Quote:

Eric, in my conversations with you; you have given me alot of scenarios where cars were not working and what you guys did to fix them. Perhaps, you can share some of that information? I know a couple of those helped me.



Eric,

One thing that has repeatedly helped that bears mentioning is measuring shock travel. The chassis needs a specific amount of shock travel to work. The key is to find out how much.

To begin, we have to be able to measure movement in both directions. The extension is more difficult to capture. Check out the pic below. The rings install between the spring and coil over hardware. The rod is fixed on one end and slides thru the ring on the other end. Rubber grommets are fixed on both sides of the tab on the slide ring. As the rod goes thru, the rubber grommet gets pushed (in either direction) so we can measure distance.

Start with logging shock travel. Make several passes to build your baseline. Through this process, you will begin to determine which passes were better. Begin to begin a relationship between a good pass and shock travel. As data builds, you should be able to hone in.

So, if you make a pass that is less than stellar, (be it at the home track or if you unload at another track), look both at the 60' time and your shock travel. If the 60' was slow, and you think it spun, chances are that shock travel will be reduced from your target distance. You now have better info to work with.

Remembering that we have good shocks that make a difference when we click them, we can soften the extension/rebound to allow for more hit in the rear..Also, consider the front end is there too...(Monte) You can soften up extension on the front and/or give the front end more travel to promote more pitch rotation. Make your adjustment and evaluate the results.

Various professional teams with high end data gathering equipment on board use shock travel info to evaluate tuning possibilities. As sportsman racers, we have similar tools to put in play for us.

Here is a link to a high res imageof the travel indicator;

www.afabcorp.com/AFCO/Shock%20Accessories/pages/20116_500.html