Cane Creek DB

[scott_rfr]

Has anyone tried to revalve the DB's yet? I am interested in using them for next year and while the adjustment range is big I still desire some diffrent charc. out of the shock curve. If so were did you find the shims. I have tried looking around and can't really seem to find any.

Scott

[exFSAE]

I've been told bleeding 4-ways is a real pain. Are you looking to make it softer or stiffer? I'd imagine the former. If that's the case could you just take shims out? Or change the fluid inside to drop the viscosity level?

[John Grego]

Kansas had their's revalved but I'm pretty sure they had someone else do it for them.

I asked the Cane Creek guys about revalving and they said I could do it if I had a vacuum something something machine.

[scott_rfr]

Taking shims out might work. For the most part I am asking around to see if anyone has tried anything with these dampers besides just running a high MR.
Has anyone tried valving to change the shape of the Force vs. Velocity curve etc. I have also heard that bleeding a 4way can be troublesome. I just wanted to get some more information as far as other expirences with them before I made any decisions.
I know the adjustment range is big however for FSAE purposes you are going to be down around the last two-three adjusments without having to run high MR. Therefore your adjustment range really isnt that big. However maybe the quality of the seals is really good and there is not much concern of seal drag and hysteris with high MR? What are teams thoughts on this that have used these dampers?
The rep at Cane Creek I talked to didn't seem to want to give any information for revalving the dampers.

Scott

[Erich Ohlde]

We got cane creek to revalve them in 07 and for 08 we got the fsae dampening (characterized by the gold shock body or gold adjustment nuts/screws)

[scott_rfr]

Erich,
Who did you talk to at Cane Creek to get them to revalve them?

Scott

[mjdavidson]

From what I understand the gold bodied Cane Creek has customized valving for FSAE. I'm surprised that the Cane Creek guys wouldn't steer you in that direction as soon as they heard what your application was. I also heard last year sometime that Ohlins was going to take over the sales of the FSAE version. I never did confirm that, but it made sense to me for a few reasons.

Anyhow you probably won't get any help from Cane Creek on revalving them yourself. You do need a vacuum bleeding machine to get all of the air out of a double barrel shock. They might be able to do a custom build for you if you can tell them what you want... but thats kinda tough when you don't know what can be done with it.

[Erich Ohlde]

I just emailed my shock guy about the cane creeks, i'm not sure who we talked to but i'm finding out.

[Erich Ohlde]

Scotty Merryman, Ohlins Dept. at MSI
www.motorsportsspares.com (http://www.motorsportsspares.com)
317-241-7500

[John Grego]

The gold bodied Cane Creeks are "customized for FSAE" but we found that if you want a 1:1 motion ratio your car needs to way about 500lbs. However, they are quite a bit softer than the original Cane Creeks.

[Corey H]

Originally posted by John Grego:
The gold bodied Cane Creeks are "customized for FSAE" but we found that if you want a 1:1 motion ratio your car needs to way about 500lbs. However, they are quite a bit softer than the original Cane Creeks.

To achieve the 1:1 motion ratio, was the issue with the supplied spring being too stiff, or the valving of the shock itself?

[John Grego]

With our car's weight (around 390) and the frequency we wanted to run the Cane Creeks couldn't get quite soft enough. We didn't use Cane Creek springs, they were way too stiff and fairly expensive.

[flavorPacket]

we got 16 springs for 180 bucks. If that's expensive I don't know what's cheap!

That being said, cane creek only gave us rates 150 and above, which are way too stiff for our car with a 1:1 MR, so we had to get custom ones anyway.

[John Grego]

Well maybe I didn't have the correct price. The ones we used were still cheaper http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[flavorPacket]

If you really paid less than $11 a spring, I'd be very suspect of their consistency in loaded height, load eccentricity, etc. How did they stand up to those tests?

[John Grego]

Let's just say that sponsorship is a wonderful thing. Loaded height, load eccentricity, etc. were great, we tested them all before putting them on the car.

[oz_olly]

Does anyone here have experience instrumenting the damper eyelet of the Cane Creek DB? I would like to instrument our dampers for monitoring vertical load at each corner and as were run direct actuating dampers I can't instrument the push/pull rod. I have taken the eyelet off and measured it and it seems the M8 x 1.25 thread is 12mm long leaving only about 2.5mm between the thread and the bearing bore.

I'm planning on manufacturing my own eylets which are about 10mm longer allowing room for a thinner section to achieve a measurable strain. I'd be happy to share my design but if anyone has experience to share then that would be good.

Cheers

[HenningO]

Olly that shouldn't be an issue, go for it!

I'm actually surprised that teams don't make their own top eyes. It is a very simple way to make the damper what ever length that fits your packaging. Design changes to make the interface with the rocker neater is something I think a lot of teams would benefit from.

Most "motorsport" level shocks can usually be ordered with a range of different size/length eyelets.