Fox 2.0 suspension kit on washboard roads

[NvrFinished]

Question. Forgive me I am a noob to trucks. When I off-road on washboards and I speed up I notice it’s easy for the truck tires to start changing directions accidentally from the bumps. Is that normal?

Yes, this is normal. The reason it's harder to control direction is because the tire contact patch is only coming in contact with the high points of the ripples you are riding over. Lower tire pressure reduces the jarring you feel when the tire comes in contact with those points.

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[dondonbabyraptor]

Yes, this is normal. The reason it's harder to control direction is because the tire contact patch is only coming in contact with the high points of the ripples you are riding over. Lower tire pressure reduces the jarring you feel when the tire comes in contact with those points.

Thank you Shea for the explanation. I’ll try airing down the off-road tires to 20 next time and that should help a lot.

 

[NvrFinished]

Hi Shea,

We have washboard roads in cement on our proving grounds at Ford. We call then sinewaves. Both two inch crest to trough and 4 inch crest to trough. Both surfaces are some 300 ft long. We drive them and various speeds until we hit vehicle resonances for the purpose of understanding resonant responds. For example...during the Formula SAE competition at Ford, I was director of Operations for dynamic events, and for the static events, my secretary and I hosted tours of our Dearborn Proving Grounds and included the sinewaves in the tour... We were in a Econoline 15 passenger bus, I was the narrator and Carol was the driver. We approached the 2 inch sineways at 13 mph and the steering column went crazy... Then we hit the 4 inch sinewaves and no response...The college kids were blown away.

So when on washboard roads that are terrible....Speed up...you can smooth out almost all of them with speed...you get to where the tires just skip over the tops like it is a smooth road. Living in the Green Valley area...we have old mining camps that are on washboard roads. On one, Margie was being beat to beat the band, so I sped up..she complained but found the ride smoothed out to the point of being a non issue.

Okay....your suspension upgrade should not be determined by washboard roads unless you do not want to change your speed. FX4 on my Ranger at some 37 mph to the Helvetiaa mining camp are quite smooth. At 15 mph...pure hell.... Other washboards require you to vary the speed to smooth out the dirt road.

Choose your suspension on other than washboard roads... JMO...

Best,
Phil

Thanks much for the back story, Phil.

I'm fairly familiar with how speed affects the ride depending on the road. I used to race dirtbikes in the Score Baja races in the mid to late 90's. I drove hundreds of miles of washboard roads when prerunning and being a chase vehicle. I had to change the shocks on my F150 yearly and go over the suspension after each race. Those roads could rattle just about anything loose.

 

[mtbikernate]

washboards are the one thing that have me thinking about doing a suspension upgrade at some point. speeding up simply isn't an option. I've driven on western dirt roads and have used that exact strategy out there. works pretty well on the straighter stuff I encountered. where I live now, straightaways are short and rare. lots of sharp, blind corners that keep speeds down.

airing down is a PITA I intend to avoid most of the time. the situations I encounter usually consist of a few miles of gravel at most before I reach a trailhead where I intend to hike or mountain bike.

I've definitely noticed that switching to 4hi helps with the "wander" and reduction of control from riding the tops of the washboards. but the spots where the washboards are worse tend to be in the sharp corners or right before them where people hit the brakes hard. and sometimes right before areas with big potholes. kinda the only option is to slow down, which makes for feeling the bumps more.

it's not been a huge problem, and tbh, I still seem to be more comfortable driving at higher speeds in that stuff than most other folks do, even those in trucks/suvs (including lifted tacos and such). not sure if it's an equipment thing or if it has more to do with the fact that I probably have a bit broader experience in these conditions than most on the east coast.

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