Much of the credit goes to the shocks, which Ford developed with Fox Racing, a project for John Marking, VP of Fox Racing's Off-Road Division. A highly experienced off-road pilot (on both four wheels and two), the super-low key Marking (on an aerial scout of the Raptor's proving grounds, right) was having a hard time down-playing the difference between the shocks on the Raptor and those available on other production trucks. The Raptor's shocks are unlike any that have ever made it to the showroom - massive position-sensitive triple-bypass dampers that create 4 compression zones and 3 rebound zones including top-out. Marking explained that he first worked with this type of shock design for extreme downhill mountain bike applications, but only for a specific event (Mammoth Lakes) that required almost no pedaling and the need to absorb huge hits. He mentioned that he never saw a future for it on bicycles but brought the theories of the application forward to off-road truck applications.
The result is shocks with a firm initial travel to keep the Raptor from lolling about like some drunk Trophy Truck, followed by a plush mid-stroke to soak up terrain, capped by a last bit of travel that gets progressively firmer to make it nearly impossible to bottom out (or top out) the suspension. As we saw in our runs up the wash, it works, but like us, it will probably take a while to reach the speeds where you'll even begin to tax the setup.