G-Made G-Transition shocks short review

[MadForce]

I've seen a thread earlier about these shocks and since I had them for almost 2 weeks now I thought I'd share my experience.

I actually bought these on impulse when I was searching for scaler shocks for my ultra slow YJ build. I have written off RC4WD shocks in general because of poor performance for the price and was aiming for tuned down TLTs' which are quite expensive if a set ever turns up in the for sale section.

I saw these when Junfac sent me a newsletter and they were one of the new products so after a week of contemplation I bought them. Enough with the mambo jumbo. On to the pics:

After 1 week of processing and a 3 day shipping time (Korean post surprised me there) I had in my hands a nice bag which contained the items below.



I have to comment on how well they package their stuff. The package contains two different piston types for each shock, a couple of extra o-rings and e-clips plus some useless spring retainers:?.

There were also the mandatory instructions in perfect English without a single grammatical error or typo. Plus the paper is huge and it requires a high level of brainlessness to get the steps wrong.



On to the build. I had to choose early if I would run droop or sprung. Droop for me so the longer spring goes under the piston and the shorter one above it. It took me about 5 minutes to clear the flash from the soft plastic parts for all 4 shocks and about 2 minutes to build the first shaft.



Another 10 minutes later I had the first two shocks ready and filled with the included oil.



If I were to guess on the oils' viscosity I would say ~30wt. It has a crappy machine oil appearance but that's OK with me.
It took me less than 30 minutes to build all 4 shocks.

Note to anyone who buys them: the cartridge and shock wrench are made from the same soft plastic as the rest of the parts. So the wrench is almost useless and the cartridge incredibly firm to screw down completely. Hail here to my trusty pliers.
Also when filling the shocks, put oil up to where the threads start inside the body, this will save a bigger mess and will make the process quicker. Finally before completely tightening the cartridge down, fully compress the shaft a few times to bleed out all the excess oil.

The rod ends provided are from a harder plastic material and were difficult to thread even with shock pliers. I preferred to tap them first with a 3mm tap and then screw them in. Made things a lot easier and still the rod ends fit snug. The provided balls for the rod ends are red ano machined aluminum and turn uber freely without being loose at all.

The upper shock mounts (also provided) are a good fit but the eye of the shock does not sit stable in one place, rather it has 1mm play left to right as can be seen here.



Instead of waiting forever to finish the scaler I put them on a spare tuber I had which was crying for shorter shocks than the Maxx I had installed. I had to mount them a bit more vertically.
Here is the result



and from the rear



Wow I now had the same amount of articulation with lower stance and the stability of droop.



Then the test for a pack and about 40 minutes of doing everything and watching closely how the shocks reacted.

A. The truck now had 1/4 of the initial TT even though articulation remained the same.

B. Ceteris Paribus squat almost dissapeared to minimal amount but it is still there to an extent.

C. The shocks work uber smoothly between bump and rebound and they do not show the slightest amount leaking whatsoever (the soft cartridges I was describing earlier)

D. The springs included are soft enough for my 5lb 1oz rig which is not uber heavy compared to some 8 lb scalers. Yet they have a progressive feel so that they do not fully sag unless forced by the terrain and the drivetrain.

E. I used the 3 hole pistons and the shock performed well. Not too fast nor too slow, pretty much the way I setup all my shocks, despite the crappy looking oil. There is still place for fine tuning using lighter or heavier oils and it is even possible to preload the springs using 12mm shims inside the body.

A few measurements for droop setup shocks:
Eye to eye 82mm resting
Fully extended 98mm
Fully compressed 71mm
Up travel 11mm
Down travel 16mm
Total travel 27mm
Body diameter 14mm
3.5mm shaft M3x.5 thread

Overall I think these are great shocks for scalers and everyday crawlers and can be tuned. Quite a complete package if you ask me and can setup in two different ways.

Cons:
The plastic parts, except the rod ends, are very soft and while this is good for the piston, my guess is the cartridge will wear after a few rebuilds.

You have to be careful when building them to avoid hydrolock because there are no blabbers to compensate for shaft volume.

Shaft is made from soft stainless and is esily scratchable. Thank God the O-rings are of great quality.

There are no replacement parts yet.

This is the end of this book.
Feeww

[Culetto]

Thanks for the review! I was thinking about a couple sets of these for a scaler i have been working on.

[slowngreen]

Their a pretty good looking shock. Nice review.

[MadForce]

Originally Posted by Culetto

Thanks for the review! I was thinking about a couple sets of these for a scaler i have been working on.

Welcome. These are definetely worth the money IMHO.

Originally Posted by slowngreen

Their a pretty good looking shock. Nice review.

Apart from being thick (14mm) they look good and work good too.

[rchyam]

I have bought a set of GMade G Transition 80mm crawler shocks two weeks ago and a shock shaft of broken while trailing, I want to buy replacement driveshaft but rcmart said that no such shock shaft is available , then I sent two email to Gmade a week ago and they ignored my Emails and did not give me any reply.

Don’t buy Gmade G transition 89mm shock because this is no replacement shock shaft available for purchasing