yall). Icon tie rods.
Icon Bronco: (Not finalized yet).
In the final video review i'll go over everything from ride quality, body roll, on-road and off-road performance, flexing, jumps, features, customer service (results are surprising there lol). We will cover what had to be done to get the systems to cycle properly and fit 37's, stock tuning, and way more. For now i'm going over my initial impressions and fitment issues encountered on the Kings and also a bit on the Radflo which I drove.
I should note, to properly cycle 37's on a Bronco and run them reliably, its going to require more work then you think and will not be plug and play. There are a ton of differences between different Bronco trims and these systems run middle ground and arn't designed for heavy add-ons as far as tuning go's. The expectation is that if you're dumping 5-6k into a high end kit, you'll be spending more on shock tuning and additional mods to properly cycle your larger tires.
The King's were NOT plug and play. The reservoir location was designed around 35's and 37's on stock wheels WILL heavily rub at turn. The hose configuration only allows for limited placement and we could not locate them to a place that did'n't have rub. For now i'm running a 1.25" hubcentric spacer to mitigate rub but i'll eventually go to a 0 offset wheel. I also rub in the rear on my resi's at stuff. The rear resi actually prevents me from achieving full stuff at the moment (pre-spacer).
Despite whats advertised on multiple websites that sell Kings, the lowest setting on the front is 2" lift over sasquatch, the collar is at the lowest possible setting and physically cannot be lower. 2" additional height for Sas and 3" for base trims. This is honestly the biggest downside for me on the Kings is that I can't go down to 0 lift on the front. I only want 1 1/2" lift but thats not achievable without lowering the front spring rate. Keep in mind I have a 80 lbs winch, 37 lbs bumper and a heavier skid plate up front as well. I'm wondering if their Bronco was a 2.7 vs my 2.3 and they had more sag on their spring rate with their heavier engine.
As for the rear, the saying is true... It sags! A lot. Now this again is because it was designed for a stock Bronco without added weight. Add weight and the rear sags quickly. All I have is a 80 lbs bumper and 37'' tire and I have to have the preload adjusted waaaay up to keep it level with the jacked up front lol. I do have it sitting level but it continues to sag as I add weight. I will be swapping the spring rates to fix this issue later on but for the purpose of the initial review everything is out of the box. I should note that King is changing over to a different spring soon for the rear (more on that later).
I also want to note that I do not have the issue of SPC contacting the hose at full droop, that all clears great!. The SPC's are fantastic honestly and allowed me to dial in my alignment really well.
I do have loose steering though which is strange, it tracks straight and has good alignment but its almost like a bumpsteer. My buddies Radflo bronco doesn't have this... Its not a King issue but its defiantly annoying and I can't figure it out. It came on after lifting and not from the tires as I've run those for awhile before lifting.
Things that I need to change, add spacer or 0 offset wheel to eliminate rubbing on resi front and rear. Or.... I could go hard core and swap to a different resi hose and locate them in a completely different location. That would require a lot of parts and labor though.
I need a tune... really bad, the Kings are on full soft for adjustment and ride very rough, they are fairly jittery and are not riding as good as my factory bilsteins... it could be I have a bad set for some reason but i'm honestly surprised by the quality. I have high hopes that a tune will solve the ride, more on that later.
RADFLO
As far as the Radlo, the steering feel is great and the ride quality is what you would expect, Firm but better feel then stock, does well in the whoops and feels good out of the box. You can drop them down to zero and come from the box set about 1" of lift and leveled. Radflo offers a variety of tunes from the box and theirs feel really good honestly.
Now the mounts from Radflo mount differently than King and their resi's are smaller. The front is mounted onto the shock tower and we quickly found out that it doesn't like 37's lol. The Icon UCA came up into the Radflo bracket and bent it up and into the engine bay. Still works but that was annoying... I guess you could say it self cleared. The rear is mounted in a similar location to King but slightly lower. It does not rub at full stuff but is about as close as it can get without touching... I wouldn't trust it aired down or on a jump. Honestly for initial impressions i'm jealous of the Radflos. I have high hopes for Kings though once they are tuned.
We did some initial flex measurements (more accurate ones coming later).
King:
Front droop was 10 1/2" from metal fender line.
Front tuck was almost non-existent with swaybar connected. It measured at 7" space between tire and fender line... So basically nothing lol. I'm tempted to do manual sway bars as that tuck is horrible.
Rear droop (measured to where it stopped at contact with resi): 14 1/2" droop measured from fender line.
Rear tuck: 3" distance between tire and fender line.
There was more room to go for sure and other then the resi's everything cleared great. I obviously have 7 inches of room up front to tuck more haha. Silly sway bars. I wouldn't want to droop more honestly as I'm at the max for my stock CV's. (Spicer stuff inbound).
Brake lines all looked great. Note that I don't have an adjustable rear trackbar yet. Metalcloak trailing arms going on next week so I'll be doing official before/after measurements with those too.
RADFLO:
Front droop was 9" from same spots. ( I used the fender line due to us having different fender flares to keep the measurements the same. We also have a similar size tire).
Front tuck was waaay more. This was weird, tuck had 3" distance between tire and fender line... No idea why we have 4" difference here. The Radflo bronco does have manual swaybars but they were connected for the test... ACFAB, ya'll got some trickery going on here?
Rear droop: 14" and it cleared the resi's. Barely.
Rear tuck : 2 1/2". Again, the tuck was better.
Again, this is all preliminary, LOTS more official testing coming.
From a shop perspective, he was flabbergasted at the King's built in lift. Seriously, why is it lifted 2" with no ability to go lower.
So far Radflo is looking good but King's still got some tuning to show their true potential. Icon's are coming soon and we will start the testing and videos!
Also working on a tail gate review featuring several systems. Got a few Bronco mod videos coming, Spicer stuff coming, Broncbuster stuff coming, and waaaay more. I'm horrible at writing if you could't tell which is why I'll be doing video series. Stay tuned!
First up are the top dogs (other suspension reviews coming later). I have 3 Broncos currently dialing in Radflo, Icon Stage 7 and King coilovers on 37" tires. All three are 4 door and are very similar trims, builds and weights. Obviously no side by side comparison is perfect and this one isnt going to be super scientific. More of a real world perspective from the three owners and showing you the good, the bad and the ugly. The full review will be in the video coming out sometime in May.
As of now, I am dialing my my personal Bronco on Kings and my neighbor is dialing his on Radflo's. Our mutual friend on Icon has the lift installed but is awaiting his 37's still. All three of us are running JKS max clearance kit and Metalcloak trailing arms (coming soon).
My Radflo buddy and I just went out and flex our Broncos on some rocks and here are the initial impressions. But first off let me say, these require way more work then originally anticipated to clear properly.
King Bronco:
2021 4 Door Big Bend Sasquatch running Kings, stock wheels, SPC UCA, Hammerbuilt tire carrier, JKS clearance kit, DV8 liners (not worth the price, see my other thread), Metalcloak rear bumper, RC front bumper with hidden winch mount and Warn winch. BB bushing and braces (housing ready for install as well). Waaay more mods but these cover the ones related to suspension and weight. I also have sliders (heavy), and some random skid plates.
Radflo Bronco:
2021 4 door Base Sasquatch running Radflo's, stock wheels, JKS clearance kit, Icon UCA, stock front bumper with JCR winch mount and winch, 4wheelparts rear bumper, BAMF tire carrier, full aluminum skids, Califabrication sliders (freaking awesome sliders yall). Icon tie rods.
Icon Bronco: (Not finalized yet).
In the final video review i'll go over everything from ride quality, body roll, on-road and off-road performance, flexing, jumps, features, customer service (results are surprising there lol). We will cover what had to be done to get the systems to cycle properly and fit 37's, stock tuning, and way more. For now i'm going over my initial impressions and fitment issues encountered on the Kings and also a bit on the Radflo which I drove.
I should note, to properly cycle 37's on a Bronco and run them reliably, its going to require more work then you think and will not be plug and play. There are a ton of differences between different Bronco trims and these systems run middle ground and arn't designed for heavy add-ons as far as tuning go's. The expectation is that if you're dumping 5-6k into a high end kit, you'll be spending more on shock tuning and additional mods to properly cycle your larger tires.
The King's were NOT plug and play. The reservoir location was designed around 35's and 37's on stock wheels WILL heavily rub at turn. The hose configuration only allows for limited placement and we could not locate them to a place that did'n't have rub. For now i'm running a 1.25" hubcentric spacer to mitigate rub but i'll eventually go to a 0 offset wheel. I also rub in the rear on my resi's at stuff. The rear resi actually prevents me from achieving full stuff at the moment (pre-spacer).
Despite whats advertised on multiple websites that sell Kings, the lowest setting on the front is 2" lift over sasquatch, the collar is at the lowest possible setting and physically cannot be lower. 2" additional height for Sas and 3" for base trims. This is honestly the biggest downside for me on the Kings is that I can't go down to 0 lift on the front. I only want 1 1/2" lift but thats not achievable without lowering the front spring rate. Keep in mind I have a 80 lbs winch, 37 lbs bumper and a heavier skid plate up front as well. I'm wondering if their Bronco was a 2.7 vs my 2.3 and they had more sag on their spring rate with their heavier engine.
As for the rear, the saying is true... It sags! A lot. Now this again is because it was designed for a stock Bronco without added weight. Add weight and the rear sags quickly. All I have is a 80 lbs bumper and 37'' tire and I have to have the preload adjusted waaaay up to keep it level with the jacked up front lol. I do have it sitting level but it continues to sag as I add weight. I will be swapping the spring rates to fix this issue later on but for the purpose of the initial review everything is out of the box. I should note that King is changing over to a different spring soon for the rear (more on that later).
I also want to note that I do not have the issue of SPC contacting the hose at full droop, that all clears great!. The SPC's are fantastic honestly and allowed me to dial in my alignment really well.
I do have loose steering though which is strange, it tracks straight and has good alignment but its almost like a bumpsteer. My buddies Radflo bronco doesn't have this... Its not a King issue but its defiantly annoying and I can't figure it out. It came on after lifting and not from the tires as I've run those for awhile before lifting.
Things that I need to change, add spacer or 0 offset wheel to eliminate rubbing on resi front and rear. Or.... I could go hard core and swap to a different resi hose and locate them in a completely different location. That would require a lot of parts and labor though.
I need a tune... really bad, the Kings are on full soft for adjustment and ride very rough, they are fairly jittery and are not riding as good as my factory bilsteins... it could be I have a bad set for some reason but i'm honestly surprised by the quality. I have high hopes that a tune will solve the ride, more on that later.
RADFLO
As far as the Radlo, the steering feel is great and the ride quality is what you would expect, Firm but better feel then stock, does well in the whoops and feels good out of the box. You can drop them down to zero and come from the box set about 1" of lift and leveled. Radflo offers a variety of tunes from the box and theirs feel really good honestly.
Now the mounts from Radflo mount differently than King and their resi's are smaller. The front is mounted onto the shock tower and we quickly found out that it doesn't like 37's lol. The Icon UCA came up into the Radflo bracket and bent it up and into the engine bay. Still works but that was annoying... I guess you could say it self cleared. The rear is mounted in a similar location to King but slightly lower. It does not rub at full stuff but is about as close as it can get without touching... I wouldn't trust it aired down or on a jump. Honestly for initial impressions i'm jealous of the Radflos. I have high hopes for Kings though once they are tuned.
We did some initial flex measurements (more accurate ones coming later).
King:
Front droop was 10 1/2" from metal fender line.
Front tuck was almost non-existent with swaybar connected. It measured at 7" space between tire and fender line... So basically nothing lol. I'm tempted to do manual sway bars as that tuck is horrible.
Rear droop (measured to where it stopped at contact with resi): 14 1/2" droop measured from fender line.
Rear tuck: 3" distance between tire and fender line.
There was more room to go for sure and other then the resi's everything cleared great. I obviously have 7 inches of room up front to tuck more haha. Silly sway bars. I wouldn't want to droop more honestly as I'm at the max for my stock CV's. (Spicer stuff inbound).
Brake lines all looked great. Note that I don't have an adjustable rear trackbar yet. Metalcloak trailing arms going on next week so I'll be doing official before/after measurements with those too.
RADFLO:
Front droop was 9" from same spots. ( I used the fender line due to us having different fender flares to keep the measurements the same. We also have a similar size tire).
Front tuck was waaay more. This was weird, tuck had 3" distance between tire and fender line... No idea why we have 4" difference here. The Radflo bronco does have manual swaybars but they were connected for the test... ACFAB, ya'll got some trickery going on here?
Rear droop: 14" and it cleared the resi's. Barely.
Rear tuck : 2 1/2". Again, the tuck was better.
Again, this is all preliminary, LOTS more official testing coming.
From a shop perspective, he was flabbergasted at the King's built in lift. Seriously, why is it lifted 2" with no ability to go lower.
So far Radflo is looking good but King's still got some tuning to show their true potential. Icon's are coming soon and we will start the testing and videos!
Also working on a tail gate review featuring several systems. Got a few Bronco mod videos coming, Spicer stuff coming, Broncbuster stuff coming, and waaaay more. I'm horrible at writing if you could't tell which is why I'll be doing video series. Stay tuned!
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