Magnitude SV34 Suspension Upgrade
With a planned trip to Alaska next year and reading about how bad the roads can be in places and roads just getting worse in general, I decided to upgrade the suspension on my '20 Magnitude SV34 for a better ride and handling.
The stock F-550 Super C ride and handling is far superior to the E-450 Class C but there is certainly room for improvement.
I did install front and rear Sumo Springs two years ago because they are a relatively easy way to improve the ride and handling.... and they did help. But now at 20,000 miles I decided to upgrade the shocks and rear sway bar.
My shock choice was between Bilstein B6 4600 shocks or Rancho RS9000XL. After doing some research and reading several reviews I opted for the Rancho RS9000XL shocks. The main reason is they are easily adjustable with 9 different changes in ride performance. The next reason was the much larger size of the shock body.... 2.75" for the Ranchos vs 2.25" for the stock shocks.... resulting in increased fluid capacity and a larger piston.
After measuring the stock sway bars I was very surprised to see the front sway bay was larger than the rear sway bar. I felt this was a problem because most of the weight and the height was on the rear suspension. The front sway bar was 1.5" but the rear sway bar was only 1.25".
I decided that the stock front sway bar was good enough and not worth changing out but I felt that changing the rear sway bar would make a difference.
My sway bar choices were a Hellwig sway bar that was 1.375" or two different Roadmaster sway bars that were 1.5". I ruled the Hellwig out right away because it was smaller and they only make them to order now for the F-550 and the lead times were 8 - 12 weeks.
Roadmaster makes two different 1.5" sway bars for the F-550. They offer one that specifically says it is specially heat treated and specifically designed for bed campers or heavy hauling... but it is more than $300 more than the other F-550 sway bar they offer. I opted for the less expensive option (which was still $570 after a discount at eTrailer) because I felt like just increasing the bar size by 1/4" would be a substantial improvement over the stock bar.
Here are some pics of the shocks and sway bars so you can see the differences in size as well as the results after a couple test drives.
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