Dampner Questions

[rjwoods77]

Hey guys,
Same intro stuff as in "Steering rack questions". I'm used to running beefy fox shocks. It seems from reading all these posts that everyone uses either fox,risse or quantum. Just wondering what the everyone thinks as far as good and bad of these. I heard judges bash the mountain bike shocks as too small to handle sustained loadings. Any comments as far as durability? Anyone given the fox floats a shot?
Looking for something about 7" c to c. Just started looking at all the specs to see if they make something that small.

[rjwoods77]

Hey guys,
Same intro stuff as in "Steering rack questions". I'm used to running beefy fox shocks. It seems from reading all these posts that everyone uses either fox,risse or quantum. Just wondering what the everyone thinks as far as good and bad of these. I heard judges bash the mountain bike shocks as too small to handle sustained loadings. Any comments as far as durability? Anyone given the fox floats a shot?
Looking for something about 7" c to c. Just started looking at all the specs to see if they make something that small.

[Kevin Hayward]

Rob,

Durability is not really a problem ... or shouldn't be. But a mountain bike shock is designed for pedalling efficiency and resistance to sharp drops.

This is not what dampers for a vehicle should be designed around. Also the newer MB dampers seem more suited for mountain bikes ... and less so for cars. This is an inetersting thing to keep in mind as the more expensive dampers for mountain bikes may not be any better than the cheaper ones ... in fact in some cases they are worse.

Around 7" eye to eye is about 1" shorter than most of the smaller MB units which start around 7.5 to 7.75" (these dimensions are by memory so sorry if they are wrong). These units should have around 2" travel (less when you take out a bump stop).

The judges will only give you hassle if you cannot justify what you have done. There are good reasons to run MB shocks as well as a few bad ones ... you won't find the magic dampers that solve all of the design criteria.

Kev

[Igor]

But something similar to the magneto-rheological dampers Lulea had are certainly pretty magical by themselves....

Igor

[rtrey]

Rob,

My only recommendation is that you stay away from Risse. We put our order in with damping curves last October for our 2004 car. We had to ship them back three times before we got something close to what we wanted by March. One of those times they kept them for three months. When we got them back, two of the shocks didn't have any resistance to compression. In the end they gave us 150 lb/in springs when we wanted 200.

The price is great especially since they shim them for free, but the service is the worst. I know we're not the only team that had major problems with this company.

Trey

[rjwoods77]

Thanks guys. I have had awesome luck with customer service from Fox but that was a different department. It will probably go for their other departments as well knowing the company as I do. Thanks for your input. Give me more if you got it.