Icon Upgrades on SoCal SuperTrucks Ford Raptor

Icon Rear 3.0 Icon ZETA Piggyback Reservoir 3-Tube Bypass Shocks
MSRP: $2624.95

Bypass shocks. The very term is synonymous with hard-core, as this style of shock represents the pinnacle of performance in the off-road racing world. Icon’s Rear 3.0 ZETA Piggyback Reservoir 3-Tube Bypass Shocks take the Raptor to a whole new performance level not attainable by the stock suspension. 

The ZETA 3.0 shock is a true, three-tube external bypass shock, and each bypass valve has a specific port design and individually equipped with a different spring rate to ensure proper performance at each zone of shock travel. Icon says that the biggest difference between the ZETA shock and an industry standard bypass shock is its easy-to-adjust knobs and replaceable bypass tubes. The knobs don’t require any tools for adjustment, so dialing in the shock to deliver plush off-road performance or firm road-holding manners is just a click away. The replaceable bypass tubes also mean that a tube can be swapped out if it should become damaged, saving the customer a lot of money, as a normal bypass shock body would need to be completely replaced.

Of course, Icon’s engineering and R&D teams have produced a beauty of a shock, constructed of high-flow CNC-machined aluminum with a multi-stage cadmium-plated finish and polished and anodized top caps and rod ends. UHMH (Ultra-High Molecular Weight) machined shaft and rod end protective shin guards come standard to protect the shock shaft.
 
The ZETA shocks bolt into the stock location on the Raptor, but there is some clearance grinding required to the upper shock mounts on the frame in order to avoid having the larger shock top cap from making contact with the mount, especially since our plan included swapping from the stock springs to heavy-duty Deaver Springs. Once again armed with his trusty die grinder, Poe ground the necessary clearance and then touched up the bare metal with black paint to guard against rust and corrosion.

So Cal Supertrucks also wanted to bolt on a set of Deaver K-80, 11-leaf progressive spring pack leaf springs to balance out the Raptor’s rear suspension in relation to the front while also providing stronger and more durable springs than the stock Ford units. The Deaver Spring swap is also fairly straightforward. About the only hitch—and it isn’t much of one—is that the front leaf spring bolts on both sides of the truck are mounted with the bolt on the inside of the frame and the nut on the outside, so there is no way to remove the stock bolt cleanly unless you want to remove the truck’s fuel tank.

The simple solution is to loosen the bolts and then cut their heads off for removal. Deaver supplies new bolts that can be inserted with the head to the outside of the frame and easily cinched in place. The only other requirement is to remove the U-bolt locating tab bracket from the stock spring and transfer it to the Deaver spring. 

Icon Raptor Rear Bumpstop System
MSRP: $1889.94

The last step in our Ford Raptor suspension swap proved to be the most time consuming and complicated, as Poe installed Icon’s Ford Raptor Rear Hydraulic Bumpstop System to better control the rear suspension in its final stage of collapse. Bumpstops are the best way to reduce the chance of part breakage from severe bottoming of the rear suspension, and they also improve ride quality by giving the collapsed spring a sort of “pillow” to land on under extreme compression of the suspension at high impact speeds.

The stock Raptor addresses this by incorporating rear bumpstops made of foam rubber, but these aren’t really adequate for hard off-road driving. Not only are their construction materials somewhat dubious, but they are mounted in such a way that the rubber can squish out to the side of its mount, allowing metal-to-metal contact. Icon says that the frame surrounding the OEM bumpstop mount is not capable of these kinds of forces, and repeated hits can lead to frame damage not covered by the factory warranty.

Icon claims that its hydraulic bumpstops function as a spring and a shock. An internal nitrogen charge is compressed when the air bump is compressed to act as a spring, similar to the OEM bumpstop. The difference is hydraulic air bumps are adjustable and can be tuned to have low-impact forces at the beginning of the travel, and ramp theoretically to infinity at the end. Unlike the factory bumpstop, Icon’s hydraulic bumpstop incorporates oil along with a damping piston internally to control the amount of energy that is returned to the suspension, reducing the vehicle’s tendency to kick. The oil and damping piston also control the compression of the air bump relative to speed, which is important for Raptors hitting obstacles at extreme speeds. The Icon hydraulic bumpstop system uses a 2.5-inch travel air bump that does not interfere with suspension travel under normal driving conditions. The clamshell bracket design along with triangulated cross braces supplied in the kit not only give a rigid mounting point for the air bump, it also helps to reinforce a known weak part of the Raptor frame.

Poe started by checking the frame where the clamshell brackets would be located and then dressing a couple of the stock welds to ensure flat contact of the brackets against the frame. One  major issue we had with the whole build came when we went to mount the two-piece clamshell brackets and found that their mounting holes didn’t line up so well and required some extra time and a fair bit of “massaging” with a grinder to get the bolts through and get everything locked in place.

Another complication lies in the installation of the 6061 solid-billet aluminum cross bar support supplied as part of the kit. The support bar uses a pair of tension rods to help stabilize the frame, and the right side tension rod interferes with the Raptor’s exhaust system, requiring the installer to loosen the exhaust system clamps far forward of the tension rod and slide the exhaust system rearward to gain a fraction of an inch of clearance. The rear muffler hanger is also bent and prodded to avoid muffler contact. The left side isn’t a whole lot more fun, as it requires loosening part of the wiring harness under the truck from its mounting points to fit the left side. It’s not a technical hassle, but it does add to the time of the install.

Once everything is bolted into place, the bumpstops themselves are then slid into their new homes in the clamshell mounts and secured via pinch bolts. The last item on the list is to install the striker pads on the axle tubes, and the system is complete.

Epilogue
A long day of work yielded a Ford Raptor with vastly upgraded suspension components. Thanks to SoCal SuperTrucks and Icon Vehicle Dynamics, the So Cal Raptor can tame the wilds of the off-road environment more competently than ever before without sacrificing ride comfort or sharp handling on the street. What’s more, the bumpstop kit’s crossbar support adds even more durability to the truck by effectively boxing a part of the chassis that could really use the reinforcement.

Best of all, if you don’t have a Raptor, almost all of the Icon parts are available for standard Ford F-150s as well, so you don’t need to start with a $55,000+ truck to end up with more competent off-road suspension. 

CONTACTS
Icon Vehicle Dynamics
951/689-ICON
IconVehicleDynamics.com

SoCal SuperTrucks
909/383-5454
SoCalSuperTrucks.com