Suspension 2002 - Diesel Forum

Bassman1 · 06-28-2002, 08:09 AM

I am getting ready to purchase my 2002 4x4 Excursion. It looks like Rancho 9000's and Hellwig Sway Bars are common upgrades. Is a front and rear sway bar needed? I keep reading about X Springs and U Springs, but I am not sure why you guys are installing them and what is the difference between the X and U. Also what should I expect to pay to buy these items and have them installed?

IMartin · 06-28-2002, 11:48 AM

You may want to order your Rancho 9000's toady. Last day of buy three get 4th free sale. Sam's offroad out of Oklahoma City. $197.00 delivered. Summit Racing for the Hellwig Sway Bar. I think $125 or so. I have not ordered my stuff yet, but will be doing so. I just picked up an 02 4x4 Exc with PSD.

boertje · 06-28-2002, 12:48 PM

I just put on a good set of shocks as quick as I could. You can take your pick from Monroe, Rancho, and others that have shocks made for SUVs of this type. Install them and drive it for a while and see if you even need to uprate your springs and sway bars. If you drive mostly freeway and decent roads then maybe thats all you need. My X is just fine with the improved shocks and I see no need to uprate at this time. I would put my emphasis on the fuel delivery problems first. MHO of course.

wavshrdr · 06-28-2002, 03:06 PM

Had my X for 3 weeks now. Today I put on the Rancho 9000's. What a huge improvement. I am running them on setting #2 front and #4 rear. The steering is much more accurate.

FYI, stock my truck had less than 1" front wheel travel until it hit the bump stops. Actually it was closer to 1/2". This definitely should not be right! I definitely think the X needs better springs. I have Ford taking a look at it next week.

Next week I plan on tackling the fuel mods. I have a sway bar on order more to get rid of the oversteering tendency it has. The shocks made a world of difference for me. Its no sports car but it definitely has sharper reflexes. I plan on playing with the adjustments to fine tune it even more.

I bought while the buy 3 get one free promotion was in effect. Today is the last day. You save enough money on them you can actually pay someone to put them on for you and still spend less than the normal price if you want.

Any quality shock would probably be a vast improvement over the stockers. I choose the Ranchos because of the adjustability and the excellent price at the moment. Lifetime warranty is a plus but most companies offer that now.

FYI if you don?t want to do the install yourself, Pep Boys will install them for $12/shock. When the shocks showed up I couldn?t wait to get them put on so I ran over during lunch to have it done instead of waiting until this weekend when I could go to the garage to work on it. Unfortunately where I live you are permitted to work on your vehicles in the driveway and my truck won?t fit in the garage. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] So I dropped the $48 to get them put on ASAP. I am REALLY GLAD I did. Don?t wait, run to order a set of different shocks for the X. Mine is a PSD so I don?t know if it is worse than the gassers but it really stunk.

One last thing, man the SCMT really perked up the performance of my truck. Reprogramming the ECU made a huge difference in shift performance not to mention the extra HP and torque. As a side benefit my mileage increased about 1 full mpg. Sort of like having your cake and eating it too.

Bruce1954 · 06-29-2002, 11:11 PM

Here are some links you may want to read

http://forums.ford-diesel.com/ubbthr...o=&fpart=1

This one will tell you the specs aon the B C And D code X springs and the
T U V W and X SD springs

http://forums.ford-diesel.com/ubbthr...mp;Main=617635

This is the data that several have used to make an informed choice.

Bruce