Dampers revisited!

[Jersey Tom]

Bout that time. So what's new in the world of FSAE dampers?

I'd be happy with a well-built, 2-way adjustable damper. Rebound and compression. Easier said than done..

Fox no longer makes the Vanilla RC.. they have an interesting assortment of shocks available which seem to be less and less useful to a FSAE team.

Risse Racing.. cheap.. and you pay for the quality (or lack thereof). We, and apparently a number of other teams, had poor results with their QC in the past year (we ran the Jupiter 5). The Jupiter 7R is an option and adds 3-way adjustability, but from last year I am very wary of their products. At least they're simple and user-serviceable.

Marzocchi.. the ROCO RC almost looks promising. But, the adjustment is rebound, and high speed compression only. I've never worked with these, and I am not familiar with any FSAE team that has. Anyone out there, feel free to share your experience.

And then, there is the Cane Creek Double Barrel. True 4-way adjustability. And apparently very well built. My only question is, how serviceable is it? If one were to want to change the shim stack..

Any other popular choices out there?

[Jersey Tom]

Bout that time. So what's new in the world of FSAE dampers?

I'd be happy with a well-built, 2-way adjustable damper. Rebound and compression. Easier said than done..

Fox no longer makes the Vanilla RC.. they have an interesting assortment of shocks available which seem to be less and less useful to a FSAE team.

Risse Racing.. cheap.. and you pay for the quality (or lack thereof). We, and apparently a number of other teams, had poor results with their QC in the past year (we ran the Jupiter 5). The Jupiter 7R is an option and adds 3-way adjustability, but from last year I am very wary of their products. At least they're simple and user-serviceable.

Marzocchi.. the ROCO RC almost looks promising. But, the adjustment is rebound, and high speed compression only. I've never worked with these, and I am not familiar with any FSAE team that has. Anyone out there, feel free to share your experience.

And then, there is the Cane Creek Double Barrel. True 4-way adjustability. And apparently very well built. My only question is, how serviceable is it? If one were to want to change the shim stack..

Any other popular choices out there?

[mtg]

On the Double Barrels, here (http://www.canecreek.com/fileadmin/canecreek/products/shocks/man_shocks/DB1_instr_050803.pdf) is the manual for them from Cane Creek's website. The shim stack looks pretty standard as far as changing it out, and the possibilities with the external valves are pretty open.

[J. Vinella]

We have run Penske 7800 for the past few years.

[Chris_S]

PUSH Industries can take a Fox DHX shock, and put race internals in (very similar to the PUSH RC internals); http://www.pushindustries.com/services.php?serv_page=fo...=Fox%20Coil%20Shocks (http://www.pushindustries.com/services.php?serv_page=fox%20coil%20shocks&title=Fox%20Coil%20Shocks)
Gets rid of the boost valve and pro pedal.

You could always hunt round for some RC's and get them PUSH'd.

[Jersey Tom]

Ya, on our 05 car we went with PUSH/Fox shocks, re-worked for 'FSAE spec'. Its an option.

[GSpeedR]

When did Fox stop using Silkolene fluid? I ask since I wonder why Push would advertise filling with an inferior oil...Torco is still a good oil but has a lower VI (and overall viscosity) than the Silkolene Pro RSF, which I'm pretty sure Fox has been using. Maybe things changed for the DHX.

I'm surprised that Push does not throw out the Dynamic O-ring on the floating piston and go with a Teflon (or PTFE whatever) band. They put a nice(r) seal on the main piston and leave the floater alone.

[GSpeedR]

Also Manitou has a new rear shock coming out soon (or already out maybe), but I don't have any details on it.

Those Cane Creeks are nice (rebadged TX44s?), but have to be expensive. I hope teams aren't throwing money at shocks like that without knowing what they are doing.

[Chris_S]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by DohertyWins!:
Also Manitou has a new rear shock coming out soon (or already out maybe), but I don't have any details on it.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The revox; http://www.answerproducts.com/items.asp?deptid=12&itemid=41

[Jersey Tom]

The Cane Creek 4-way is $550 with discount. Dirt cheap compared to automotive racing shocks sold to SAE teams.. where even with a big discount they're on the order of $2500-3000

[kwancho]

Wait, what? I hope that's $550 per. Anyway, that IS a good price. And, for the record, the Penske 7800s should be in the $1400 range.

[Jersey Tom]

Yes, the Cane Creek DB is $650 each with steel springs, -$100 FSAE discount.

The guy I talked to, at a major auto racing shock manufacturer, said the prices were as follows

1-way adjust - $500
2-way adjust - $800
3-way adjust - $1300
4-way adjust - $3000

And they can be modified to meet our length requirements. Hopefully for that price they meet the dampening curves we're spec'ing..

[Nitesh]

anybody used konis on their car? i ask because at $273/piece(w/o spring) from chassis shop they are much cheaper. Carol smith is all praise for this brand in 'Engineer to Win' though i agree it's quite an old book and lot of things definitely have changed since then.

[Jersey Tom]

Talked to Koni, sent them the dampening curves that are roughly what we wanted..

"We have nothing that soft. Sorry"

[GSpeedR]

If the Konis have a threaded body then you can take them apart and revalve them. Ask if they would be interetsed in donating a build kit (bunch of shims) if you buy a set. Drill out the piston or consider making your own; you can get the forces down if you try.

[Kyle Walther]

i believe Auburn run konis..i could be wrong though.

[Steve Yao]

I'll confirm that they had components on their shocks that had the Koni logo...

[mikep]

These are long, but they are easy to revalve. And cheap.
http://www.secureperformanceorder.com/afcostore/getsubc...ID=220&CategoryID=16 (http://www.secureperformanceorder.com/afcostore/getsubclasses.cfm?ClassID=220&CategoryID=16)

[Pennyman]

I've been looking at both the Cane Creek DB and Fox/Push DHX setups, looks like they will end up roughly the same price when all is said and done. $550 for the CC's (after discount), or ~$400 plus $180 for the Fox/Push. If the Fox/Push setup is cheaper with a discount, let me know.

Then again, before discounts, 650 for 4way vs 580 for 2 way? looks like the Cane Creek is the better deal right off the bat...

[exFSAE]

The Cane Creeks f'in rock. Particularly their most recent iteration. Huge adjustment range. Superb build quality.

Couple clicks of adjustment does change the feel of the car.

I reccomend. Worth the price.

[RacingManiac]

the new ones also come in this shiny gold color anodizing......bling...

[Chris Lane]

I know UWAM make their own now. Massive cost report savings there... you need large manpower to do something like that and plenty of time.

We are using Cane Creeks this year, if we can get a set! Motorsports Spares in the US is out of stock at the moment...

[flavorPacket]

we made our dampers for the past 2 years, but switched to the cane creeks because they are very light and very consistent. Cost savings be damned, I want to go faster.

[BenB]

On the subject, It seems like its pretty hard to get a "perfect" damper for small cars. There always seems to be a trade off between performance and packaging size (Never used the CC, maybe its the perfect shock. It does have a kind of small piston though).

Has anybody every made a "semi-custom" damper? I am talking about taking the internals out of a car damper(piston, seals, valves...etc.), and building a custom rod and housing to get exactly the size you want.

This might even be beneficial for the CC. If you really liked the damper, but wanted a remote reservoir you could make your housing accept hoses so you can move your valves and divider piston to an area you have more room.

I'm thinking about doing this with a TTX-36. I want that shock, but in a shorter stroke thats offered and a remote reservoir.

[Pennyman]

Another alternative that I haven't seen mentioned here is the Koni 8212.

8212
http://www.koni.com/typo3temp/pics/a6700d9a4a.jpg
on-car jounce and rebound adjustment

Tt's 2 way adjustable, come in a variety of sizes, and i think the prices are fairly comparable for a racing damper. I suppose with the right motion ratio it can be made to work.

EDIT: Just found the 8212 dampers on JEGS for $429.99 each. Not sure about the length though. The smallest one they make (pt#1400) has a max length of 10.67in fully extended. That's pretty much Baja SAE status right there.

[exFSAE]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chris Lane:
I know UWAM make their own now. Massive cost report savings there... you need large manpower to do something like that and plenty of time.

We are using Cane Creeks this year, if we can get a set! Motorsports Spares in the US is out of stock at the moment... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Have to be quite a bit of outright fudging to make custom damper fabrication any sort of cost savings I'd think. That's a good amount of precision machining and grinding, and assembly to do it right.

[flavorPacket]

we made our own dampers using someone else's piston and shims.

real cost: 10k+
cost report: 185 each

[BenB]

10k+???

Is that all manufacturing and materials cost?

What was the major cost associated with that. I would imagine there might be R&D where you have to make the parts again to work out the tolerances, but you could probably do a lot of design iterations with 10k in FSAE.

[flavorPacket]

that included 100s of hours of dyno time.

but there are still lots of involved processes, and the seals cost more than you could imagine.