school me on shock placement- rear leafs

[Chuckman]

ok, who's got actual experience with the placement of rear leaf spring shock? some are staggered front/rear of axle, some are canted front to back, some are canted left to right, some are vertical. etc.
I can only imagine that canted front to back follows the arch of the spring during compression and helps with ride, but limits flex somewhat. Then canted left to right helps with flex, but might make the ride worse. is there a style that intentionally helps with spring wrap? looking for stability/ ride quality and then flex coming in second. Is there an issue with the eyes turned 90degrees from each other to help with flex? Better to run out as far as possible or inside close? Blank slate and Im up for all ideas.

see my other post about the springs and vehicle application.

 

[OnlyOneDR]

The fact is the closer the shock is to the wheel the better it will be able to dampen movement of that wheel. The closer they are to each other the more leverage the axle has on them, so you have to valve them stiffer. You can run a shorter shock since when flexing the shock does not need as much stroke, which also helps with packaging.

Shocks that are mounted essentially vertical will dampen the best. Typically shocks are mounted at angles front/back to help fight axle wrap. Shocks are are canted inward towards each other at the top will dampen bumps straight up but do not help nearly as much with roll stability.

Look at the newest F-150s out there and you will see that the shocks are outboard of the frame and tipped away from vertical at the top.

The eyes would work best turned perpendicular to the axle for flex, but having the eyes in line with the axle also provides a small amount of resistance to flex which helps with sway. Depends on how you want it to ride.

I am going to replace my oem-style placement shocks with ones outboard of the frame and tilted back. I have enough room in the wheel wells on mine to allow me to build a shock tower in there to run a long travel shock without having to cut the bed on my truck.