i've heard this discussion go back and forth. the retainers make sense to me, though the cones don't seem like a bad idea, either. what are most people here running/would run?

and, as no post of mine is complete without a silly question, do i need retainers/cones for all four corners? i've only ever seen cones on the rear. oh, and i drive a D2. thanks!

andy

I've had both and like the retainers much better. The problem with cones is that when you are going down a ledge or some type of terrain where one front tire goes down first, the opposite side rear wheel will drop away quickly because of the cone. You will definitely get more articulation with cones, but I doubt that any of that additional articluation will actualy give you more traction or stability. The retained setup feels much better.

There was a discussion on discoweb a while back about cones. My brother and a group of guys ran a bunch of trails in Moab. There were a few obstacles where the coned vehicle looked very tippy and felt like it was going to tip and the retained vehicles walked through the same obstacle with no issues.

what Mike said ... I think it's better to three wheel it on a few things and keep the stability. rick's DII always gets a tire up and he never has any trouble than similarly equipped rigs with more wheel travel (and lockers ).

i've heard it said time and time again - flex is over-rated! it's funny to watch the super buggies with 14" coil-overs get laid over on their sides first time out - with all that suspension movement it's like trying to balance a densely filled platter of champagne flutes dangling from the end of a slinky! maybe it works well crawling bouldners that don't really resemble a trail, but on 99% of what you'll be encountering with your disco you really don't need all of that flex.

in terms of balance, after running my weird setup for a season i now believe the extra flex is much more helpful when its in the front - it helps keep the steering wheels planted on the ground when you're going up obstacles - especially those that require a hard turn at the top or in the middle.

i never finished my rear suspension and am running a 3" lift with stock rear shocks, and a trick bilstein 7100 10" front setup. what this did was to give me about 1" of downtravel in the rear (on the shock, and maybe less than an inch!) , and forced the front end to flex like mad. after running it this way, i think a normal OEM spec bilstein rear shock (~7" travel) combined with a long travel front shock in 8~10" would be a great final setup. i had a set of 12" bilsteins to go on the rear, but liked how well the front worked so much that I couldn't bring myself to put them on, fearing I'd lose all that flex in the frontend.

the other cool thing about this setup is that you don't have to worry about retaining the springs, because they never fall out. however, to keep from damaging the shocks (my woodheads are beyond toast), you need to put in limiting straps on each side to keep the shock from topping out and damaging itself. six on way ... in either case, you need to retain / limit something.

just some thoughts ...

cheers
-isaac

hmm, thanks for all the info. from what i've read and seen, i agree that more flex isn't always better, esp with a vehicle that's CG is so high.

so do i retain all four springs? i would think so.

andy

I wouldn't think you'd get THAT much articulation that you'd need to retain the front springs. Rears for sure.

Try the rears first, go out and play and see if it is required.
I've been debating the same thing: cones versus retainers.

Depending on the type of wheelin' you're doing I guess, one would be better than others.

I've designed a droop kit, much like SG's droop kit.

It gives you about two-four inches of drop travel, yet keeps the rear spring aligned and goes back in place.

I like the idea of true spring drop withour retainers, but if you are top heavy with a roof rack, than this option might not be much of a benefit.

Dan

Dan, IMHO the SG droop kit is no better than retainers, but a lot more complicated and more prone to breakage. With retainers you will get some spring stretch, so it will act like the droop kit, but will have probably less flex. What I ask is what will that incremental articulation give you? The droop / cone setup that has 2-3" more drop than a retained setup will probably give no additional traction. Just because the wheel is dropped way down and is sitting on the ground doesn't mean that it has traction.

Proponents of cones typically say that in their type of terrain the cones work better than retainers. Can someone please qualify that statement for me? In what type of terrain do cones outperform retainers? Why?

Looking at it from a physics approach, I'd dedudce that in any case, having the wheel on the ground grabbing at SOME kind of traction would be better than not having on the ground grabbing at something. The other side of the coin is vehicle body stability. Now, I've only wheeled in the Cascades, but only one time did my vehicle get unstable enough that I was worried about tipping over. That was coming off of Frost Mountain (see piture 1) The only variable there was all four wheels were on the ground. Now, having flexibility is key when you're going through rutted out terrain (see picture 2) No vehicle stability issues in this situation, so having the springs unretained was beneficial.

Dan

<< I wouldn't think you'd get THAT much articulation that you'd need to retain the front springs. Rears for sure. >>

Mine does

Did your spring pop out Ike?

yeah - everytime i've been wheelin' with the longer front shocks they let the spring dance around on both the upper AND the lower perch :-o when i was running the full RTE HD spring set i had about 4" of lift in the front - all spring - if that gives you any idea of the travel I'm getting.

on the stock radius arms, the problem is excacerbated because of the degree that the axle is rotated forward. the lower spring perch is raked down at about 30 degrees, making the rear part of the spring sit higher than the front. since the HD coils weren't all that pliable, they'd often catch the back part of the retainer and leave a big nasty gap in front.

swapping over to the RTE arms should clear this up. if it doesn't, a popular trick is to shim one side of the perch with a wedge to bring it back to level. after doing one or both of those things, i still need to figure out a way to retain the spring to the lower perch. on the upper perch, i think 3 pr 4 hose clamps will be enough. the lower needs a good sturdy cross bar to keep 'em planted, but it's tricky due to the through-spring mounting of the shock. i remember seeing some lower retainers for the front that werre made with a nice half-moon in the middle just for this, but don't recall the brand.

Dan, all of my offroading experience (other than a trip to UT) has been in Southern Indiana, where rutted trails are the norm. When I first got my Disco, the first mod I did was to get Rancho 9000s, RTE shock mounts, cones and a OME 2" lift. I did this for about a year until I got sick of Ranchos crapping out on me. After than I went to OME N73 fronts, N44 rears with 2" lowered mounts and retainers and upped the lift to a 3". First off, the vehicle felt much more stable on the trail with retainers. As far as traction goes, I can't remember a time when I felt like having cones would have got me through a section. The other thing is I absolutely hate the sound of the springs dropping and reseating.

The thing with Disco1s and Classic RRs is that it is super easy to get a ton of flex in the rear, so that's what most people do. I like where Isaac is going with having minimal flex in the rear to force more flex in the front. When you have cones, the front suspension remains stiff and the body moves with the rear axle when the suspension flexes. The next thing I want to work on is getting a little more flex in the front. Maybe some stiffer rear springs and some Blingstein 7000s in the front.

I'd like to see Issac get that Rangie running again and do some experimenting. What we need to do is take some video of a coned truck going over an obstacle and then see how Isaac's RR does in comparison. I think the RR will have a more level ride than a coned truck and probably be more effective.

I guess we'll see then, but don't hold your breath. It'll be a long while before Gatsby gets back out on the trail ;)

Again, physically speaking, it depends on the terrain, the weight of the vehicle and wether or not you're running lockers or open diffs.

Lots o' variables - lots o'configurations.

A wheel retained in the air on a truck is less useful than a wheel on the ground trying to track. Just opinion. I know I'm not a know it all.
I would like to see the differences.

Maybe I need to start working on a disconnectable retained spring system for both situations??

I've decided to always submit a picture to add to each thread's flair

Want my opinion? SURE YOU DO!!!!

It's only an opinion cus I don't wheel super hard and heck I still have my sway bars connected, so I dont' speak from a ton of experience.

Butttt....I gotta side with 'something on the ground is better than nothing". From a very minimal standpoint, even the weight of the tire and the axel pulling down on the truck has some impact, as does adding a 180lb person on one side to pull the truck back from tipping. Every little bit helps in my mind, so get as much weight as low on the truck as possible. Also, if the rear was locked, I'd have to imaging the weight of the tire and axel alone, with the wheel resting on the ground, would help a little in pushing the truck forward. Maybe not on sand, but on any kind of rock, especially slickrock, having that 100lbs or so touching the ground will give you SOME traction and a little ommph. Just my opinion.

I see where Mike's main arguement is though I think this is the first thing that you dont' like about it. If it didn't make noise, it'd be less of an issue for you, I assume. If my Engel fridge made a racket I'd surely raise a stink about it one way or the other. So the performance is probably a secondary thought, but that's just an assumption.

that's really not that hard.

pwc

Intuitively, it makes more sense that a truck that has tons of rear axle travel will have more traction than a tighter, retained setup.
First: when you have cones you will be doing a lot more flexing in the rear than the front. In a retained vehicle, the tighter rear forces more of the articulation to the front, which is a good thing.
Second: just because a wheel is on the ground doesn't mean that it will give you any traction or stability. Check out the pic. That's early on when I had cones. My left rear wheel is dropped way down, barely on the ground. It makes for a nice sexy flexy pic, but didn't do squat for traction. If only the weight of the axle is on the wheel, its not helping traction to any degree thats helpful to getting you through. Assuming you are unlocked, all of the traction will be at the other side. Cones or retainers aren't helping out the traction situation.

To me its all about tradeoffs. Stability vs. articulation. Retainers will give you more stability than cones. Cones will give you more articulation than retainers (at least in the rear). Stability is much more important to me than 2-3 additional inches of flex. I know when I am going down a ledge and one front wheel drops down, I'm not going to have a goofy weight transfer and have my rear pop up.

But, honestly, all we are doing here is academic. We need to get out and see what happens in the real world. I know I can't wait to find a nice rock ledge to scare the crap out of a coner.

During our meet & greet, I didn't get a accurate description of why Isaac's RR is dead. Do we need to head over to his house and have a "bring Gatsby back from the dead" party?


Edit: I forgot to add: the noise and clunking of the cone setup is my weakest argument against cones. My setup now still clicks and moans and groans, so a little extra clunking doesn't make that much of a difference for me. I've had both cones and retainers and know first hand that cones are gimmicky and the negatives outweigh the benefits. Do you ever see a rock buggy with cones? Nope. I also bet that if you did a little digging you'd see that the normal progression is to get cones because the look cool and then get retainers because the work better.

hey, i like where this thread has gone. i don't know about anyone else, but i've made up my mind. i too am in agreement with the wiser minds above that advocate stability above wheel travel. when i think of a situation where one wheel might come up in a retained setup while a cone setup would have the wheel just barely on the ground, the retained setup will place greater leverage and traction on the remaining wheel better than one where a coned setup will distribute the weight better across the axle but across arguably less tractable surface (this assumed a locked axle). of course, this is pure speculation.

either way, retainers for me, rear only. cool.

andy

Andy, good choice.

I gotta say I'm in the retainer camp too. The potential for excessive body roll just when you need it the least (off-camber) with the cones just doesn't appeal to me. A retained setup can still get a tremendous amount of travel, so its not like the truck isn't going to have any flex. The retainers just keep it from being unpredictable as the body will roll only at the rate of the spring, and will stop once it is fully flexed.

Then again, I already went with RTE retainers, so I'm probably just trying to justify my own purchase. Even retained, I'm still tentative in off-camber situations (Although I've gone from being tentative at 15+ degrees to tentative at 25+ degrees and am still practicing).

--Craig

One other point here is that this thread is about the D2 and it is going to have its rear travel limited by the Watts linkage far before the spring is going to be unseated so it's sort of a moot discussion. RTE does sell a replacement watts linkage that give the D2 a lot more rear flex. In light of this thread, the question is whether more flex in the rear is a good thing or not? I'm tempted to say yes, only because there is *soooo* little rear articulation in the D2 that it is forcing the front to flex more than it should have to.

I'm not an offroad guru of any sort but I would probably go with the retained springs. My truck has open diffs front and rear, has never had either swaybar disconnected and has the SLS airbags in the rear end. I have still made it through a lot of pretty hairy obstacles in Washington, Colorado and in Moab. I may not always have all 4 wheels on the ground but the ones that are on the ground are taking the leverage and are planted HARD onto the surface. The truck is tighter and easier to control in close situations and I can usually finesse my way through very tight areas because the truck doesn't suddenly do a body roll. The biggest complaints that I have are the fact that the SLS air bags leave too much "sway" in the backend and I have to really watch that in tight trees and the "Oh S**t" factor of some passengers when I lift 1, 2, or 3 wheels in a tight, multi level environment. And, yes, I have lifted 3 wheels on occasions. I actually pivoted around a tight spot at one of the Walker Valley gates on 1 wheel and the spotter nearly soiled himself because he was sure the truck was going over. It didn't go over because the suspension is tight and predictable.

If I can get a largely stock, fat a** DII through a majority of obstacles then it has to say something for a tight setup. Having the sway bars on makes it too tight in some situations. If I ever get rid of the rear air springs, I would probably go with retainers and disconnect the sway bars. I personally prefer to have the control and responsiveness over the flex.

All of this applies to the types of trails I'm on most frequently. There were several times last week where I watched super flexy trucks just consume some pretty ugly obstacles because the body never moved while the tires were dropping and climbing all over the place. Same thing with quad ATVs. You can chew up some ugly trails because the body of the quad just floats along while the fully independent wheels with lots of flex are going up and down like mad.

Rick