Kaz Technologies / Penske Formula SAE Specific Shock Absorber

[jbolenbaugh]

As some of you who attended FSAE at MIS this year may know, Kaz Technologies and Penske have teamed up to bring a new FSAE specific damper to the market. Information on the damper can be found on our website at http://kaztechnologies.com/fsae.html.

Some features include

Design Benefits
• User revalvable and rebuildable
• Available valving kit enables user to create desired damping characteristics
• External rebound and compression adjustments
• Piggyback reservoir with 360-degree clocking
• Monotube design for lower hysteresis
• Solid model of damper available with purchase
• Legendary Penske reliability

Design Specs
• Lengths
• Compressed — 156mm
• Extended — 206mm
• Piston OD — 25mm
• Body OD — 32mm
• Fasteners — 6mm
• Springs — ID —34mm OD — 40mm

Kaz Technologies partnered with Penske Racing Shocks to develop and build this Formula FSAE specific shock.

http://kaztechnologies.com/FSAE%20Shock.jpg

If you would like to receive more information about the shock please contact me at jbolenbaugh@kaztechnologies.com


Thanks,

Jon Bolenbaugh
Kaz Technologies

[jbolenbaugh]

As some of you who attended FSAE at MIS this year may know, Kaz Technologies and Penske have teamed up to bring a new FSAE specific damper to the market. Information on the damper can be found on our website at http://kaztechnologies.com/fsae.html.

Some features include

Design Benefits
• User revalvable and rebuildable
• Available valving kit enables user to create desired damping characteristics
• External rebound and compression adjustments
• Piggyback reservoir with 360-degree clocking
• Monotube design for lower hysteresis
• Solid model of damper available with purchase
• Legendary Penske reliability

Design Specs
• Lengths
• Compressed — 156mm
• Extended — 206mm
• Piston OD — 25mm
• Body OD — 32mm
• Fasteners — 6mm
• Springs — ID —34mm OD — 40mm

Kaz Technologies partnered with Penske Racing Shocks to develop and build this Formula FSAE specific shock.

http://kaztechnologies.com/FSAE%20Shock.jpg

If you would like to receive more information about the shock please contact me at jbolenbaugh@kaztechnologies.com


Thanks,

Jon Bolenbaugh
Kaz Technologies

[MalcolmG]

what do you expect the price to be?

[rjwoods77]

Are there any plans to offer a range of extended lengths and travels such as the Cane Creek Double Barrels offer?

[flavorPacket]

Everything can be done for a price. And we mean everything.

Contact Jon or myself (rkraft@kaztechnologies.com) for further info.

[exFSAE]

So from ~6 to ~150-200 or so lb/(in/s) of low speed adjustment...?

Pretty decent range I'd say.

Do you folks sell appropriate springs as well? Or do those have to be purchased from a 3rd party? Would be worth noting in your brochure, including what springrates will be commonly available.

Maybe also a few bullet points of why specifically we want to buy this damper over the other hot item, the 4-way CaneCreek/Ohlins.

[flavorPacket]

Yes, springs will be provided. Any rate you want.

As for why you want to buy it, we are not here to bash Ohlins/Cane Creek. It is up to each team to decide what is the best product for them. The Penske shock, however, has many features that the CCDBs do not, such as:

-it can be disassembled
-it comes with whatever curve you want
-the adjusters are repeatable
-it can be pressure balanced
-it is lighter
-it uses -4 hardware instead of -5
-the canister can be clocked in any orientation
-it comes with support from experienced professionals and ex-FSAE suspension designers
-it was designed by racing damper engineers, NOT mountain bike damper engineers (the prototypes use many F1 components!)

[Jersey Tom]

You have mail.

[rjwoods77]

I would like to say this would be a great time to bring up the possibility of a TTC for dampers. It seems like the next logical step in digging into the suspension design game. We all have tire data and there is extensive discussion of what to do with data. We have torsional stiffness and installed stiffness discussions that take care of the mechanical linkage to the tire. What we don' t have is any knowledge on how the $250 7800 Penskes compareto the CCDB to the ST36/44 to the Kaz so on and so forth. The adjustment options/argument are obvious and are reflected in the price. It would be nice to have some sort of data that shows what you are getting into like most other things we do. The cost of doing testing would be relatively cheap in the sense that reserving time on a nice damper dyno wouldn't be too hard to come by and I am sure some teams would be willing to donate dampers to run the test. We would have to come up with a series of test criteria to look at hysteresis, repeatability, reliability, curve modification (range and effectiveness) and stuff to do with motion ratios and such. I am by no means anywhere near qualified to design such criteria but I would be willing to help organize a "Damper-Off" if you will. This would put a number of questions to rest and allow people to see what the pros and cons of various designs are and so we can all learn instead of repeating statements read somewhere else. Maybe even test air shocks just to see how bad it is from the pro level stuff. This would give the FSAE community a level of confidence about what they are buying. Based on flavorPacket's list and the link from before the first impression in my mind is are the $650 CCDB really suited for our series or is it just that anything below them truly horrible and it makes the $650 justified.


To bring up a link from the past:

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/t...10611141#16710611141 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/16710611141?r=16710611141#16710611141)

[jkaz]

The price for the Kaz Technologies /Penske dampers will be between $600-700. This does not include the spring.

We are currently completing the development and component sourcing. Price and final design information will be available mid summer. If you would like to receive information on the damper when it is released, please send your team name, contact name, e-mail and phone number to FSAE_Shock@kaztechnologies.com

[ed_pratt]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by rjwoods77:
I would like to say this would be a great time to bring up the possibility of a TTC for dampers. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I couldn't agree more rob, we're really lacking damping information in comparison to other areas of the car.

Perhaps if we could get the main damper manufacturers used in the series involved it would highlight some of the deficiencies in the cheaper(lower end) products and maybe instigate a change to designs? - possibly a little optimistic!

Ed

[jbolenbaugh]

I believe that a majority of the lack of knowledge about dampers in FSAE is the fact that the main FSAE damper manufacturers aren't involved with the series. You can't call someone who designed a shock absorber for a mountain bike, a quarter midget, or full size sports car and expect them to provide support for that product in a FSAE car. On the other hand as Ryan (Flavor Packet) stated this product was designed from the ground up with FSAE in mind. The products we produce will be for a typical FSAE car, or can be tailored to your specific needs.

As for the comparison of fsae dampers anyone with a Roehrig dyno can do 1,2,5,10 i.p.s. tests over the range of adjustment and post the results. From the testing conducted on our dyno at MIS I personally saw that two "identical" dampers, never rebuilt from the same team, performed drastically differently in our tests. So I suspect that the results collected won't repeat very well for a majority of the products in use by FSAE teams.

Thanks again,
Jon
jbolenbaugh@kaztechnologies.com

[jbolenbaugh]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
Yes, springs will be provided. Any rate you want.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We will provide additional details on springs when we have it. The final rates that will be available have not yet been decided, but utilizing a common spring size has made it easy for a team to source their own at their desired rates if necessary.

Thanks again,
Jon
jbolenbaugh@kaztechnologies.com

[Dsenechal]

Any update on these yet?

[rkraft]

The prototype parts will be delivered to the first development team this week. Baseline valving development for the production units is underway, and pre-orders will start in a few weeks.

If you have any specific questions, email Jon at jbolenbaugh@kaztechnologies.com

Ryan

Kaz Technologies
rkraft@kaztechnologies.com

[Kevin Dunn]

Any further updates? I spoke with you guys at MIS and we are interested in utilizing these dampers for the 2010 season.

Any feedback yet from the "development team"? We're instrumenting our suspension system up right now and will be doing a lot of testing over the summer. Should have a large amount of data in order to "build" a good set of Kaz dampers.

[jrickert]

Anybody heard anything from these guys? Vaporware maybie? Website Says available midsummer. Midsummer has come and gone.

[rkraft]

Work is going ahead as planned. The Michigan team ran on the prototypes in Germany and was 2nd in the dynamic events. We are currently working on the new website which will allow pre-orders to start in a few weeks.


Ryan

Kaz Technologies
rkraft@kaztechnologies.com

[rkraft]

Below are some photos of the prototype units on the Michigan car in Germany.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/1889/rear1.jpg (http://img196.imageshack.us/i/rear1.jpg/) http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/rear1.jpg/1/w1061.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img196/rear1.jpg/1/)

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/8159/rear2.jpg (http://img338.imageshack.us/i/rear2.jpg/) http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/rear2.jpg/1/w1142.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img338/rear2.jpg/1/)

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7969/rear3.jpg (http://img232.imageshack.us/i/rear3.jpg/) http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/rear3.jpg/1/w438.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img232/rear3.jpg/1/)


We were very pleased with the performance we picked up by running these dampers. Compared to our previous shocks, our drivers were much happier with the car over bumps, and we saw a big difference in hysteresis and friction on the dyno. Adding these dampers was the only change we made between MIS and FSG, and we went from 9th in dynamic events in Michigan to 2nd in Germany. The results speak for themselves.

[jkaz]

Here is an update on the Kaz Tech/Penske Dampers.

The dampers have completed lab durability testing with no failures.

We are completing the development of the 4 compression and 4 rebound valve codes.

We are also completing the Ecommerce portion of the website so dampers can be ordered. This is what has delayed the release.

We expect the website to be ready to take orders in mid-September.

The price of the dampers will be $675 each.

Here are pictures of the damper, one disassembled.

&lt;a href="http://s765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/?action=view&current=PS_78PB_DA_2.jpg" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/PS_78PB_DA_2.jpg" border="0" alt="Kaz Tech/Penske FSAE Damper"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;a href="http://s765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/?action=view&current=IMG_5806_2009Aug30_1000x667.jpg" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/IMG_5806_2009Aug30_1000x667.jpg" border="0" alt="Damper disassembled"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Here is a picture of the damper during testing on the dyno

&lt;a href="http://s765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/?action=view&current=IMG_4967_291_2009Aug29_1000x666.jpg" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/JKaz2442/FSAE_Dampers/IMG_4967_291_2009Aug29_1000x666.jpg" border="0" alt="Testing damper on dyno"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

[JamesWolak]

Ran into this surfing around

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30932515@N02/4107005133/

[rkraft]

Jamie,

The photo you linked to is not of a Penske 7800 FSAE shock. That is a 8760 damper for the big boys.