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Shocks and suspension

To: <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Subject: Shocks and suspension
From: "Keith Turk" <kturk@ala.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:46:26 -0500
    Well after kinda soaking up knowledge on shocks for a couple of days
from some really bright people... here is what I think...  Shocks work no
matter what the speed... the amount of compression or rebound a fella
decides he needs is directly related to what school of thought he follows...
But the basic physic's are still the same.... a Spring in a car reacts no
matter what the speed and the shock then has the ability to dampen that
movement.... bout that simple....

    As for the suspension ... well it works also..... BUT.... and it's a big
BUT....  Where and why one set up works better then another is Pure
Theory....  no one so far can tell me if a Four link set up is better once
the car is actually under power After the last shift...  Most agree it's
better during changing moments... such as leaving the line or during the
weight transfer associated with shifting the car...  Most also will tell you
that a four link set up is more tuneable.... Again thou... most agree that
if your not going to spend your time tuning the four link it's a waste of
money....  This isn't a Plug and Play option....  Dave and I had a
conversation a while back that has some merit at this point and it was that
tuning the suspension was usually about VERY fine incremental changes ....
as most the time the set up was designed to work within a very limited set
of parameters and most tuning is associated with fine incremental changes...
In other words it's good to about 95% of it's ability out of the box....
All this theory and so little time....

    Last part of this is noting the differences between a Dirt track car
that has to corner and a drag car that doesn't..... in a drag set up the
bottom bar is normally set level or slightly up hill..... with the top bar
aimed downhill...... the Dirt track folks do the exact opposite... they aim
the bottom bar down hill and the top bar up hill.... Oh and them dirt guys
have different length bars.... just to add more problems to the fray....

    Personally it's all interesting... but on the end of the day once your
past the 1 mile marker in the last gear.... the car is set.... the only job
of the suspension at that point is to allow the minimal travel associated
with irregularities in the salt... and to maintain the rear end in it's
location as it transfers the power to the salt....

Okay.... lead on folks....

Keith ( PS... Bob "Grib" Gribble was being WAY to shy about his knowledge of
Shocks.... he has had Several VERY high Dollar Shock guys work for him when
the business built and rebuilt shocks for the Winston Cup circuit....  He
really does know more about these then he was letting on...)

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