I think the bigger shocks will be better.
the bigbores on my b4.1 made it better and i love em, they were bigger

how much heavier is an 1/8 scale compared to a exotek chassis with weights added ?
not alot.

1/8 scale shocks are that large so they don't fade as much over a 45 minute main filled with "send it" jumps.

"Fade?" So are you saying that the shock oil heats up, thins out, and changes shock performance?

If so, then the benefit of BB is more fluid so that it takes longer to heat up.

Is this your contention?

I think it has more to do with the weight of the cars than heat, some E buggies still use 15mm shocks and are just as competitive as the ones with 16/17mm shocks. Granted yes they do get warmer but relatively i dont think you could tell the difference in an off road track, now on Road you can easily tell, one of the reasons open bladder is the std now for On road, as the oil gets hot it expands and having an open bladder allows the expansion to happen with out adding rebound via pressure inside the shock. Again one of the reasons i dont care much for emulsion shocks, from start to finish the shocks are different the entire race!

I'm not contending anything. Dampers (shocks) take kinetic energy and convert it into heat via friction created by passing a piston through the oil bath. That oil heats up, how much is relative to how much heat is being dissapated and for how long.

Problem is, it puts a lot of weight way up high in the chassis that may not need to be there. Paul from X factory explains why big bore shocks might not be the hot ticket in all applications in this video:

+ YouTube Video

True, but E buggies don't run 45 minutes.

Look, there's probably a knee point in there where (work X time = optimum bore size, where a rougher track or a longer race makes the bore size bigger).
I'm not saying big bores aren't an improvement, I'm not saying they are. Without a dataset from a shock dyno one way or the other, it's just speculation.

Full sized racers have had this stuff figured out for a very long time.

I scored a second pair of shocks from the bay, so I'll report my findings in the coming weeks.
Mantis, got 16mm thickie-style pistons yet? Maybe they'll be the hot ticket for 16mm indoor set ups? :P

What tools do you keep in your box just for this truck?

After some discussion and more thinking. I think I would consider using the 16mm on an 1/8 situation where sending the truck over vast distances and the need for the truck to settle quickly over a rutted out warzone of a lane is required to compete with 1/8 conversions. This makes some sense.

However: This use in super smooth indoor clay, is just ultimately a silly fad to me. (I don't mind being wrong, this is just my opinion)

Might be the easiest way to change the springs...just saying.

Nothing specific really other than the shock tools they include.

bigger shocks are better!!! yea there is a point where they weight to much but 50% of the people run there car to light. for the weight being high is not as bad as you think it add more grip( sometime to much grip will make you flip) but you can easily fix that by lowering your roll center with the camber link. but it not worth $100 for that small of a gain. the foam you put in your tires would play a bigger role.

If that was true, why not just jump to 20 or 25mm and just get it over with?

like i said before there is a point it to big... on some cars 20-25mm would work(i dont know the magic number for each track and driver) others you would haft to change your camber links so far to make up for it that it would get you to much positive camber. but there even some trick to that you can lay the shock down on the tower and or put outer hole on arm(custom arms and tower).

everyone making the point of it has more oil that just one point. it the contact area with the piston. which make it where you can run thinner oils to keep the tire on the ground but give more Damping for hard landing. in some ways it kinda work like a brake on a car. you can make a smaller brake hit as hard as a big brake but the smaller brake would lockup /get hot /and not be a smooth. even with brakes/ bigger is better to a point cuz it add too much rotating mass.

an opinion that i agree with!

+1

I agree, the weight is not an issue at all and it may actually help the handling of the truck. You can compensate for weight in numerous ways. I think what some people want is to just stick them on and go. it comes down to trying to justify the 100 bux or so to get them on. What else could you do with 100.00 to get the truck to handle better than the BB shocks......there are many options. 2 stage with stock shocks will handle better than BB with single stage considering the fact that the BB are only going to be optimal on rough tracks which is where the 2 stage shine, thats only 30 bux!