walker evans velocity/ fox internal bypass/king internal bypass/elka 2.5

tatum

Hans Solo - 2009 UTV Baja 500 & 1000 Winner - UTVU
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I think they are all a quality shock that can be made to work very good. It seems that Fox and King are the most popular for desert racing but they have also been around the longest. Iribe from King is the best shock guy that I have personally worked with.
 

NIKAL

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May 13, 2012
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You will never get an honest answer. The reason is a guy who is racing and gets free shocks or support is going to say his brand and support is the best. So that's not going to be an honest opinion.

Then you have the guys who are going to tell you what they bought is the best, because that is what they have, yet they have Zero experience with the other brands, so how can they give you an honest opinion if they have not used & tunes the other brands?

Like Tatum said all the brands listed make a quality product. Some offer features that might be better for your application or tuning vs others. Also what application is this going on? That should be your first question! Second question is do that make a shock to fit that application. Some dont make a shock that size or with features or tuning for what you need. Some don't offer custom applications either. For example, Walker Evans personal Alumicraft prerunner that he runs at the NORRA race, runs Fox shocks. Walker's own company does not make a shock to fit big pre-runners, and they did not want to make a set for his own vehicles.

Then you have shock tuning, a good shock tuner who understands what the vehicle is doing can take what you might think is a bad set of shocks and make them a competitive winning shock. I have seen and ridden in cars on Fox that rode like crap, I've been in a 4 seat prerunner buggy on Kings that I thought was the worse handling car I have ever seen. I was sure much of the issue had to be geometry issues, only to find out later the shocks were out of the box valved and once (I think Bill Varns) re-valved them the car worked 100X better. Tuning is 85% of the equation.

Over the years I have raced in different cars using Sway-A - Way, Fox & King and on the UTV I have run the Walker Needle conversion and helped tune a set of Fox stage 3's on a XP900. I can say the S-A-W were the worse out of the box and actually took machining to make them a good shock that could last a full race. By the time we were done, the shocks caps were about the only part that was untouched. Also at the time S-A-W's service & support was little to none. The Kings were on a class 10 car, and while they worked good the bypass tubes are much noisier then say a Fox bypass tube. Also that car needed larger front shock reservoirs as the front saw fade in the constant whoops, not a shock issue as much as it was a application issues and a bigger part was needed. Then the other 10 car class 1 and 5/1600 were on Fox. All of these cars had the right shocks for those applications, so tuned right they were awesome. I will say that since we are close to FOX, service and being able to go down and tune with them was more convenient, so because of that they would be my 1st choice.

In regards to the Walkers on a XP4 the production shocks that Polaris specs with Walker were not impressive at all! The Needle conversion made a huge improvement, and the cost to do the conversion is by far the best bang for the buck. But IMO its still not what I would call a perfect application race shock, but works great as a recreational shock. I cant say anything about their new Velocity line as I have zero experience with them, but I would bet once tuned correctly they are going to be as good as a good tuned Fox & King shock.
 
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jajl22

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Jun 5, 2015
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Anywhere you can get more information on the WE Velocity line yet? I looked at their website but it didn't have much info about them.
 

the stripping shop

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Nikal I know what you ment on shocks but I was trying to figure out what the difference was between them. Ex are the new velocity shock just a needle valve set up with a lower reservoir to help by pass the oil in slow speed? Are the fox internal same as king internal by pass and is the velocity same concept? Why doesn't elka have any kind of by pass set up. I know joey d will give his opinion on walker velocity but did he ever ride in Sims or Angel car to tell the difference. Just question because iam getting a 4 seat turbo rzr are the fox internal by pass junk or are the velocity/elka/king hell the ADS/radflow that much better. Or did Polaris make the fox internal junk with there set up?
 

JoeyD23

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Anywhere you can get more information on the WE Velocity line yet? I looked at their website but it didn't have much info about them.
I think you will need to contact them directly. they just unveiled them. I was blown away how they performed during our XP1K3 filming.. I mean, they did stuff I thought for sure was going to snap them in half and should have snapped them but they held up awesome!
 

JoeyD23

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Nikal I know what you ment on shocks but I was trying to figure out what the difference was between them. Ex are the new velocity shock just a needle valve set up with a lower reservoir to help by pass the oil in slow speed? Are the fox internal same as king internal by pass and is the velocity same concept? Why doesn't elka have any kind of by pass set up. I know joey d will give his opinion on walker velocity but did he ever ride in Sims or Angel car to tell the difference. Just question because iam getting a 4 seat turbo rzr are the fox internal by pass junk or are the velocity/elka/king hell the ADS/radflow that much better. Or did Polaris make the fox internal junk with there set up?
I have ridden every stock set up from Polaris and have ran modified Walkers and Fox's including 3.0 IBP. The Fox shocks (2.5 / 3.0 IBP) are ridiculous. Only downside to me is the weight. They worked fantastic on my RZR I had them installed on.

So like I said, I think you can make any of these shocks perfect for what you want. Its all about who and how you tune them out. But you know that!
 

Heybeerman

Active Member
Mar 3, 2011
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The problem with IPB, Needle Valve & the new WER Velocity series. Is they are a bit more complicated to revalve and hit a great setup. Be ready to put your time in. Then be ready for great results.
 

tatum

Hans Solo - 2009 UTV Baja 500 & 1000 Winner - UTVU
Feb 10, 2009
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Nikal I know what you ment on shocks but I was trying to figure out what the difference was between them. Ex are the new velocity shock just a needle valve set up with a lower reservoir to help by pass the oil in slow speed? Are the fox internal same as king internal by pass and is the velocity same concept? Why doesn't elka have any kind of by pass set up. I know joey d will give his opinion on walker velocity but did he ever ride in Sims or Angel car to tell the difference. Just question because iam getting a 4 seat turbo rzr are the fox internal by pass junk or are the velocity/elka/king hell the ADS/radflow that much better. Or did Polaris make the fox internal junk with there set up?
The Fox internal bypass have another shock body inside with holes in the side where oil can bypass, so a 3 inch shock really has a 2.5 body and piston inside. Kings have a needle.
 

motive

Active Member
Jan 12, 2014
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I believe the IPB feature of the Kings only changes the valving at the very end of the stroke. Effectively goes into bumpstop mode. The Fox has 5 valving stages that increase dampening progressively.

Is the new Walker shock velocity sensing then?
 

jajl22

Active Member
Jun 5, 2015
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I believe the IPB feature of the Kings only changes the valving at the very end of the stroke. Effectively goes into bumpstop mode. The Fox has 5 valving stages that increase dampening progressively.

Is the new Walker shock velocity sensing then?
I could be wrong but i think the race series fox has the 5 zones, i think the ones that come on the turbo Xp only have 3 zones.

They are all great shocks if you tune them, just takes time and usually money to get dialed in.

I hope Walkers is at Camp rzr, i will talk to them their about the velocity series and if they are there i am sure they will have one on display.
 

the stripping shop

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The Fox internal bypass have another shock body inside with holes in the side where oil can bypass, so a 3 inch shock really has a 2.5 body and piston inside. Kings have a needle.
I seen that. That's kind of what I was wondering on the Turbo rzr fox internal, are the 2.5 bodies with 2.0 piston. What size are the king's then. Are the walker velocity same 2.5 body or 3.0 body and 2.5/3.0/2.0 piston just trying to find more info to make edumacated guess. Not bagging on any of them like Nikal said It depends on the set up and what your using them for. Would bigger body and bigger piston work better because sometimes bigger isn't better.
 

madviking

Member
Mar 15, 2014
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The King IBP is much like the Walker Evans with the needle, but has a major difference. With the King, the bypassed oil has its own secondary piston with valve stacks, which are independently tunable. Whereas the bypass on the WE is simply a bleed port that the needle slowly closes off (someone correct if I'm wrong). If one is familiar with the linkless KTM needle pds shocks, the King are quite similar. The King shocks can be set up to have the needle come in to play just about anywhere, they offer needles of different lengths to accommodate. The IBP I have for my Viking begin their transition with about 30% of the shaft travel remaining.
 

the stripping shop

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The King IBP is much like the Walker Evans with the needle, but has a major difference. With the King, the bypassed oil has its own secondary piston with valve stacks, which are independently tunable. Whereas the bypass on the WE is simply a bleed port that the needle slowly closes off (someone correct if I'm wrong). If one is familiar with the linkless KTM needle pds shocks, the King are quite similar. The King shocks can be set up to have the needle come in to play just about anywhere, they offer needles of different lengths to accommodate. The IBP I have for my Viking begin their transition with about 30% of the shaft travel remaining.
Didn't realize how much the king IBP shock was to a walker needle valve shock. Just looks like king took it to the next level. Is king IBP a 2.5 piston a 2.5 body I can see were you can get more control that way then a 2.0 piston in a 2.5 body
 

tatum

Hans Solo - 2009 UTV Baja 500 & 1000 Winner - UTVU
Feb 10, 2009
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I seen that. That's kind of what I was wondering on the Turbo rzr fox internal, are the 2.5 bodies with 2.0 piston. What size are the king's then. Are the walker velocity same 2.5 body or 3.0 body and 2.5/3.0/2.0 piston just trying to find more info to make edumacated guess. Not bagging on any of them like Nikal said It depends on the set up and what your using them for. Would bigger body and bigger piston work better because sometimes bigger isn't better.
Iribe from King says bigger is better and used his class 10 car as an example. They are close to the same size as a utv with way more shock absorber.
 

tatum

Hans Solo - 2009 UTV Baja 500 & 1000 Winner - UTVU
Feb 10, 2009
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Didn't realize how much the king IBP shock was to a walker needle valve shock. Just looks like king took it to the next level. Is king IBP a 2.5 piston a 2.5 body I can see were you can get more control that way then a 2.0 piston in a 2.5 body
Yes
 

BiggJim

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Jan 15, 2009
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Didn't realize how much the king IBP shock was to a walker needle valve shock. Just looks like king took it to the next level. Is king IBP a 2.5 piston a 2.5 body I can see were you can get more control that way then a 2.0 piston in a 2.5 body
The IBP for is a 3.0 rear with a 2.5 piston. The OEM stuff has 5 zones, and the Fox race stuff has 7 compression dampening.
 
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jajl22

Active Member
Jun 5, 2015
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The IBP for is a 3.0 rear with a 2.5 piston. The OEM stuff has 5 zones, and the Fox race stuff has 7 compression dampening.
Damn 7, had no idea it was up to that many.

I wouldn't even know where to start tuning one of those bad boys
 

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