CLOUDL1GHT, you sound like you could be a wealth of knowledge! I would love to hear about your experiences and specific data points related to your spring upgrades and air bags. For instance, I upgraded to 1223v and added a 1" spacer at the same time to offset the shorter springs. They ride very well but are not stiff enough when I load and tow my travel trailer. Also, the left side sits almost a half inch lower than the right. I'm assuming that's because of the gas tank weight. The OEM springs were perfectly level. How did the 1211s compare to stock ride height? How about the 1223s? Do yours sit level? Why did you choose to upgrade springs after installing air bags? I hope I'm not overloading you with questions! I'm very interested in your answers.
I'm just going to talk through each setup I've had so people can see what's what in my experience.
1st was stock springs and rancho shocks. Those were OK because they had 9 different stiffness levels. I got rid of those because it would sit on the bump stops with any weight and the adjusters froze up and since the knobs were plastic I chewed them up pretty good trying to twist them with pliers. Rancho stuff sucks.
2nd was stock springs, Bilstein shocks, and timbrens. This was a good setup for towing the 16ft trailer with three atv's and the truck sat pretty level. The issue with this setup was when the truck is unloaded, you could feel it hit the timbrens all the time.
3rd was the stock springs, same Bilstein shocks, and the Timber Grove ASAM kit. The timber grove kit was great because I could adjust the height to exactly where I want it. The only issue is you have to keep at least 10 psi in them and they made the ride more stiff and weird over rolling bumps. Since it replaces the bump stops, you would think they would put a jounce stop inside the bags right? Wrong. Over big bumps it was very harsh and you could hear metal-on-metal hitting in the rear.
4th was 1211 coils, same shocks, and back to stock bump stops. Ride was great, they held weight great, and mine sat level. There was no driver's side lean. They sat at stock height which is great but since I have Bilsteins at 2.8 in the front, the rear sat just slightly lower than the front. This wasn't a problem before because the ASAM kit kept the rear a little higher.
5th, and what I'm going to be sticking with, is the 1223 coils and stock bump stops. Rear sits a good 2 - 3 inches higher than stock so I have some rake still and I still don't have that driver's side lean. Stiffened up the ride in a good way and with the 16ft trailer filled with well over a ton of old drilling pipe, it still sat with the rear higher than the front by an inch. Very happy finally after going through way too many setups and too much money
