what is a droop suspention?

[motorhead77]

i got my ax10 about a month ago and i am looking at diffrent setups, i keep seeing refrences to "droop" and have no clue what it is.

[moabax]

It is when you limit your shocks to all or mostly down travel. It lowers your cg and greatly improves stability on off camber situations. You put an internal spring inside the shock body under the piston to keep the shock in compression. Some guys will run springs both on top of and under the piston to produce a (50/50; 60/40; 70/30) split for compression and extension. I know it sounds funny to have a shock in full commpression at ride hieght but it works. Keep trying different setups till you have something that suites your driving style, droop is not for everyone. I hope this solves your question.

[nudge2325]

I will see if i can find a link that explains how to do semi droop in an ax-10. It explains it perfectly for you.

ok below is an section of a post on another forum all about how to do semi droop on an AX-10

[quote="LincolnBlack"]In full droop with the axial springs it was a little low for my preference. Personally liking good belly clearance, and not being a huge fan of full droop, I set out to make it a semi-droop configuration. Also on the agenda was to limit flex, because at present it was way up at 90°.

Below is a little how-to on what I did to the standard springs to limit flex and convert the standard shocks to iternal semi-droop.

First thing you need to do is go down to bunnings and grab yourself 4 of these springs. They measure 33mm long and 6.5mm outer diameter. The actual packet has them marked in imperial but I can't remember the size - probably cost you about $11.



Then go ahead and cut them in half!



The other thing you will need is some fuel tubing. Cut 4 lengths at 20mm I reckon. I cut mine to 15mm and its probably a bit short.

Thats all you need!

Now it gets messy. Make sure you have some tissues around to keep the shock oil in check. I took my de-springed shock...



And unscrewed the rod end off the shaft. I folded a tissue a number of times and gripped tissue and shaft with the pliers to save the shaft from damage.



Then unscrew the shock cap. Keep it upright so the contents stay in the shock and not on your lap!



Then I pushed the shaft up through the body and kept a finger over the hole where the shaft goes to retain the shock oil. Thoughout this whole procedure I kept my finger over the end of the body so I didn't have to fill the shock with new oil.



With the shaft out, there is a black spacer that sits under the piston. I pulled this off.



I then took one of my pre-cut lengths on fuel tubing. Mine are about 15mm long, but I would recommend making them 20mm as I still think there is a little too much flex from the end result.



Then I reassembled one half of the spring with the other components thus. I put the larger black spacer to the bottom as this gives a larger flat area for the spring to sit against.



Once assembled, I dropped the shaft back into the shock body. Can finally take your finger off the hole! The photo shows how much shaft sticks out the body, this will be roughly ride height.



You can see the O-ring in the shock cap? The other half of the spring will sit in a recess in the middle of that, and on the top of the piston.



Drop the last half of the spring into the shock body (onto the top of the piston) and screw the shock cap on. Make sure the spring is sitting centrally in the shock cap before you screw it down.



And this is the end result. Resultant travel is about 8mm up travel (compression) and about 15mm down travel (extension). There is also no 'dead band' so the piston is always under spring tension. I found this spring to give a nice feel in both directions - supple up yet reasonably firm under droop.

You can also adjust the amount of up and down travel by where you cut the spring. If you cut one length 2/3rds and the other 1/3rd, the 2/3rds length on top of the piston will give greater up travel.

The beauty of the LC is the shock position's adjustability. I've only set it to the position that gives me max ride height, but I may toy with shock angle or height.



Ride height is just under 70mm with the 1.9 trail docs on, so with some proper 2.2 rubber this will go up to a more credible (for me) 85 or so mm.





I also wanted to see how it went with the stock ARTR shell. By mounting the body post off the Axial chassis onto the LC as shown, the body will go straight on. I've got one post at the top inner hole, and the other is one hole across from that on the other side.



You WILL have to trim the bottom edge of the body off as it hangs below skid level. But I would recommend running new body post vertically and out of harms way.



While I was doing this, I also did a couple of other tweaks. I took the two countersunk screws that normally hold the battery tray on and gave them a much better use.

countersunk!



screw! This gives me a few extra degrees of steering for free.



Then I also grabbed one of the velcro straps off the battery tray and slung it under the dig servo. I now use it to hold the Rx down, and it makes swapping Rx easy if Julie want to run it on another radio.

[motorhead77]

thanks for the info!

[motorhead77]

heres some pics, thanks again

[jon8christine]

Anyway you could get some more info of the actual springs you used? Things like the Rate, Material, Wire Diameter etc. would allow us to find similar springs that would actually work instead of trial and error. Thanks.

[1SLOW64]

Thanks for the info.

[motorhead77]

i went to my local DO IT CENTER and just looked through their spring display. the ones i got were 40mm X 8mm (1 9/16" X 5/16") i just looked for something soft that would fit in the shock body. im still playing with spacer length.

[moabax]

These are the springs that I used. Very similar to the ones above.
http://www.tcscrawlers.com/TCS-Inter...h-p-16647.html

[nfcesar]

Hi, do you think that if i use two TCS internal medium springs, one in top and another in bottom of the shock it´ll work as a 50/50 setup (without cutting the springs)?

Thanks, Nuno

[jon8christine]

Try it and let us know how it works.

[Timmahh]

simple answer, Droop is running the shocks compressed partially (semi Droop) or Fully (full droop) by useing an internal spring under the shock piston inside the shock body. instead of your shock compressing when your wheels start going "UP" a rock, they extend as your wheels move DOWN. the internal spring brings the shock shaft back into the body of the shock.

here how my rig is setting now with normal shock setup.


now at full droop, this is about where the Buggy will be for ride height, basically at a full squat.

im also thinking of going with a semi or even full droop setup. Testing begins on Sunday for me.

[bebbe]

What is the benifit with droop?

[moabax]

Droop will help keep the tires planted when going up steep climbs. Also when you high centered with a spung setup your shocks cannot extend to get to the ground. With droop the axle can drop down to reach traction. If you have it setup correcty with the right inner srings and heavy oil, it will pretty much eliminate torque twist.

[sickness]

Could this be done with mini-t or pan car springs? Would have alot better idea of spring rate (and I have alot of these kicking around from racing oval).

[bebbe]

Why is the fuel tubing there? I understand that it limit the down travel byt why do you have to limit that?

Driveshaft angle?

[moabax]

Originally Posted by bebbe

Why is the fuel tubing there? I understand that it limit the down travel byt why do you have to limit that?

Driveshaft angle?

Too much flex can be a bad thing. With a droop set up you dont need gobbs of flex so you use the fuel tube to limit the flex to around a soda can in height.

[bebbe]

Is it because the car tends to like turn and twitch it self when it flexes much. On the std AX10 the car behaves strange when the suspension is at full flex. Is that something that the tubing avoid?

[throttlebody]

im running a 50/50 droop i was woundering if any one had imfo on any other setups thanks

[kyrel69]

that for the infor.