2003 GMC DURAMAX -toy with family manners

WCO

It's Lil' Willi
That's one of the best explanations I've read! Thank you. I think I'll stick with the 5100's. When I was in college, I would have had to have the rebuildable's, now......I can't even find time to wash the truck haha.

On another note: I decided against running the 315/70/17's. Just too much rub, and when I stuff the tire I won't be able to get away from it. I've got some 295/70/17's Cooper STT"s on order! The 295 is 33.5" tall, and has 20.5/32 tread depth, which I like the idea of. I'll post some pics when I get them, hopefully by middle of next week!
 

bob91yj

Resident **************
I've got 5100's on my truck and 7100's(w/resi's) on my 05 Wrangler. I'm happy with the 5100's on the truck, having said that, I'm looking at putting Fox 2.0's on it, normal on the front, resi's on the back. A couple of guys at work are running the Fox's and I like them just a little better than the 5100's. With the air bags on the rear axle of my truck, I want a little bit firmer shock in both directions to help control the bounce from the bags, the Fox's, like the 7100's can be custom valved/pressure adjustments.
 

WCO

It's Lil' Willi
Thanks bob91yj. I think I am going to go with the 5100's for now. I see your reasoning with the airbags. I might have to step up to some 7100 or fox's next year, as the wife doesn't want to be camping out of the back of a truck when our little girl comes.....so I'm going to be buying a small trailer.

So I originally ordered the cooper stt's in 295/70/17, until my buddy at the tire shop called me and said they're going to be about $340 a tire....puta madre. So I ordered the 285/70/17, which drop to about 250 a tire. I know I can probably get them a bit cheaper online, but there's something to be said for having a great friend owning a tire shop, I am a firm believer in buy local when ever possible. I'm keeping fingers crossed to have them in today, and on tonight, I'll post up pics when I do so :)
 

WCO

It's Lil' Willi
Got my STT's last night!

I got my Cooper STT, 285/70/17, load range D set on last night. The 315 BFG ALT were fun, but just too much rubbing. And I really noticed my steering having a hard time turning them statically. I love my STT's on my powerwagon, and look forward to trialing them on the DMAX. I started an STT thread and you can follow my more detailed report on their performance there: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/73251-Official-Cooper-STT-thread
I haven't seen my truck in the daylight with them yet, but here's a couple gas station pics from 4:30 this morning
102_1385.jpg102_1387.jpg
102_1388.jpg102_1389.jpg
I did loose an inch of ground clearance, but man to they ride nice. Road noise but not enough to interfere with normal conversation, and not to much play/sway. They drive/steer true and tight. Can't wait to get them in the dirt this weekend!
 

DoMiNiC1

Adventurer
Man those look great!


I may end up with treadwright "guard dogs" in the same size depending on how many of my rupee's I get back from my returns this year. =)
 

Saiyan66

Adventurer
I don't want to say anything bad about Cognito Motorsports, but lets just say that the majority of their products end up on "mall crawlers", whereas the Camburg stuff gets used and abused without fail. I worked at a 4x4 shop that did very extensive off road fabrication and we would have never recommended a Cognito kit to anyone who actually wanted to use their truck off road. Just my $.02.
 

DT75FLH

Adventurer
I don't want to say anything bad about Cognito Motorsports, but lets just say that the majority of their products end up on "mall crawlers", whereas the Camburg stuff gets used and abused without fail. I worked at a 4x4 shop that did very extensive off road fabrication and we would have never recommended a Cognito kit to anyone who actually wanted to use their truck off road. Just my $.02.

Fair enough, I have not used them my self, nor have any experience with them. just something that turned up in a google search. I have been researcing different items due to future purchase of a new to me truck.
 

WCO

It's Lil' Willi
Thanks Saiyan66 and DT75FLH, the great thing about forums is the amount of knowledge shared! I appreciate both of your interest and recommendations! I haven't gotten to play with the new tires yet, other than street manners during the pouring rain. They ride great, with NO traction questionability on muddy farm roads in the first 2 hours of rain. Very little slippage, and cornering felt sure. A few daylight pics:
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tlbrewer

Observer
I don't want to say anything bad about Cognito Motorsports, but lets just say that the majority of their products end up on "mall crawlers", whereas the Camburg stuff gets used and abused without fail. I worked at a 4x4 shop that did very extensive off road fabrication and we would have never recommended a Cognito kit to anyone who actually wanted to use their truck off road. Just my $.02.

This is good info. My question is why do you recommend Camburg over Cognito? I'd never heard of Camburg, other than racing, until your post. But glad I have now. I went to their website, but other than a brief description and very few pics, they don't offer much technical information on why their kit is better (I'm looking at a leveling kit by the way). Up until this point, I thought Cognito was about as good as it gets. I want something that corrects the geometry problems of the GM IFS, not just raise it up to look good like the "mall crawlers" as you so aptly put it. From what I can tell their product looks nice, but doesn't offer anything different than Cognito. So what is it I'm missing or they aren't telling/selling. Just trying to be as informed as possible so I can get the most for my money. :)

Tom
 

bob91yj

Resident **************
I see a lot of Cognito's stuff at my dealership. The only thing we've really had an issue with is their HD tie rods, the inner end will start popping/get loose as fast as the stock stuff does. I've got one of the top Dmax guys on the west coast working for me, he's fairly well known in the desert racing scene so we see more than our share of GM/Chevy Dmax's that are usedabused by desert racing teams for chase trucks.
 

Saiyan66

Adventurer
The difference between the Cognito kit and the Camburg kit is the engineering, quality, and attention to detail behind it. The Cognito kit is designed to be an almost factory like part, that allows for a proper geometry when cranking up the torsion bars. However the Camburg kit is designed to correct the geometry as well as enhance the strength and extend the travel of the front end. If you look closely at the arms themselves the Camburgs have much nicer welds, plate gussets on top of the pivot/arm junction, 1.25" uniballs (larger than anyone else's arms at this time), and proper length high quality flush mount hardware to attach to the spindle. It is this type of attention to detail that you are paying for. We all know that larger tires + off road driving = dead ball joints. The uniballs will never need replacing (when taken care of properly) and can handle just about any tire you can squeeze in there unlike a standard ball joint. The Camburg arms are made of 4130 chromoly not just mild steel like the Cognitos. This makes for a stronger product as well. The Camburg arms are more capable of supporting larger tires in off road environments, and should you decide to upgrade the front end more at a later date (maybe 2.5" shocks and high angle CV's, upgraded tie rods) they will fully allow you to take advantage of those components. Camburg does also offer the tie rod upgrade which is pictured on the truck shown on the website. Calling them is best as they often offer products that don't show up on the website for some time.

Camburg properly sizes all of their hardware, which most companies do not. On high stress parts you will often hear people talk about shank length of bolts. What this means is that if you have two parts that you need to bolt together that total 3" in thickness, you would need a 3.5"-3.75" long bolt to have enough thread to get the nut on. However with conventional hardware the threads on a bolt of this size would be 1.5" long. That means the shank length would only be 2"-2.25" in length, not enough to have the strongest part of the hardware completely through and supporting the two parts. The solution to this is to buy hardware that is either too long for your application and then cut off the excess thread (leaving you with the full 3" of shank length) or to buy expensive properly sized hardware (Camburg does this). If I had a picture it would be much better than trying to explain it.

Once again, I wont say that the Cognitos are bad. If you just want to correct the geometry after cranking the torsion bars they will work just fine. People on this forum tend to load their vehicles heavily and drive many miles off road with oversize tires so for those reasons I think the Camburgs are a more fitting product. And no I don't have any affiliation with either brand.
 
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tlbrewer

Observer
Thanks. That explains a lot. That's the kind of information I was looking for and the stuff Camburg should put on their website.

Tom
 

locrwln

Expedition Leader
The uniballs will never need replacing (when taken care of properly) and can handle just about any tire you can squeeze in there unlike a standard ball joint.

The only problem with Uni-balls is they are not sealed. That may be fine if you never leave the dry dirt/dust, but trust me, a buddy of mine went through uni-ball upper joints like crazy on his LC100 when he tried that style of UCA. As soon as he went through anything that would land on top of the UCA and invariably onto the upper portion of the uni-ball (which every design I have seen is built like a cup that will collect dirt/mud), it just sat there and started abrading the joint. We did a lot of miles off-road and he was replacing the uni-ball at least once a year due to wear. Pretty hard to keep them clean when you are spending a week out in the backcountry. He tried everything that the manufacturer recommended as far as maintenance even to the point of lubing them during our adventures, they still squeaked and wore out.

I have another friend with Camburg's on his 4runner and he too has gone through at least one set of uni-balls in approximately 20k of use.

Nothing against Camburg, but uni-balls are made for racing, where they can be replaced after every race, not for use in the real world if you expect them to last for a long time. The rest of their arm looks great.

Jack
 

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