[Mullett86]

I'm in the process of designing and building an offroad buggy, around 600kg or so. I come from a bitumen motorsport background, so most of what I know probably isn't very applicable. It's not going to be a serious flex vehicle, more a high-speed trail chaser, so heat control etc is somewhat important.

What I'm looking for is some coilovers around the following specs:

300mm travel
Ability to take dual-rate coils
Adjustable on bounce at least, and bounce+rebound would be great.

There's the obvious options (like Fox shocks), but they're quite pricey. Maybe still worth it, but if anyone has feedback/experience/recommendations...I'm all ears!

[SierraDan]

Profender are much cheaper.
You can even occasionally get FOA shocks for a steal.

[vet 180]

Check out radflow they might suit your needs

[Mullett86]

Thanks guys, all great suggestions. Any leads on good suppliers?

[got_bar_work]

Dank on here sells radflo
Profender u will need to superior engineering .they are a pita to get custom shocks from. They want u to find one that fits ur needs (eg like a patrol rear or something like that then)theywill charge u another $100 to revalve it.

[Zook_Fan]

If you are looking to go fast your best options would either be Fox or King. Purely for aftermarket support, the parts are available everywhere and there is a lot of information readily available to tune them. Either of these are adjustable but you will need to disassemble them to do so.

For such a light buggy you shouldn't need any greater than a single 2.0 shock on each corner depending on duration of use. At 600kg I'd be guessing a motorcycle engine'd buggy?

[Mullett86]

Maybe true...it also looks like they're not much more expensive than the options listed above, even after you take the exchange rate into account.

[Gwagensteve]

I'd actually be worried that with such a low weight (and I assume corresponding low unsprung weight the inertia and seal friction of 2" coil overs might be detrimental to vehicle performance.

It's a reason pushrod suspension is popular for very light vehicles.

[tanshi]

id be looking at the shocks they run on polaris. kings and fox are run on them regularly and they don't have an issue

[Gwagensteve]

Oooooooh yes they do.
Polaris' melt shocks. The guys from fox/King have never seen shocks as heat damaged as shocks that come off golf buggies.

[vet 180]

For such a light vehicle airshocks might work out ok

[Zook_Fan]

You might be better off giving us a bit more of an idea of the vehicle you are proposing. When you say a 600kg offroad buggy that is a high-speed trail chaser I assume it is 2wd? More than likely independent front and rear?

Gwagensteve wrote:

I'd actually be worried that with such a low weight (and I assume corresponding low unsprung weight) the inertia and seal friction of 2" coil overs might be detrimental to vehicle performance.

It's a reason pushrod suspension is popular for very light vehicles.

I agree but my assumption was that he would be designing for a motion ratio of higher than 1, essentially the same as the mechanical advantage given from a pushrod suspension system.

vet 180 wrote:

For such a light vehicle airshocks might work out ok

Airshocks will work to suspend the vehicle but tuning for this application would be difficult. ADS shocks still have a bypass airshock that could be used but it would greatly depend on your intended usage. If you are racing/travelling long distance the ride will change as the shock heats up due to the oil viscosity change.

[G1316B]

I was going to do coils then went coilovers. No Regrets.

[Gwagensteve]

That would be very expensive and involve lots of fabrication, and in the end, you'd still be left with the inherent problems of coil Sierra geometry- low rear roll stiffness (the springs will be inside the chassis regardless of whether they're coil overs or not) high front roll stiffness due to the radius arms. You can't tune that out with coil overs.