Hey Forum,

Hope everyone's doing well. It's time for me to replace the XREAS on my 05' Sport V8 4x4. I had a few questions if anyone can help. I'm gonna list the 3 setups I'm considering and my questions will be at the end.

NEW March 2020 Dobinsons IMS 0-3.5" Lift:
Dobinsons IMS Struts and Shocks - Adjustable Height Monotubes - 4th Gen 4Runners


Bilstein 6112/5160 Combo 0-3" Lift:
2003-2009 4runner 6112/5160 combo - YotaMafia


Fox 2.0 0-3.5" Lift:
Fox 2.0 Performance Series Coilovers & Reservoir Shocks Set for 2003-2 – Shock Surplus


I don't go Baja racing so I realized I don't need $3k and upwards suspension setups. I do 95% of my driving on-road but I would like suspension that can eat up speed bumps cause I have a bunch around me and going over them now cracks my neck every time. I also like to go remote camping a lot and usually that requires driving over 20-50 miles of dirt road with a lot of uncomfortable bumps. So having a setup to eat those up while driving 30-40mph would be great.

Questions:
1) The Dobinsons and Fox seem to have 50mm bodies. The Bilsteins in front have 60mm and their rears are 46mm. Should this be taken into account to favor the larger front Bilsteins?

2) This may be a dumb question but why do the Fox and Bilstein kits only include reservoirs in the back and none in the front? Is it to keep the kit cost down or does the front not need reservoirs? I'm sure it's not the latter.

3) Should the fact that the Fox and Bilstein rears have reservoirs make me favor them over the Dobinsons?

4) If you were choosing between these 3, and you had the same driving style as me, which would you choose and why?

Doing some price shopping, each of these options with coils all around should run me somewhere around $1,350.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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I'm real close to getting the dobinsons to replace my bilstien 5100. Nut I think all would be sufficient for your needs all are good and opinions will vary

Three great choices, as was said above, for what you do any of the three would be very good. With regard to the speed bumps, I would think progressive valving would be best, but I could be upside down. I would go to the Dobinson post for 4th gens on here and pose you question to CrikeyMike and see what he says.

Asking CrikeyMike would be a good idea.

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Yeah, ask that guy...

I'd be looking at Dobinsons and Fox if it were my vehicle. Nothing really wrong with the Bilsteins, but I don't think they're as long lasting, and also there are very limited coil options for the front due to that body size. It's incredible how many people need to buy replacement coils only and want to keep their shocks, so that's a great feature of the Dobinsons. I don't know if Fox offers a variety of coils to suit those coilovers, but Dobinsons definitely have the award for biggest coil spring variety for 4runners, without a doubt. The IMS body size is that size specifically so that the full coil range can be used, in addition to it being really ideal for this size of vehicle. These IMS shocks run a 50mm piston, whereas the standard Dobinsons twin tubes run 35mm pistons, so that's a huge jump in piston size overall.

IMS have a fully threaded body. I know Bilstein uses clip heights to adjust, and I think the Fox option does also. Clip options are a lot cheaper to manufacture, but also require removal from the vehicle for any adjustment. A fully threaded body can be adjusted on the vehicle, although making sure the threads aren't dirty is important, so most would remove them and compress the coil to clean the threads before adjusting.

I too don't know why Bilstein did the small rear resi. I think it was for looks and a slight performance increase.

Dobinsons offer the resi version also, but you're jumping up way higher in price. I had one guy buy IMS front struts for simplicity, and resi MRA rears so that he could adjust and tune the rear for variations in loads, and the rear is more likely to bottom out more often, so using the full stroke of the resi helps with dampening forces, especially with the 3-way adjustability.

Pricing - Dobinsons includes rear coils and the other 2 options don't, unless they just don't show them in the picture. Rear coils are ~$200 if you buy them separately. You're picking and choosing the correct coils to suit your loads and how you want it to ride with the Dobinsons kit. It can be built with all the drop downs however you want it here: Dobinsons 1" to 3.5" Lift Kit for Toyota 4Runner 4x4 2003-2009

Forgive me if my eye deceive me, but it looks like the Dobinson's have a lil nipple dude on the rear shock so you could add a resi later on.. anyone else see what I'm talking about?

I've never ran resi shocks so I'm kinda taking a shot in the dark here, but I figured if that was the case, it was worth pointing out

Those are actually the old style valves in the photos of the rear shocks. They have a flat valve now. That's just to add pressure for the internal reservoir inside there. If it was an MRA with resi, it wouldn't have the internal resi and that's where the hose would attach to go out to the resi with the floating piston inside it.

Here's a photo of how the valve actually looks.

Attached Images