Make your own custom shocks.

[2SlickNick]

I wonder.... is it worth it at all to try to customize your own shock? If you take a look at the works shocks triples. you can see 3 different coils. I wonder if you could do this yourself. I have 15" kawaki mojave shocks and was pondering the idea of using the 2 extra inches to increase ride height , but swap coils with softer carbide coils and maybe buying one soft snowmobile coil ( cut it in 2) and use that with carbide coil on mojave shock.
Would you have to weld coils together once you found the desired stiffness and rebound. Does this make any sense?

[Masteryota]

Originally Posted by 2SlickNick

I wonder.... is it worth it at all to try to customize your own shock? If you take a look at the works shocks triples. you can see 3 different coils. I wonder if you could do this yourself. I have 15" kawaki mojave shocks and was pondering the idea of using the 2 extra inches to increase ride height , but swap coils with softer carbide coils and maybe buying one soft snowmobile coil ( cut it in 2) and use that with carbide coil on mojave shock.
Would you have to weld coils together once you found the desired stiffness and rebound. Does this make any sense?

DO NOT WELD SPRINGS! You will distemper them and change the spring dynamic. The dual and triple rate shocks you see all use a divider plate between the springs. You can by all means do this on your own, and few members here have done it, but the time and $$ spent on springs might add up to what you would spend on a custom set of works shocks. Also check out some atv spring sites, they have different spring rates and sizes available as well. If you know your curb weight per wheel, you can narrow down the spring weights you need. I am not sure how one would calculate it, but I am also intrigued and interested in doing something similar.

[2SlickNick]

http://www.zbrozracing.com/2-00x100lbx3-25-ylw
I would only need one of these to experiment with. Cheap and I think 100 lb would suffice.
I dont see myself doing this or buying upgraded shocks just yet. But I might find myself in the garage one night experimenting just for the heck of it. Thanks for the input.

[x-bird]

http://www.buggymasters.com/forum/sh...?t=2243&page=7
post 605.

masteryota is correct in saying that you will change the coil's spring temper by welding/heating. trying to control this aspect is a bit of a crapshoot. I did it by using more of the soft spring than i needed, giving it a very shallow cut with the angle grinder, clamping it closed then welding it on a low temp setting,

fur purpose of discussion/ "historical context" LOL ... former GM engineer Herb Adams, aka "father of the Trans Am" and founder of VSE taught me that when cutting coils for cars with spring pockets/stops in the lower arm, ALWAYS heat and quickly flatten the last 1/2 coil so it sits the pocket correctly. More often than not, this step is not done and the coil doesn't really sit correctly and the spring base doesn't spread it's load evenly. it's not visible/measurable when it's installed so a lot of shops/homebuilders just make the cut and slap them in ---see that happen on "reality" tv quite often. heat then crush was/is also used to change spring height in lieu of cutting, though cutting is a more accurate method of getting the desired result.

If i had oxygen in my tank when i did mine, i would have heated and bent the shallow cut final coil of the soft spring to sit flat rather than welded it.

if you have some old atv springs lying about, with playing with/modding those might be worth your time as rates that work for the fronts or rears are difficult to find. end result of my experiment worked otu really well, though i have decided that fox flats will hopefully be on all 4 corners before the next race in the spring. (weight savings, cut shock fade--a problem i have up front, increase in wheel travel)

[SYCARMS]

When we contacted Works for shocks for the buggies this is what they needed to know. Total travel of all swing arms, weight of each wheel, entire weight of buggy, front and rear track width, and total wheel base. From these figures they build your shock. By far the biggest improvement you can make to the chassis are proper shocks but it's not cheap. I tried the low budget route on my sons buggy but come to find I would correct one issue but create a new one. All I can say is a set of Works on your 2000.00 Carbide will give you a ride and control of a 5000.00 buggy.