Shock Dynos in Adelaide

[takai]

The 5th Elements do seem to be a pretty good shock for the price. I always found this a good guide for when i was using a 5th Element on my Orange http://www.tftunedshox.com/progressive/setupcoil.htm

On the Nemesis though i had a Fox DHX 5 which i found to be much better for fine tuned adjustment.

[NuGeN]

Just curious.
Are you from UniSA or Adelaide Lachie?

[RobertoX]

^^ UniSA... (Adelaide isn't using mountain bike shocks this year)

Hiro, I just had a look at some pics and I think they are 7800 "quarter midget" shocks which are the same as we've used in the past few years...

A few years ago the mountain bike shocks were considered no good for fsae cars, the curves were completely off, they were when we used the Fox Vanillas in 2003. Apparently though, there has been massive imporvements in mountain bike in the past few years and the new Fox ones (I presume these DHX 5 ones) are able to be revalved quite well and are a relatively cheap 3 way adjustable. It would be interesting to know how well you do with these Lachie, keep us posted.

Also you say that you wont change the springs because your wheel rate will be too high, I would suggest taking the car to the track when you have it done and try out some different spring rates. Last year we found that skidpan times just kept going down when we chucked higher and higher spring rates at it... Our calculated wheel rates were far too high but the times are what we care about

Good luck, hopefully I'll see you at the comp!

[NuGeN]

Yeah I had a feeling it was UniSA since Adelaide deals quite abit with North Terrace Tyres.
How's the car going ? Kind of a shame there isn't much collaboration between the two Uni's.


Are you going to the competition this year Rob?
I'll probably be going so long as I get my air cond sorted out in my car.

[rms]

Going to a harder spring is not an option as this would increase the wheel rate too much.

What is too much ?
What is the sprung mass frequency with driver, fuel, oil and water ?

The slower or tighter the corner the higher the frquency required or you end up with the suspension never reaching steady state in the corner.

[RobertoX]

And what is the frequency of the chassis and suspension components? and tyre?


Yeah, I should be at the comp... provided I can get some time off work.

It would be really good to see some colaboration, the Adelaide guys are willing. PM me for their contact details Lachie and I can get you in touch with the current suspension guys, I helped them revalve and dyno their shocks this year, they are quite friendly and would be open for discussion and cross team collaboration. You just have to think of it as SA vs the east (and west!!), not Adelaide vs UniSA (which, unfortunately is the attitude of some of the guys, on both sides). Take a look at the bond between RMIT and UoW, these are 2 of the best teams and they help each other out a fair bit...

[takai]

Rob: when is the comp, i might come out for a speccy.

The DHX 5 is a 5way adjustable shock, wheras the DHX 3 is the 3way.
There have been some HUGE advances in MTB shocks recently with the entire scene going forth in leaps and bounds. The backing from some pretty big manufacturers for DH and XC and also it becoming incorporated into the UCI is a pretty big thing.
Expect a lot more competition in the MTB scene soon.

[Lachie]

Yeah, more colobartion would be good. After all, FSAE is a learning experiance first and formost and a competition second. It's something I've been trying to convience the team of but no one else seems to be up for. Our main project supervisor is always telling us we need to beat Adelaide, so it doesn't help.

I think you should be looking to the words of Colin Chapman (I think ) to explain why you got quicker with harder springs "Any suspension will work when you don't let it"

The shocks are being sent to Neezy for a rebuild and he will be adjusting the valving for us, so all is going well.

Do you guys in Adelaide get your spherical bearings and rod ends through Aurora? They are giving me the shits, never getting back to me and not being very helpful I'm going to see another company as soon as I finish writing this

[takai]

Aurora have always had awesomely bad customer service, i usually buy my rod ends through CBC. They have a few offices around Adelaide, you guys working out of Mawson Lakes? If so they have an office on South Rd.

Neezy are pretty good with rebuilding shocks to suit different applications, so you shoudl be on your way there.

[Lachie]

Going through BSC for rod ends and bearings now, they seem a lot more helpful. We already have a sponsorhsip deal with them, but I thought the deal Aurora offers SAE teams was better

Neezy are good, but it's still not cheap to get it done, even with the discount they give us

[MWP]

Ive used Linear Bearings out near Salisbury... they were very helpful.
http://www.linearbearings.com.au/

Do you guys in Adelaide get your spherical bearings and rod ends through Aurora? They are giving me the shits, never getting back to me and not being very helpful I'm going to see another company as soon as I finish writing this

[RobertoX]

Yeah we've used Linear Bearings in the past but this year we have been using Gardner Bearings, their office is on Days Rd just between South Rd and Marion Rd. They have awesome service and are locally owned, but they still have to deal with Aurora who presents the bottleneck...


Chris: The comp this year is the 13th -16th of December at Weribee in Melbourne, (the 15th and 16th will be the good days though). And what on earth are 5 way adjustable? 3 different rebound speeds or something???

And Lach, just because the teams can help each other doesn't mean that they shouldn't still be trying to whoop each other

[takai]

Bugger, no comp for me, wedding is that weekend.