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Elka shocks from TeraFlex, Reviews?

8K views 14 replies 9 participants last post by  awinski 
#1 ·
Does anyone have educated opinions on the Elka shocks?
My 16k mile's RC 2.2 shocks have finally blown their gaskets and it's time for a real upgrade. I have been leaning towards the high end on my build and think it's time to match the shocks to the rest of the system's.
please give some real world feed-back on these that includes both high speed as well as crawling experiences.

:tea:
 
#3 ·
No personal experience with them, but I had a pretty extensive chat with Dennis on the phone a few weeks back. The way he explained them, both the Tera tuned Elkas and Tera tuned Fox shocks are good high speed, but if you're primarily a slower speed crawler, the Elkas were his recommendation. They handle whoops well at high speed, but supposedly are valved to be more accomodating to the slower speed than the Fox shocks.

I'm considering both the Elkas and the walker evans 11" travel reservoir shocks, but first need to find the root cause of my shock bodies making contact with the frame rails at full droop.
 
#4 ·
I am by no means a expert.

In talking with the people at Teraflex the Fox tend to work better if you rig is a more off road rig. Where as the Elka shocks are a better shock for the daily driver type of rig.

I'm lucky as I am close to Teraflexs office and was able to drive JK's with both the Fox and Elka shocks. Both shocks felt good on the test rides and I feel I would have been happy with either one. But the Elkas did appear to feel a little better on the road so I went when them.

I have a little over 4,000 miles on them so far. I have had them rock crawling, in sand, some high speed (40mph) whoops type roads, and on the freeway at over 80mph. So far they appear to work go for what I have used them for.
 
#5 ·
Thanks' for the feedback guys :thumbsup:
It sounds like they are what I need to be able to keep up with John (1222) out in the desert. Long stretches of power-line roads and I feel that my doors are going to fall off trying to keep up!
I see that the TeraFlex site shows them out of stock so I'll have to call on Monday and check availability.
Any more feed-back would be appreciated and help with the decision to spend $1k on shocks :eek:

:tea:
 
#10 ·
Sorry it's been so long but I guess this makes for a better review :D

I've had the Elka/TeraFlex shocks for well over a year and I absolutely love them. Along with their installation I added limit straps and TeraFlex SpeedBumps. I have OME heavy springs combined with spacers that total almost 4" of lift. I also run the Curry Anti-Rock both front and rear.
The low speed ride is a bit mushy and the highway ride is very smooth, a little bit of sway though nothing that feels unmanageable. High speed off road cycles well and the bump-stops and straps give me the confidence to hit just about anything as hard as I want. I run washboard roads at over 60 m.p.h. and drive the highway at 85+. Low speed off road is very nice with excellent flex and no unwanted movement.
I would recommend these shocks to anyone that wants a great all around performer. I feel that limit straps are a must to protect the investment. I set up the straps and SpeedBumps to about 1/2" from the ends of travel on the shocks leaving me with about 10 1/2" of travel. I got my straps from RoughStuff because they make a full double strap though you can get them from TeraFlex as well.


:tea:
 
#11 ·
Yeah I can back up what Jim (JLC08JK) is saying. Shortly after he installed it all we got together in my area in the desert and he gave them a pretty good workout in a variety of terrains including some fast runs through some challenging desert trails.

I remember that day well as he wouldn't/couldn't keep the smile of his face and kept on and on about how great everything suspension wise worked; and it did.
:cheers2:
 
#14 ·
I have a couple of expensive mods coming up (re-gearing is one) and I really think I want to do King Coilovers eventually too, so I figured I should sell these while they are still so new and valuable. Trying to figure out what else to sell. The shocks are pretty impressive but I have to regear fast. Going up the mountain passes is becoming annoying each time.
 
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