Shocking Update
So I’ve had Ron Sutton on speed dial for a while. The man is an absolute wealth of knowledge and his explanations are such that concepts become working knowledge. Me saying that is scary, I know. Before I go any further, props to Herb, Darren and Britt at Ridetech. Not the first time I’ve dealt or spoken with these guys and the service and attitude is top notch. Brett if you’re reading this, I believe that starts at the top and you run a first class outfit.
Some of you may remember the One Lap Three Amigos doing some pre-race test and tunes here in SoCal. Ridetech and Fox were out that day and they did some rebound adjustments and it worked out pretty well for those guys. Ron Sutton and I had already done some calcs on springs and swaybar rates, so I checked in with Herb Lump at the shock desk (great guy). He sent me the before and after dyno graphs and stated that the addition of a rebound adjustment helps track times but that the shock “liked more spring rate” when they added rebound. Here’s where the journey begins.
I sent Ron’s shock builder my shocks for dyno and revalving. From the dyno graphs Ron concluded the low speed rebound valving was too soft. Not wanting move away from Ron’s proprietary valving curve for optimum track performance, the shocks needed stiffer rebound valving at low speeds without pushing the high speed valving too high. Low speed valving in the 1” to 3” per second range is key to handling performance, but higher piston speeds control bumps.
A part of Ron’s secret sauce is achieving much stiffer low speed rebound valving, to keep the front of the car down during a corner, while not being too stiff in the part of the curve that affects bumps. This requires a digressive rebound curve. They did a lot of testing, but everything tried (shim stacks, replacement pistons) could not get the rebound as digressive as Ron wanted it. Ron took the time to work with Herb and Britt at Ridetech and they discovered Fox had a design for a digressive plate which would allow the rebound to be less linear at the top (higher piston and shaft speeds).
After reviewing the design, Ridetech made the digressive plate in-house. Darren shipped it out overnight to Ron’s shock guy. Ron says the digressive plate is just one piece of the puzzle, but with fine tuning of shock valving and piston bleed circuits, they tailored the curves to achieve Ron’s proprietary curve. After some testing and adjustments, along with Ron’s input on where and how he wanted the shock to perform, the shock was blessed and shipped to me this week. Yeah, it took a while; five parties had to be happy, but in the end it worked out great. I put the shocks back together last night and I’ll take them down to BoS and install them very soon.
At this point, we know the dyno graph looks great but really the proof will be how they perform. We won’t know that until the car hits the track. On paper you can make any shock look right with valving, but some brands will push you right into the wall when valved beyond their limits of grip control. I’m certain the Ridetech units will not have a problem as we didn’t set them on NASCAR (BMF) full kill.
More on this to follow!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vegas69
It's 1st and goal buddy...
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I think I just burned up two more downs
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
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