Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, any shock can be revalved, hell most of them share components. There is only so may ways you can make a damper. Outside of spool valves and manufacturing tolerances they are all basically the same.
If you can wait a week or so, its not too bad price wise to send shocks off to get rebuilt and revalved.
You can in most cases even swap reservoirs among shocks or add them to your current shocks if you are willing to spend some time getting the right fittings and have access to a hydraulic shop near you.
External compression adjusters can be added from FOA if you don't want to spend fox money.
FOA 2.0 and 2.5 shocks have a new level of versatility and performance. FOA shocks with our External Compression Adjuster gives you the ability to precisely adjust compression from super soft to super firm with the simple twist of a knob. The clearly marked knob offers positive clicks of finely...
f-o-a.com
You will need a reservoir piston as well.
Regarding the rear, you could have too much rebound damping. Leaf springs are kind of a pain to dial in since they are effectively a progressive rate spring. too much rebound damping and you get the rear end compressing too much and struggling to fall back out, too little rebound and you end up with a bucking condition.
In the front, you have to remember what you are doing by preloading the shock. Coil compression at ride height sets the minimum level of spring force you have If your 700lb/in spring is preloaded to 1.5" height you effectively have 1050lb of spring force at ride height, then for every inch you compress offroad you add another 700lbs to it.
If you have a 600 lb/in spring you have 1.75" of preload to reach the same static load of 1050lbs but you only have 600lbs per inch after that.
The problem comes in with block height. A 700lb/in spring has thicker coils than on a 600lb/in spring so it has a taller block height and on a short stroke coil over you can compress the spring fully if you have too much preload or too much travel. On the flip side, you need less preload to reach the same ride height with a 700lb/in spring. Specs from Eibach (
https://eibach.com/us/c-9-ers.html)
If you use a 16 inch spring
Ideally you would use a spring with the same travel as came on the shock stock but increase the rate to accommodate the extra weight. Remember thought, the coilovers act on a lever and are not on the 1:1 pivot and you have 2 on the front of the truck. Realisically adding 250lbs to the front translates to somewhere around a 50lb increase in rate if you keep the preload the same.
What do you run your tire pressure at and what are the sidewalls?
Sean
