bjr48

I noticed that most setup sheets give different fluid for shocks front and rear. I know that this will effect a few things and off the top of my head one would be effecting steering and the other is how the car would jump (compared to using same fluid front and rear). My question is what is the MAIN reason everone seems to run this way and are they likely to use the same size piston front and rear with the different thickness fluid? There are too many things to change along with the fluid weight. Give me an idea why setups will typcially read 80wt front/ 60 wt rear or 50 front/40 rear, etc.
ThankS!

Chill_Will

iTrader: (33)

I will give you a couple of quick reasons but you already have a a couple of reasons.
Thinner oil in the rear gives you more traction in the rear and it make the rear rotate better in the turns. You can't go too thin or you will spin out. Thicker oil in the front make it eaiser to control. If the oil is too thin it will make the steering twitchy and the nose of the car will dig into the face of the jumps. I'm sure others will come and give you more details and reasons.

bjr48

Interesting. Some of those things can be dialed with diff fluid too right? Or maybe not so much as I think? I have read that large article that goes through complete car setup (http://users.telenet.be/elvo/) and realize that each thing you can change ends up with a tradeoff somewhere else. I probably should read it again this winter and more of it will sink in
When "everyone" seems to do something there is usually a good reason so I'd like to get to the bottom of this one with the shocks so I can pick out some fluid for rebuilding. What you said makes sense. Maybe the shocks are tuned to give most of the steering and jumping response then the diff is more of fine tuning for traction rather than primarily being the adjustment to get you around the corners the way you want?
I've done the reading and understand most of it and have a decent setup from last year but I'm sure it could use much improvement!