On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, Mark Hooper wrote:
> Well it appears that I must bow to the massed wisdom of the list and stop
> being a stick in the mud. So does putting heavier oil in the dampers
> eliminate the need for the tube-shock conversion, or is this a temporary
> sort of thing?
Ooops. Time to chime in on this one. There is no "need" to upgrade to tube
shocks. People do this because they either identify an actual reason to do
it (like a racer might need more shock because of spring rate increases or
for more precision tuning (multi-way adjustable)) or they just think it's
kool. There are also the folks that simply don't understand the principle
of the tube shock - much like folks that don't understand side-draft carbs
so they install downdraft carbs. Sure it works, but the end result is very
far from ideal.
That said - the lever shock is actually _better_ than a tube shock in most
instances because there is very little unsprung weight in a lever shock,
essentially the only sprung weight is the vertical link and mounting
hardware/bushings. With a tube shock, there can be much more weight that
is sprung, even if you mount the shock upside down (if you need me to
explain this, please stick with lever shocks!!!).
If your goal is to tune to the Nth degree, then a tube shock setup might
be justified. But speaking as a "tuner", if I were to go to that much
trouble and money, I'd go the rest of the way and convert to a coil-over
setup. Then you can tune springs and shocks for any condition.
> Mark
regards,
rml
p.s. I'm a fan of the Apple (and others) "heavy duty" rebuild.
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