Softer Ride - Long Arm/ Shock Upgrade 8" Lift

Hey guys well I finally sold my 2nd gen and got a 2011 mega cab I put on an 8" zone lift and for the money it's great, but some bumps can be rather rough and want to know what y'all suggest.

I've called Fox and they set me up with the part numbers for front 2.0 shocks that will give me enough travel to complement my 8" coils and 2" spacers. So for about $275 I can have that. In yalls opinion are the fox going to noticeably improve ride quality or just a bit? Because for the money I want to be able to feel a good amount of change.

Or I've found a pair of long arms by pro comp that will fit up to 10" lift but is only for 03-09 models but didn't know How much of a difference between mine and an 09? So much that a little fab couldn't get it to work because you can't beat long arms. And they run about $600. I know pure performance offers a set but for $1400 I can deal with the bumps lol.

And of course I'm open to any other suggestions!

Thanks for any advice.

Shocks aren't your issue... the angle of the control arms is. With the 8" kit and 2" spacers on top the arms are at too much of a vertical angle which transfers the force of bumps up them directly into the frame rather than letting the suspension take it. Hence the reason for long arms at anything 6" or higher. There's a reason some kits are a lot cheaper than others... they don't account for all the change in geometry as well.

I would recommend a full long arm conversion on the front end. BDS, Pure Performance, or Synergy would be a few options to look at. Anything else is just going to be a small bandaid fix until you really solve the root of the problem. Long arms combined with Fox 2.0's will definitely give you a better ride quality.

Thanks for the info, and yeah that makes sense about the transfer into the frame rather than through the suspension. I know bds makes a long arm upgrade but says only supports up to 8" of lift but the pro comp says it supports up to 10" lifts. So I don't know what I should do because the bds isn't big enough but is for the correct year and pro comp is big enough but is for 09. I have a buddy that has an 06 mega 5.9 and was gonna compare our frame and arm location to see if there is any noticeable difference. What would y'all suggest?

At the end of the day the design of the ProComp long arms and the BDS long arms are very similar. Many guys have stretched the BDS kits up to 10" or 12". I haven't personally seen a single truck running a ProComp long arm kit and I pay a lot of attention to the lifted truck scene.

I'm running the BDS long arm kit on my truck and if I had to do it over again I'd probably go with Pure Performance long arms because of the adjustability of them. Especially if you want to stretch the lift up to 10". I have 1" coil spacers on my lift and because of that can't get quite enough caster out of the truck. With the adjustment bolts maxed I'm at about 3.5° of caster where 4-4.5° is really where it should be at. Adjustable long arms would give me the ability to fix that and get the proper caster angle. They'll also allow you to tweak the front pinion angle if needed.

ProComp saying that their kit is compatible with 2003-2009 trucks is not fully correct either. They are very similar from 2003 all the way to 2012 however there are differences. 2003-2008 use a Y-link steering while 2009-2012 use a T-link steering. This changes some of the front end parts. I believe there were also a few other small differences between the years.
So at the end of the day, yes the ProComp long arm kit would work but it isn't your best option.

Thanks for the info man, i really appreciate it! Being the the BDS kit is about $990 and only says up to 8" but you seen them go up to 10"-12" is the extra $330 worth it since they have such similarities? And also the positive of the pro comp being able to support an actually 10" be better than the BDS