homemade shocks

[3GE Components]

Alternatively, if you have access to a lathe and a mill there's always these

http://www.locost7.info/mirror/dampers.php

Kind regards

John

[Big Vern]

Interesting john,
These drawings appera to have been 'ripped off' from some race team or other.
1) How will you 'gas' them up without a filling rig and how do you know the 'valving and shim stack' is what will work with the haynes roadster?
2) How will they be adjusted ie shims for the shimstack etc. These parts are beyond the abilities of the home mechanic and to buy in the parts (even if a damper manufacturer will sell them to you) will cost more than the coil over you're trying to avoild buying......
Yes Coil overs are annoyingly expensive but people are still prepared to spend loads on tuned engines and fancy wheels so I don't see what there is to complain about! It's just a matter of project priorities.
Perhaps it's just a reflection of the people here that style is more important than substance, but I'd rather get the basics right first.

BV.

[3GE Components]

H Vern,

They are "apparently" by Darren George, GTS's Darren George maybe?, he's always said he was an F1 suspension designer, wether these are his work or not who knows There are people on this forum who could make these, and if you don't cost your time & have the material already could probably make a reasonable effort. But as you say, the tuning would not be perfect.

Agreed, quality suspension makes or breaks a car, and is something that you should buy the best you can afford, the nicest ones i've seen of late are these guys, http://www.blackartdesigns.com/ who have a good pedigree behind them.

Kind regards

John

[Talonmotorsport]

I don't think £360-440 for a set of springs and coilovers is too much to ask. I know people will say it's not 'locost' and it's alot of money to pay, but last time I looked a half reasonable set of wheels and rubber was £300+, full set of fibre glass body work was £600-700+, IVA £450. The book is called 'build a car on a budget' not 'build a car for free'. I know some grasstrack racers that would'nt even use the base coilovers from the factory without the manufacturer having the cars corner weights first. You pay your money you make your choices it's up to you, but if at least you buy the right thing for the job in the first place you won't have to spend more money to correct it.

[mr henderson]

Also it's worth bearing in mind that you can actually calculate the correct spring poundage and length if you take the trouble to weigh each corner of the car. It's possible to do this with reasonable accuracy with bathroom scales.

You might need 2 sets depending on the maximum reading of the scales. Just put the car on a reasonably flat surface, raise one wheel and rest it on a board that goes across both sets of scales, then raise the other 3 corners and rest them one blocks of wood or whatever the same height as the scales, and you can weigh that corner, then just a question of repeating it on the other 3 corners. Tedious but cheap and effective

[Bonzo]

Some good debate here

Usually when someone asks if home made is possible, all you hear is " Don't do it, you'll die " !!??

Not saying for one moment any of us would actually make home made coil overs to save a few quid but it is good to have a debate of this nature

Personally, I still think coil overs are expensive for what they are but as Phil said, in the grand scheme of things not the end of the world.

Thank's for some interesting reading folks

[mr henderson]

Originally Posted by Bonzo

I still think coil overs are expensive for what they are

I agree, and it's entirely in keeping with this type of project that one should look for less expensive ways of achieving good results, after all, that's a lot of what building your own car is all about.

In general, for a road car, it's usual to have the shocks on their lowest stiffness setting, so shocks designed for a road car would be a perfectly satisfactory starting point (can always uprate later). So, if one used the Triumph shock absorbers shown above, all that one then needs is springs the correct length and poundage. That can be calculated once the weight and a few other factors are known, so that it isn't necessary to have adjustable seats (as said, this is a starting off position). For the build, the shocks/springs could be replaced with lengths of 1X1 drilled for suspension bolts, until the weights are known.

I have a spreadsheet written by suspension guru Mike Capon which I would be happy to upload, but looking at the 'upload' window there doesn't seem to be a way of uploading this excel (I think) file. If anyone else knows how to do it, let me know and I will pass it on, or pm me an email address and I'll send it direct.

[AshG]

Originally Posted by 3GE Components

H Vern,

They are "apparently" by Darren George, GTS's Darren George maybe?, he's always said he was an F1 suspension designer, wether these are his work or not who knows There are people on this forum who could make these, and if you don't cost your time & have the material already could probably make a reasonable effort. But as you say, the tuning would not be perfect.

Agreed, quality suspension makes or breaks a car, and is something that you should buy the best you can afford, the nicest ones i've seen of late are these guys, http://www.blackartdesigns.com/ who have a good pedigree behind them.

Kind regards

John

The last thing that i used designed by Darren George, catastrophically failed during normal use, it could have been any number of factors that caused it but thought i would share. Those drawings look ok but i would still get them stress modelled in a good cad package before feeling comfortable about using them in a road application.

[davidimurray]

Don't do it

A couple of years ago I was involved with building a set of prototype MR dampers for our race car. Wow what a job that was - you need to be extremely accurate with the machining and work to very fine fits/tolerances. All the seals need to be correctly specced (we had problems with the MR fluid eating seals) and you need to get the correctly ground piston rods. Add to that the fun of machining a very fine thread on the outside/inside of the shock/spring seat combined with getting all the tolerances right for hard anodising. We must have been a good week of 12 hour days, jigging, machining, programming etc. When you realise how much work goes into a set of dampers then £85 each is a bargain.

It's the dampers that keep the car firmly planted on the road so they are a worthwhile investment.

[Big Vern]

I'm with you on this one Ash, the only thing he was good at was talking, unless he owed you somethin', then he couldn't manage that
David, your right of course, it's not just a case of poppin' into the garage with a basic lathe and knocking out some dampers and considering whats involved then coil overs arn't that bad - unless you live in NZ
LocostKiwi, have you thought about using second hand coil overs from the monoshock rears of motorbikes? Might be a bit better damping than those of the triumph spit


HTH BV.