So much give and take...Shock tuning

[05Fronty4x]

I'm probably just being anal, but it sure is hard to tune the shocks for balanced performance. Setting up my SCX10 was easy becuase it's strictly for creeping, but the Wraith is providing a real challenge.

Freshly built I put 60wt oil in them with expectations that they would be like the SCX10 shocks which have almost no damping at all with 30wt. Boy was I wrong, even compressing and rebounding them in my hand showed me that this would be WAY too much damping for anything but very slow crawling. The problem is that the springs are so soft that it articulates too easily IMO, but the damping is so stiff it would be like having no suspension at all while at higher speeds.

The fix? Thinner oil (30wt), but this allows it to articulate even easier/faster than the thicker oil which was already too easy, and is STILL too much damping for speed.

My opinion is that the kit springs are far too soft. My Wraith easily hits full articulation with nearly no felt resistance from the shock oil by lifting a single tire, yet somehow has so much damping that it's like dropping a brick if I lift it in the air and drop it. Because of the soft springs and effortless articulation (as if it didn't even have shocks) torque twist is absolutely horrible and the truck doesn't even have the rebound to level it out, pushing down on a corner results in that corner sagging without springing back up. Put simply, the kit's suspension is too weak for crawling, yet too strong AND too weak for speed at the same time, if that makes any sense.

So, after giving it much thought, the way to get a more well-rounded shock setup is going to be with even thinner oil (maybe a 15-20wt) and a slightly stiffer spring. This will be at the cost of increasing ride hight thus raising CoG and making it a bit less controllabile for slow crawling since it'll be more prone to unloading and a higher momentum during suspension "swings" or "shifts".

Enough rambling...I need to forget about this until Sunday when I have more time to mess with it. I look forward to seeing some thoughts from other shock junkies that have dug into the stock Wraith shocks.

[Manning]

Yep that's what happens when the unsprung to sprung weight ratio is too high. Very tough to tune for high speed. Might take a look at the MIP shock pistons. They can be tuned for low and high shaft speeds to some degree. I have no idea if they have any that will work for stock wraith shocks.

[05Fronty4x]

Originally Posted by Manning

Yep that's what happens when the unsprung to sprung weight ratio is too high. Very tough to tune for high speed.

I never even thought about it that way...that's exactly what's going on.

I have Losi golds on the rear and whites on the front currently with 35wt oil and the normal 3-hole pistons. I set it to about 1/2" of rebound when filling and putting the caps on. It's terrible IMO and really isn't tuned for anything.

[evan03]

I wonder how tmax shocks or slash platinum rears would compare