I think everyone should have a half dozen or so spring rates available to them front and rear. This should allow you to tune for nearly every scenario.

+1

bump for great info!!!:nod:

fredswain, love the info keep it coming. So I started tuning the springs on my buggy last night and to the best of my ability I can't tell if I'm balanced. It looked close to me. I'm assuming there's little chance that the car is currently balanced. Any chance that you could do a video of a car unbalanced and then balance? Pointing out in the video what to look for.

I have honestly never made a video and uploaded it to the internet. Not even with women! ;) I need to play around to see if spring rate balance can accurately be seen on a video. It should be. If it can get to video then that video can be slowed down which would definitely show it. I can probably purposely set up an exaggerated situation where the springs are about as unbalanced as they can get and then film a balanced set. This way you could at least see what to look for. I'm not a videographer though so I have no idea how to do this. I know people that can though. I'll start to work on this but don't expect it to be immediate. Give me some time. I'm about to switch jobs soon so I'm pretty busy.

Most of your balance changes will be affected by the lower shock mount positions. The top locations are for fine tuning and dialing it in. Let's say you have a setup where the back of the car bounces up and down faster than the front. You need to slow the front down. Obviously you could try to use a lower spring rate with the same locations until you find a good set to use. Another way however is to move the bottom shock location inward. This assumes of course that you can. If you can get close this way then you need to move the top over to try to dial it in. Again this assumes that you can move it and that you can find a balance point. The more laid over the shock is, the slower the suspension frequency.

Now lets say you got it close but you couldn't quite get there. The front still moves just a bit faster than the rear and you can't slow it down anymore. Go back to the rear. Try to get the shocks more vertical. You could always move the bottoms outward if possible but this may be too drastic. If for some reason no matter what combo you try front to rear you can not achieve balance, you need to change springs at one end and try again. This is very possible. It is far easier to hit an unbalanced setup than a balanced one.

ride height
 

hi so does it make sense to determine the ride height with the collar b4 proceeding with the balancing method?

This is how I understood it and did my balancing. I put the collars where I wanted then proceeded with moving locations on the shock towers and arms to achieve balance.

Any one do this on a SC10 yet? Interested in what you came up with as far as which springs front and rear? I haven't had the time to try this yet.:weird:

That is correct.

This tuning method works regardless of scale of vehicle, mid motor vs rear motor, 2WD vs 4WD, car or truck. When you learn how to do it, you can dial in ANY vehicle and you quickly lose any preconceived notions about tuning. There is no different method for a rear motor vs a mid motor car but there are entirely different requirements. If you tune this way, those things will work themselves out. Trucks are the same way. Just follow the steps.

Keep in mind that fine tuning a car requires lots of time and effort. This is not a "here set it up this way" type of thing. You WILL be moving your shocks around A LOT! You WILL be taking your shocks off and changing the oil in them A LOT! I am telling you what order to perform your trial and error tests in. Once you figure this all out and learn what does what, fine tuning for different tracks becomes quite easy. The hardest part is getting it right the first time. You can either spend lots of time up front to get it right and little time everywhere after, or you can spend lots of time forever and hopefully get it right. With this method we are leaving bumps to be handled by the springs and shocks. We are letting the roll centers determine our balance in corners. We are letting our tire pattern and compounds determine our overall grip. We are letting our antisquat and rear toe in determine our forward traction. You get the idea. Each item on a suspension has a job to do. Let it do it's job rather they relying on one thing to do many jobs. It's far easier to predict what to change this way.

I don't believe in copying setup sheets and believing them to be perfect. They are merely a guideline. If you are a person who believes that copying a team driver's setup sheet will make your car perfect, ask yourself why they may have a new setup a few months later, or the next year. They are adjusting for THEIR conditions and those conditions may change. Just something to think about.

The next thing I'll go into when I get time is shock oil selection. I'm at work and they expect me to actually do something while I'm here!

Too funny Fred :lol:. They expect the same out of me here. The secret is --- complete a lot of little and you're stellar!!! hahahaa!!!

Wonderful. Fluid is where i'm currently at now. You wern't kidding with moving the shocks here, there, and there, whoops!!! Over here! Damn it!!! Move the bottom out, in,... PITA! But.. I got it. I don't have my other springs yet so I'm working on a the bronze (F) and silver (R).

Oil weigths I have --

25wt
27.5wt
32.5wt
60wt

My inexperienced butt was projecting to use 25wt in the rear and 32.5 in the front. I'll await your post :sneaky:. I've just ALWAYS known off road buggies to always run thicker up front then in rear.

To be continued ......

The collars don't increase rate, but the increased ride height will prevent the car from bottoming out with the same forces.

not to start a debate, but I believe they do have an effect on the speed of recoil of the shock when they are under more pressure. I experimented with it yesterday for like 2 hours in every which way I could think of, and if I only dropped the car and got this result, yes, I would agree with you. But I also left the car flat, pushed down on the front, back, and center, and observed the speed in which the car spung back up. I can most certainly tell you it came up faster with more force with the shocks under load with the collars down.

I think what Fred is saying this is true that you can't depend on collars alone to give you recoil. You need to have different springs available because too much compensation using the collars will make your ride height way to high. But I've seen with my own eyes they do in fact influence the recoil rate.

The shock collars don't change spring rate. They do have an affect on suspension rate to a point though. By compressing the springs more with the shock collars, you are storing potential energy.

It will change with where you place your battery and what gear ratio you're running.

Each setup is based on total weight and where it is placed. If you tuned the suspension for a certain battery location and then changed that battery location later, you threw off the tuning and need to start over.