What front race shocks to get?

First, let's assume for the sake of argument that anyone going to the effort to track their car is serious about performance (if not, what's the point?), thus IMHO this is a place where one size does NOT fit all. Here's the no-compromise route I picked up on from racing formula cars...

Once you pretty much get your final weights (total and corner) and geometry established you ought to get with a racing shock manufacturer, such as KONI North America, and have a set of double-adjustables (4-ways preferred) valved specifically for your car. You'll have to do some homework in order to submit all of the pertinent data, but they'll do all the engineering and come up with valving ranges that should have the sweet spot covered for most tracks. (Make sure and tell them Sebring is among the tracks on which you run.)

You'd then have a valuable tool at your disposal to fine tune transitions into and out of the corners to suit your driving style, track character and conditions, ultimately resulting in better lap times wherever you run. Should you make significant changes to your car which require a different range of dampening, you can always have them re-valved; or should you feel you may eventually step up to coil-overs, start with the right models and you can have them converted down the road, recycling a fair portion of your investment.

Even if you don't go to the trouble to have a set custom valved, at least get some double-adjustables so you're not stuck with one setting or you'll likely be revisiting this issue again very soon. Myself, if I had the budget I wouldn't buy shocks off the shelf for anything resembling a racing effort, and couldn't bring myself to show up at the track on anyone's non-adjustable shocks. Compromise here and you're compromising your car's potential. My $.02.

:beer:
 
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First, let's assume for the sake of argument that anyone going to the effort to track their car is serious about performance (if not, what's the point?), thus IMHO this is a place where one size does NOT fit all. Here's the no-compromise route I picked up on from racing formula cars...

Once you pretty much get your final weights (total and corner) and geometry established you ought to get with a racing shock manufacturer, such as KONI North America, and have a set of double-adjustables (4-ways preferred) valved specifically for your car. You'll have to do some homework in order to submit all of the pertinent data, but they'll do all the engineering and come up with valving ranges that should have the sweet spot covered for most tracks. (Make sure and tell them Sebring is among the tracks on which you run.)

You'd then have a valuable tool at your disposal to fine tune transitions into and out of the corners to suit your driving style, track character and conditions, ultimately resulting in better lap times wherever you run. Should you make significant changes to your car which require a different range of dampening, you can always have them re-valved; or should you feel you may eventually step up to coil-overs, start with the right models and you can have them converted down the road, recycling a fair portion of your investment.

Even if you don't go to the trouble to have a set custom valved, at least get some double-adjustables so you're not stuck with one setting or you'll likely be revisiting this issue again very soon. Myself, if I had the budget I wouldn't buy shocks off the shelf for anything resembling a racing effort, and couldn't bring myself to show up at the track on anyone's non-adjustable shocks. Compromise here and you're compromising your car's potential. My $.02.

:beer:

A. do you know what a set of Koni double adjustable Corvette "cores" are worth?

B. I have NON adjustable revalved Bilsteins and would never dream of going back to an adjustable shock.
redvetracr
 
A. From what I gather after talking with Gordon at KONI NA Racing some time ago about converting my Special-D's to double-adjustables, a set of rebuildable cores should be worth from ~$300, depending on the model and their condition. If I recall correctly, a brand new set of custom valved DA coil-overs runs ~$2,100, plus springs (which are relatively cheap).


B. Not everyone has been so lucky, but having been fortunate enough to have spent a good deal of time benefiting from the wisdom of a very experienced coach/engineer with a significant CART & IMSA background, I learned that adjustables bring an additional level of precision to tuning you just don't have with non-adjustables. Being able to alter the various weight transfer rates rather than being bound to one setting allowed us to custom tailor the shocks to "match" my driving style to the "personality" of different tracks.

It did take a bit of education on my part to be able to give proper feedback from every phase of cornering from every turn after a session to lay over the data acquisition, but once I got a handle on doing that I was amazed at what could be accomplished with shock tweaks. One of the best examples I can give of this being an advantage is that we would put considerably more front bump (and a bit more rear rebound) on when an important corner entry necessitated serious trail braking in order to keep the front tires from giving up as soon as cornering force began building. May sound counter-intuitive, but it worked. In such an instance, with set shocks I'd have been forced to brake a good number of feet earlier, reducing time spent at full throttle and leaving lap time on the table.

I'll grant that having them does add significantly to the stress load of set up, and that it would be easy to get lost or feel they just aren't worth the trouble, but my personal experience with them has been a good one. ...so much so that I want a set of 4-ways to play around with on my street shark.
 
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$300...thats $300 each shock....I just sold a pair of rears to a guy in CA for $650........"Coil overs" for $2100 a set.....your car is set up for coil overs?
 
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red - Not set up for c/o's. I'm evidently still having serious withdrawal symptoms from my last racing fix, but it's all just wishful thinking at this point.


Yellow - Dang. And I was hoping I could help spend your money since I can't afford to do anything on my Vette just now. :beer:

FYI, the 4-ways have both high and low speed adjustments.
 
What good are 4 way adjustable shocks if you have no idea what to set them at or any means of recoding apart from maybe tire temperature? All nice and dandy that you can adjust slow & fast bump & rebound...but IMO, it's pretty damn useless, if not confusing if you don't know what to do with it.
 
Take 2...

If controlling what happens when the car encounters an upset is all one wishes to accomplish with shocks, DA's and especially 4-ways would make little sense, as they do present an order of magnitude more complication and, if not understood or utilized properly, could well serve to make things worse.

Vastly over simplified, 4-way racing shocks allow somewhat for separate tuning of transitional phase weight transfer on "ideal" surfaces from that for handling sudden upsets. The low speed settings regulate damping until stroke velocity reaches crossover, at which point the high speed settings come into play. It's easier if you think of 4-ways as adjustable/progressive shocks. There is no crossover with traditional or DA shocks which don't distinguish between velocities up to blow-off, but at least with DA's you have some latitude.

As for good feedback on which to base shock tuning, that's very much up to the spacer between the steering wheel and the seat, as tire temps and/or data can't tell the whole transition phase story without clear readings from the sensitive instrument the driver sits on. No, it's not something most drivers can pick up on without some development.

Hope that better explains my take on this, as I was in a hurry when I took my first swing at it earlier today. :beer:
 
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