Shock pistons

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So my shock kit for my Baja came with 2 sets of shock pistons, 2 have 16 holes 2 have 12 holes, which should I use??

The pistons are for fine tuning the suspension on track conditions ,I think that I mentioned it before here in the forum!

The shock piston with the most holes will allow more of a softer spongy for a rough terrain to absorb the impacts ,the
less holes will stiffen the suspension ,too stiff could cause your ride to bounce out of control in rough terrain!

Someone else may give you an idea ,that knows on a good set up!....(y)
 
The pistons are for fine tuning the suspension on track conditions ,I think that I mentioned it before here in the forum!

The shock piston with the most holes will allow more of a softer spongy for a rough terrain to absorb the impacts ,the
less holes will stiffen the suspension ,too stiff could cause your ride to bounce out of control in rough terrain!

Someone else may give you an idea ,that knows on a good set up!....(y)
I think the more holes sounds better then ?
 
I would think so ,because ,you really don't want to keep taking them out ,an you can adjust the stiffness with oil weight & spring
adjustments!
 
Not my post but a good read



A recent article in either RC Car or Xtreme RC magazine discussed the relationship between spring rate and oil viscosity. In this article Kurt Wenger (Associated’s chief engineer) explained that he uses oil viscosity to control the speed at which the chassis rolls, bottoming resistance on larger landings, and compliance over rough terrain. He uses the spring to adjust to the level of grip available stating that a lighter spring will give more grip (good for loose tracks), and a heavier spring will take grip away (good for high bite tracks.) That’s a pretty decent description, but you wouldn’t want to run a heavy oil/light spring combo nor would you want to run a heavy spring/light oil combo. Oil viscosity and spring rate should work together to improve the handling of the car, giving it a balanced feel. If you were to follow Kurt’s procedure and began to reach an imbalance between the spring and oil the next step would be to change your piston.
Fluid flows in two ways; laminar and turbulent. Laminar is a smooth flow. It’s constant and it’s resistance against an object passing through it is linear. Turbulent is not smooth. It’s resistance is exponential against an object passing through it. Imagine dragging a stick through water. At slower speeds the flow of the water around the stick is laminar (smooth) and the resistance might equal a factor of 3 at a rate of 5 mph. Increase the speed of the stick to maybe 8 mph, and the fluid begins to flow turbulent providing a resistance factor of 6. The rate has increased only 38%, but the resistance has increased 100%. When you decrease the size of the piston your trying to force the same amount of fluid through a smaller hole. This increases the rate at which the fluid must flow and changes it’s flow from laminar to turbulent thus increasing it’s bottoming resistance exponentially. This resistance to suspension compression at high piston speeds (turbulent flow) is known as “pack.“ If you only change the piston to a smaller hole and not the oil you will also slow the chassis roll. Low piston speed resistance (laminar flow) is known a “static damping.“ If you liked the way the chassis rolled through corners, transitioned through chicanes, etc. and only wanted to increase the bottoming resistance you would decrease the size of the piston and lighten up the oil by 2.5w to 5w. The smaller piston hole would provide more pack and the lighter oil would maintain the chassis roll. Too much pack will cause the suspension to “lock up” or stay in one position over high speed washboards or blown out sections where the compression is fast and repetitive. Not enough pack will cause the car to bottom out on the face of a jump. This will scrub speed giving less distance and height. It will cause the chassis to slap on landings which also scrubs speed and could upset the car causing you to have to make corrections costing time. To light of an oil or too big hole will make the chassis roll very fast and could make the car very twitchy when turning. Too thick of an oil or too small hole will make the car feel lethargic and lazy. Again, it’s all balance












Feb 10, 2010, 10:26 AM






Nathan Schmoekel

ground penetration specialist




Nathan Schmoekel's Avatar

Thread OP


Finally, an informitive answer....thankyou for that article.
 
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