What I meant by the first comment, was more from the standpoint of getting the two halves together. I was soooo tempted to say screw it and just use the non-adjustable piston. You should have seen how hard a time I was having just seeing if I had the right number of holes lined up. :lol: That's what I get for staying up so late every night to try and get the car ready for the weekend. :sneaky:

I'm sure they will be fine. No real concerns on my part other than having them leak. No one has said anything about having any other problems with the shocks, so they should be good to go. :D

You didn't have to line up the holes when assembling piston halves - align them approximately as the manual shows (you have about 30 degrees of freedom), then press them together. After the shocks are assembled and filled, line up the holes by turning the shaft (see picture on p. 34).

Now that you mention it, it makes sense. :D

At the time, for that particular step, it seemed like the right thing to do. I partially pressed the halves together, looked at it and thought, "Wait a sec. I need 3 holes here, not 4."

I'm sure you guys all know that sleep deprivation is a bad thing. It's the only lame ass excuse I can come up with for not seeing that in the first place. :lol:

The adjustable pistons are the greatest idea ever. Personally I have 2more complete set of shocks I use for tuning when I go to a track Im not familiar with....:D

I use the non adjustable pistons. Front 2 holes, rear 3 holes and 450 Xray Oil and I also don´t use the foam insert.

I´ve I change something in the setup, I normaly change first the springs or the oil.

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm having problems bleeding the shocks without letting in some air. :rolleyes:

I fill the shocks with oil to the brim, pump the piston as required, wait for the air bubbles to come out, screw on the top cap, make sure it's rebounding 100% and doesn't have a squishy sound when I pump it. I unscrew the bottom cap (why the heck doesn't it have grooves on it, so you can grasp it when it's all oily?? :mad: ), pump the shocks the specified amount of times, recap it and viola - it's got air in it. At this point, my shocks are refilled, inverted and waiting for me to do something with them.

Are you guys using the method in the NT1 manual, T2 manual or the XRAY forum (here)?

BTW.. Now that I've had a chance to fuss with the adjustment part of the shocks, that feature is pretty cool. :D

I wonder how many guys that have never built these type of shocks have air in them? Not everybody knows about the squishy test. :sweat:

http://www.nitrokb.com/nt1/kit/inverted_shocks.jpg

I donate the xray dampers to a friend, and I use mugen seiki mtx4 dampers for peace of mind.

Is it the same 4-step system, Serpent introduced on the Vector, somewhere in 2002 (i think it was) ?

Now with the S400, 720 and 960, they have new shocks and moved away from the adjustable ones, there must be a reason, and not only to sell more shock oil.... :D

Just pray that onroad does not go in the direction of offroad, the "new" Losi 8ight shocks are even bigger than the old ones, I believe one bottle of oil will only fill about 8 shocks total.

Looks like serpent 720 cvd's

M7h,

The NT1 shocks are just an updated version of the old serpent shocks.

RMD,

Open your pistons to 4-holes submerge them in oil, then close and open them a few times before filling the shock with all 4 holes open. After filling the shocks and screwing the caps on they should rebound 100% and feel firm from too much oil. its ok if they have air in them at this point. Let them sit upside down for a few min before bleeding to give the air a chance to rise to the bottom seal. While keeping the shocks upside down, release the bottom cap and slowly pump the piston bleeding the shock and setting your rebound. On your last depression of the piston hold it down secure the bottom cap.

If you did not liberally oil your pistons before assembling them they are probably trapping air in between their halves and will need to be taken apart and oiled before reassembly.

When it comes to tuning the x-ray shocks offer the same permutations as any others they are just quicker and easy to change. What I generally do is build my shocks with a 75% rebound (low grip) using 40wt oil and start with a 3 hole rears and 2 hole fronts. Should the grip come up I can easy close another hole each and reduce my rebound if need be. For an idea on basic shock setups I usually run:

super low grip - 75% rebound, 40wt, 3h-F w/ 22.5lb, 4h-R w/ 20lb.
Low grip - 75% rebound, 40wt, 2h-F w/ 25lb, 3h-R w/ 22.5lb.
med low grip - 50% rebound 40wt, 1h-F w/ 28lb, 2h-R w/ 25lb.
med high grip - 50%-25% rebound, 60wt, 2h-F w/ 30lb, 3h-R w/ 28lb.
high grip - 25% rebound 60wt, 2h-F w/ 33lb, 3h-R w/ 30lb

Mark

On those lighter springs, are they the longer T2 variety on the front or did you find some others right the same length as the NT1's?

I only use the longer springs, I found the short ones to be a bit too short for comfort when setting the car for parking lot tracks. I set my height on setup gauges so when my tires get small I won't bottom out & drag. I use TM gauges and set the car @ 9 front 8.5 rear for parking lot tracks; when my tires end I still have about 3.5-4mm ride height. I know some continually adjust their ride height as their tires shrink but I feel its more important to have consistent roll centers from run to run than the optimal ride height.

Mark

Thanks Mark! As always, awesome info! :smile:

The one thing that is definitely missing from the instructions, is inverting the shocks before opening the bottom caps. I think I got enough oil in the piston halves by adjusting them a few times once the shock body was filled with oil. What I also noticed, is that you have to check for air bubbles twice: pump and let the bubbles out, wait - and then pump and check for air bubbles again.

I find that it is actually difficult to get air into the shocks when bleeding...did you install both of the o-rings beneath the lower cap 970050 and 971031/308070?

Also, we posted a couple of brief shock tips to supplement the tips given by XRAY here:
http://nexusracing.net/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=40