King Shocks for Prerunners: The Complete Buyer’s Guide

King Off-Road Racing Shocks are the default high-performance suspension choice for serious prerunner and desert-truck builds. Made in the USA, fully rebuildable, and endlessly tunable, King shocks come in 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0-inch bodies as coilovers, internal-bypass, and external-bypass units. This guide breaks down the lineup, explains what each type actually does, and shows exactly which King setup fits your build and budget.

If you’re still mapping out your suspension, start with our primers on long-travel suspension and the difference between bypass and coilover shocks — this guide builds on both.

Why King Shocks Dominate Desert Builds

King has been building race shocks in Garden Grove, California since the 1990s, and the brand earned its reputation the hard way — winning in Baja and every major desert series. For prerunner builders, a few things set King apart:

• Made in the USA and fully rebuildable. Every King shock can be disassembled, resealed, and revalved. When you cook a set after a hard season in the desert, you service them instead of throwing them away — which is exactly why race teams run them.
• Tunable to your truck. King shocks are valved and sprung for your specific weight, tire size, and driving style. Off-the-shelf shocks are a compromise; a properly tuned King is dialed for how you drive.
• Race-proven durability. Large-diameter 6061 aluminum bodies, big shafts, and race-developed pistons are built to survive hundreds of miles of whoops without fading.
• A setup for every level. From bolt-on OEM-replacement kits to fully custom long-travel packages, there’s a King configuration for a mild street truck all the way up to a trophy truck.

King Shock Types Explained

Most of the King catalog comes down to four building blocks. Understanding them is the whole game when you’re speccing a build.

Coilover (Smoothie)

The coilover carries the weight of the truck on a coil spring wrapped around the shock body, and it’s the foundation of almost every front suspension. A “smoothie” is a coilover with no bypass tubes — simple, reliable, and tuned through spring rate and internal valving. Every prerunner front end starts here.

Internal Bypass (IBP)

King’s internal-bypass coilover hides the bypass zones inside the shock body, giving you position-sensitive damping and a built-in hydraulic bump stop in one bolt-on unit. It rides plush in the middle of the stroke and firms up near the ends to control big hits — a huge upgrade over a plain coilover without the complexity of external tubes. For a lot of mid-travel builds, a 2.5 IBP coilover is the sweet spot.

External Bypass

External-bypass shocks run tunable bypass tubes on the outside of the body. Those tubes let you fine-tune compression and rebound in different zones of the stroke, and they shed heat better than anything else King makes. This is race-grade hardware — usually run on the rear of a long-travel truck, often paired with a coilover, and the choice when you’re carrying real speed across rough desert.

Air Bumps

Air bump stops are the last line of defense at full compression. When the suspension bottoms hard off a jump or a G-out, the air bump catches it smoothly instead of slamming into a hard stop. Serious long-travel and race builds run them at all four corners.

Shock Sizes: 2.0 vs 2.5 vs 3.0

King bodies are measured by diameter, and bigger isn’t automatically better — it’s about matching the shock to the weight, travel, and speed of your build.

OEM Performance Series vs Race Series

King organizes its shocks into two broad camps. OEM Performance Series shocks are bolt-on kits engineered for a specific truck — Tacoma, Ranger, F-150, and more — that install with factory-style mounts and deliver a massive ride upgrade without fabrication. Race Series shocks are the custom, made-to-order units that pair with long-travel arms and fabricated mounts for a ground-up build. Most people start in the Performance Series and graduate to Race Series when they go full long-travel.

Which King Setup for Your Build?

• Street / mild: a bolt-on 2.5 coilover kit front and matching 2.5 shocks rear. Transforms the ride with zero fabrication.
• Mid-travel: 2.5 internal-bypass coilovers up front with 2.5 remote-reservoir bypass shocks in the rear. The classic do-it-all prerunner package.
• Long-travel / race: 3.0 coilovers paired with 3.0 or 3.5 external-bypass shocks and air bumps at all four corners, built around long-travel arms and a fabricated rear.

King setups are proven on nearly every popular platform — the Ford Ranger, Toyota Tacoma, and full-size Ford and Chevy builds. Not sure which truck to start with? Read our honest breakdown of the best truck to build into a prerunner, and if you’re brand new, start with what a prerunner actually is.

Rebuilding and Tuning

The reason King shocks hold their value is that they’re built to be serviced. A typical prerunner that sees regular desert time should have its shocks rebuilt roughly once a season or every few thousand hard miles — resealed, refilled with fresh oil and nitrogen, and revalved if your setup or driving has changed. You can send them to King or a tuning shop, and experienced builders learn to service the simpler units themselves. That serviceability is a big part of why a used set of Kings is still worth real money.

How Much Do King Shocks Cost?

Pricing scales with size and complexity. As a rough guide: a bolt-on 2.5 coilover kit runs in the neighborhood of $1,600–$2,600 for the front pair, remote-reservoir bypass shocks land around $700–$1,100 each, and a full custom long-travel King package (coilovers, bypasses, and air bumps front and rear) commonly runs $4,000–$8,000-plus depending on the build. It’s a real investment — but it’s also the single biggest ride-quality upgrade you can make to a desert truck, and the shocks outlast the trucks they’re bolted to. Browse the full lineup at King’s official site, then buy through an authorized dealer who can tune the shocks to your build.

King Shocks FAQ

Are King Shocks worth it?

For a truck that actually gets driven hard in the desert, yes. The combination of tunable, position-sensitive damping and full rebuildability means a set of Kings can last through many seasons and many trucks. For a mild street build that never sees real speed, a less expensive shock may be enough — but nothing matches a properly tuned King once the terrain gets rough.

King vs Fox — which is better?

Both are top-tier and you won’t go wrong with either. King has a deep Baja and external-bypass tuning pedigree and a reputation for customer-specific valving; Fox has broader OEM presence and technologies like Live Valve. For most prerunner builds it comes down to dealer support and tuning in your area. We’ll compare them head to head in a dedicated guide.

Can you rebuild King Shocks yourself?

The simpler coilovers and smoothies are DIY-serviceable if you’re mechanically inclined and have the tools and nitrogen to recharge them. More complex bypass shocks are usually best left to King or an experienced tuner, especially when revalving is involved. Either way, rebuildability is the whole point — you maintain them rather than replace them.