Shock questions
 

I wanted to get a your ideas on the following:

Shocks have both upward and downward travel. In my case my Kyb silvers have 2" in each direction. That seems like it should be optimum, but when I think about it, the optimum amount of travel in each direction should vary depending on spring rate. If the springs ar stiff you might not need as much upward travel as downward. When you go over a pothole or something the springs are quick to stretch the shocks, but if you hit a bump with stiff springs the spring will travel a small amount and then lift the whole car.

What got me thinking about this is I need to make the right choice of shock if I were to lower my front end with drop spindles and then raise it back up 1" with adjusters in the beam. If I do that with my current shocks I would have only 1 inch of travel in the upward direction befor the shock is fully extended. In this case how do you go about choosing the corect shock for the amount of weight and the amount of split in travel?

Thanks
Ron

Why would you lower the car with drop spindles and then raise it up an inch????? Why not just use the adjustable beam. Do you already have the drop spindles and now need to raise it up a little. KYB make some off road shocks with 3" more travel, that might be what you need but I'm no suspension expert. :)

Good question! I was thinking as far as the springs are concerned, There is a 1/2" difference between lowering 2&1/2" with spindles and raising 1 inch compares to lowering 11/2" with the adjusters. !/2 inch isn't much but also raising with the adjusters actually stiffens the suspension, whereas lowering relaxes the springs.

Ron

The adjusters in a ball joint beam don't stiffen or relax the torsion springs. They just change the angle at which the torsion springs are set at. The spring tension is the same when raised as when lowered. All the adjuster does is rotate the part of the beam that holds the center of the torsion springs. :)

I was actually getting an inkling that might be the case as I was writing. Its really the same principal as rotating the rear torsion bars, right?

Thanks
Ron

Pretty much the same idea. :laugh:

I would like some info on how to figure out shocks by rating
 

Ok, if you have a stock bug, the choices are pretty easy and made for you,... you just choose the brand pretty much.
So how do you pick the right shock say if you have lightened the car up say in my case with a kit car? Or like with the V8 conversion, where you have a huge amount of weight added?
If I run stock shocks on my car the ride is normal in the back, but rigid as hell in the front. As a matter of fact on a dirt road with those braking rigdes you see just before corners, I rattled my gas tank clean out of it's mounts.
Any help here would be great.