Originally Posted by
LM14
Matt49, I totally agree this is old thinking. I also agree this thinking came from pre "hiked up" days, but I feel it still holds true.
Yes, there are many adjustments to choose from. Yes, shocks have changed drastically and you can do things with shocks you didn't dream of a few years ago. I still believe you can mask spring issues with shock adjustments. You may be able to make it work in most instances but it still isn't right. Maybe that spring change would have made your car even faster than the shock change you are using to mask spring issues.
Once shock technology took off, everyone is shopping for the magic silver bullet shock setup. Who is best, what brand is best, what do I need to buy? You need to buy what you can get serviced, buy from somebody that you can talk to and what is best for driver "A" may not wok for driver "B". Shocks are not the end all of chassis tuning, they are merely a piece of the puzzle.
We, as racers wanting to go faster every time out, tend to rely too heavily on the latest trend and forget why we needed to improve that piece of the puzzle in the first place. As chassis dynamics changed (improved?) we out-ran the ability of the shocks to control movement IN THE TIME WE NEEDED THOSE MOVEMENTS TO HAPPEN. Movement didn't change, interaction of chassis components changed and we needed to move these events to a time they best suited the chassis needs. It's still 4 tires on dirt, we just have a newer way of planting those tires. If the newest technology is really so great, why have we not seen times drastically faster than they were 10-15 years ago. They are faster, usually, but not really that big of a change. Monkey see, monkey do?
That's why I still feel springs need to be changed to match the track/driver/HP/ and shocks need to be used to fine tune.
Now if you are soft enough on the RF to run on bump stops, the shock is totally different. The part that is the same is it still controls the timing of the spring/bump stop event. It's still a part of the tuning puzzle, not a replacement for a proper spring.
JMO,
SPark