Reponse from the other thread
I figured this was better in here.
1st off I gotta ask what's the username mean?
2nd. I went and looked at Perry McNeils Explorer last week. He had heavy duty coil buckets with f150 camper special coils and dual fox resevoirs up front. The rear was a 3 link with custom coil buckets and the same coils in the rear. He said he's got close to 40,000 miles of prerunning on the Explorer with no major failures except for when he rolled it and they had to cut the top off and mold on a new top off another Explorer. You'd die if you saw this ride. It's fully caged with racing bucket seats up front and a 36" racing bucket in the rear. The dash is custom all carbon fiber with aftermarket guages. Super trick stuff. This is the yellow explorer on his web page and I've seen pics of it on here launching.
www.perrysfabnfiber.com
He said the coil bucket front end that he runs would run me $2000 installed plus shocks if I wanted something more then cheesy Rnachos which will be around $500 for two 2.5" Sway-A-Way resevoir shocks. That's for 18" of usable travel in 4wd. He said that if I wanted to go with a coil over setup with 20" of travel it would be the same price but expect the shocks to be $1200-$1500 depending on coil rate and valving options. He said coil overs handle a little worse on the road and a little better offroad cause they have a progessive compression. I'm still debating if it's worth the extra $700-$1000 for it. I could use that money in the rear or for fenders or bumper etc..... He said I'd be REALLY happy with the bucket set up and that he's had 3-4 feet of air with no problems. But, then on Sat. I saw an Explorer with coilovers up front and man did it look sick!!! I think I'll probably end up with the buckets and regular coils up front cause I think it'll do what I need and save that extra money and put it into something else. I think the buckets will get me the performance I'm looking for and the coilovers may just be over kill. One cool thing is that the shocks I'm getting can be converted to coilovers. All I would need are the mounting hardwar and coils. Then I would have to cut off the bucket that perry fabs on and mount upper and lower shock mounts. So basically if I wanted to I could upgrade down the road if I decided that 3-4 feet of air wasn't enough.
As for when all this happens, I'm not sure. I put $500 deposit down so the guy would buy the gears and have them for the install end of this week. I still owe him another $500 when it's done. That'll leave me with about $3000 in the bank. Here's where it get's complicated. I'm currently working for a temp service at a company doing something I like for good pay and they want to hire me. They can't right now though cause of budgeting reasons. I currently live in my parents guest house rent free but have to drive 95miles one way to work. (I love my Honda's 40mpg!!) I don't really want to move out of San Diego to Orange County where I work until this job is perminant. Also, my parents would kill me if they knew I spent that much on my ride and was still living rent free so here's what it boils down to. I'm not going to do it until:
I get hired perminant (which I've already worked here 6 months temp) and,
I move out and,
I want to have a magic number of $6000 in the bank before it goes in the shop to cover any unforseen problems with vehicles or moving out that I havn't thought about.
I'm kinda hoping just after the 1st of the year to do it. I'm praying to get hired by then and to still be sane from my daily commute. I should have the money saved up by then as long as nothing unforseen comes along other then Xmas, car insurance renewal, etc.....
I'll definately keep you updated on the progress and all other info I find. I'm still going to go check out Baja Concepts to see what they offer first hand as well as a 3-4 other shops in the SoCal area before I fork out the cash.
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