[SierraDan]

Highway-Star wrote:

alien wrote:

suzuki set up the sierra to be capable on and off road... stock standard theyre a pretty good balance of both.

IMO you'd want to keep it as close to stock as possible so far as suspension goes.

I'm sorry, I strongly disagree. Standard Suzuki leaf spring suspension is poor for slow technical driving, and although it probably "handles better" than what allot of people's modified Suzuki's would at speed, its harsh choppy ride quality would be a massive killer at speed offroad (mainly a killer of the people in the car's back and arse!).

x2. No way is stock Sierra stuff suited.

[royce]

I reckon the longest leaves you can fit, keep fiddling till you get the spring rate you need.
Some kind of Emulsion shock, whilst I don't really have much idea on King of the Rim I seriously doubt its in the same class as the off road events such a shock was designed for and the smaller shock will still have enough travel and I dont see it overheating anytime soon.

Then do the bit I reckon most people leave out, test, record, adjust, test, record, adjust, and keep going till its setup right.

[droverdave]

I would have though the shock absorbers would have a greater effect on high speed ability than the springs?

[SierraDan]

Need to have a good rate on the springs so you're not jumping around the tracks uncontrollably.

There's a guy in the states running XJ Jeep leaves in the rear with 14" Fox Smoothbody shocks and Hydro bumps. Was a fairly neat setup, although the shocks were well and truly into the cab.
(Front is on coilovers)

[tanshi]

so decent shocks without spending more than i have on the rest of the car.
any ideas?

[SierraDan]

http://www.polyperformance.com/shop/Bil ... 30194.html ??

[droverdave]

there appears to be alot more in it than just the choice of leaves themselves.

http://www.afcoracing.com/tech_pages/leaf.shtml

Who would have through leaves could be so complicated.

[dank]

Hey tanshi

I'm doing this at the moment. I've had a setup that has had bloody good flex for a RUFed swb for years but the guys I wheel with are going faster and faster (all except the zook club but i've been rubber bushed with EFS 65mm rears in front and Mazda 808 rears in the rear (+ 6inch ish longer than OME 2" Rear) with a funny whacky shackle and it flexed really well. problem is i don't think the extra flex actually made me drive much further....the instability i found of having a "loose" setup probably made it harder to drive.

I've just got some EFS 65mm rears for the back now and am putting some 90duro EFS (superpro) bushes in it all round to firm it all up and also some standard extended shackles. All the guys I speak to reckon 15 degree shackle angle gives the best performance and is what OE manufacturers set them up with out of the box.

I've had a good run with just the 35mm bore EFS elites in the XJ Race jeep for fast stuff. I'm going to put these in the front soon as well. We could look at a 2 inch body Radflo Shock for your setup. Being Monotube Emulsion shock it should be heaps for the type of racing you are looking at doing. I'm also setting up SCL Racing Aust4 buggy as well on Radflos but we're using 2.0 coilovers to start with.

XJ's in the states run the Jeep Speed events maybe search around and see what you can find.

I'll probably pull some leaves out of the back pack to lower the ride height, i might even replace some with some thinner leaves i have kicking around. You'd think a leaf pack with more leaves in a progressive pattern would provide more even compression and extension from a theoretical point of view anyway, but spring manufacturing is a black art so I'm not sure.

I've got 80 series progressive bumps in the front. i'm going to chop two parts off this week which should give me about three inches to the bump and nother 1.5inchs of compression travel. I'll let you know how i go.

[tanshi]

what does the XJ weigh?

im guess ing that weigh will come into the whole equation.

IM looking at a max of 1100kg.

[dank]

XJ Stock Standard is 1550kg

[dank]

IMHO i think you should look at custom leaf packs. It won't cost alot more than off the shelf but You will be able to talk with the manufacturer to get what you want out of the leaves.

[tanshi]

Yeah i will consider custom.
I have CJ leaves rear and efs leaves front,
I should have about 5-6 inches of up travel as it sits

[dank]

That sounds pretty good. Radflo 2.0 shocks non remote res are $326 a corner FYI. If keen we might be able to work out something.

Not a bad price considering a Tough Dog big bore is $350 a corner and non rebuildable.

[tanshi]

I'll worry about it once i have paid for my winch

[Mattmorgo]

Dank with the given weight of these cars and ill use an example of king of the rim with a 2hr race time do you think a remote reservoir is needed for cooling or they should be right?

[dank]

The more oil the better the cooling capacity. it's hard to say I dont really know much about the King of the Rim comp. if there is alot of track where the shock is going to be cycling at a high rate for long periods of time say 5-10 minutes or more then a remote would be better. if it's only sort bursts of fast sections say 30sec to 2 minutes then a non remote would do the job.

Remember a 2.0 body mono tube has much more oil capacity than a 2 inch body twin tube shock which may only have a 35mm bore.

[tanshi]

Dan the above shocks your talkinhg about from radflo
which of them are they on this app listing on radflos website?
http://www.radflo.com/non_coil_app.htm

[tanshi]

i think the remote res ones that they RRP for $225 look good

[Mattmorgo]

Darren did you end up ordering some yet? Think I'm gonna go down the poly performance road the bilsteins. Decided money would be better in testing and tuning different leafs and lengths, instead of big dollar triple bypass shocks that are still gonna be limited by the leafs.

[kenn]

Parabolic leaf springs, like in the back of an old Holden combo van.

[tanshi]

Havent yet matt. These are planned for the next few months mate

[dank]

tanshi wrote:

Dan the above shocks your talkinhg about from radflo
which of them are they on this app listing on radflos website?
http://www.radflo.com/non_coil_app.htm

2.0" Non-Coil Shock w/ Remote Reservoir 5/8" 10" 26.57 16.57 5SR 002 00

The 10 inch travel will be heaps i'm guessing. The 5/8th shaft thickness is sufficient for a light vehicle. All the prices I quote include shipping to your door.

[tanshi]

Just bumping this up a little,

Does any one know how these types of shocks deal with being laid over say 30 degrees? just wondering if im going to be able to get them in with the packaging i have at the moment.

[bigrig91]

The more you lay the shock over from vertical the less efficient they become. It uses more of the shock stroke to do less of the work.

There are really good articles on race-dezert. Heaps of info on what you want about shocks. Maybe not as much on leaves. There is a leaf sprung lwb sierra that races in fink and the aorc rounds with radflow remote res shocks in it.

[Gwagensteve]

Big rig, I think you'll find that if its the sierra that was at finke last year, it's now on coil overs.

Steve.

[Fatzook]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Big rig, I think you'll find that if its the sierra that was at finke last year, it's now on coil overs.

Steve.

It has been for a few years. A mate took pics of it on his phone 2 or 3 years ago.

[bigrig91]

bigrig91 wrote:

The more you lay the shock over from vertical the less efficient they become. It uses more of the shock stroke to do less of the work.

There are really good articles on race-dezert. Heaps of info on what you want about shocks. Maybe not as much on leaves. There was a leaf sprung lwb sierra that races in fink and the aorc rounds with radflow remote res shocks in it.

Fixed!

[dank]

tanshi wrote:

Just bumping this up a little,

Does any one know how these types of shocks deal with being laid over say 30 degrees? just wondering if im going to be able to get them in with the packaging i have at the moment.

Tanshi if you wanted to order the radflos then all you need to do is give me the specs like lateral mounting angle and front to back mounting angle plus all the corner weights spring and unsprung then Radflo can valve the shocks to suit you. You can always change the valving as well if its not quite right.

[tanshi]

Yep its soundlike like thats the way i will go Dan. just need to get the car moving under its own power first