Internal vs External spring shocks

[atholliday]

New to crawling and having a ton of fun. What is or is not the benefit of internal spring shocks. And which one is best for scale trail crawling? FYI i have a Redcat Gen 8 with holmes hobbie 21t trailmaster 550 with 12 tooth pinion and Proline hyrax tires.

[RedneckCowboy28]

Sounds like you have a pretty great rig. Unfortunately I can’t answer your question I am just subscribing to hear the responses myself.


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[ferp420]

the color has more to do with the performance of the shock than anything lol but seriosly in my opinion shocks are shocks so as far as i can tell the biggest differance is the looks i think that quality of sead shock makes more a differance than were the springs are on sead shock other than that i use internaly sprung shocks on rigs that dont have alot of room they usaly have smaller shock bodys and the issues that come with that also the internal pring shocks look better on some rigs for the gen 8 i would stick with the stock shocks aslong as there not binding and are smooth though the stroke a realy good set would cost more than the rig it self not realy but still exspensive in my opinion they all work the same so i usaly let the rig tell me what it wants and get the cheapest version of that style i can find

its not like were riding in the rigs so the quality of the ride isent important also crawlers and scalers are so slow they realy arent that important in my opinion anyway all shocks weather there cheap or exspensive they all need to be tuned to your rig

[Shinchu]

just looks, really. you will most likely get more "performance" from external spring due to the fact you have more travel as you can have dual springs stacked all the way down to the axle.
internals are limited to the spring only as long as the shock body. also consider the spring is taking up space that could have been used for more fluid, so your actual damping is compensated a bit also. smaller diameter also reduces damping.

pretty much you would see the best benefit of internal spring shocks by using them on a truck with leaf springs, and remove the internal spring, run thicker oil in the shock to slow them down.
basically go read some RC4WD TF2 suspension threads. that's your best bet on learning how to run internal spring shocks with spring removed on a leafed truck.

but from the sounds of it, i doubt you will be running leafs on a GEN8 so... stick with externals. or... do whatever you want. its YOUR truck!

[HumboldtEF]

Yep looks only, most all internal spring shocks are actually not shocks, most of them do not hold oil and only "dampen" with friction, would not recommend. Some people will add oil but getting them to hold that oil is a challenge.

The stock shocks and springs on the Gen 8 are actually surprisingly nice. I dont think I'll be replacing mine and I love to tinker if that says anything.

[ferp420]

the ones i use hold oil also for my gen8 i drained half the shock oil oit and replaced it with 100000cst oil and its alot better now im liking the front end being soft and floppy so i left it alone

[odomandr]

typical benefit is that the shock is smaller and the diameter allows a tire to be tucked in closer to shorten the axles overall width

[Voodoobrew]

With internal spring shocks you can reverse the pressure of the spring by moving to the other side of the plunger, this is crawling specific and not for bashing. People call this a droop setup. I highly recommend the desert lizard shocks as they are extremely tune-able each pair of shocks comes with 18 springs!

[atholliday]

Thanks for all the responces they are all good points. The reason i asked was i want to go with a 90MM shock instead of the 95MM stock shock which is a good shock i just want to lower the truck just a little more.

[ferp420]

Originally Posted by atholliday

Thanks for all the responces they are all good points. The reason i asked was i want to go with a 90MM shock instead of the 95MM stock shock which is a good shock i just want to lower the truck just a little more.

you can take the upper spring retainer or threded adjusters off and that will lower it by about that much

[atholliday]

Originally Posted by ferp420

you can take the upper spring retainer or threded adjusters off and that will lower it by about that much

Ya that would work to as long as the spring doesn't go all the way up to the eye.

[ferp420]

Originally Posted by atholliday

Ya that would work to as long as the spring doesn't go all the way up to the eye.

the springs stop at the shock cap there alittle loose on the shock body and will make some noise when they rub on the threads but it dosent limit anything and you have to be realy trying to here it over the truck running

it seemed no matter what i did the back end was sitting to high so i did that in the rear and you dont limit your traval any

[Inspector86]

The stock Traxxas TRX4 GTS shocks are considered by many as some of the best 90mm shocks currently available. Add to that the fact that Traxxas recently released a series of optional springs in both higher and lower rates so that between springs and shock oil you can really fine tune the suspension to your driving style and terrain.

[atholliday]

Originally Posted by Inspector86

The stock Traxxas TRX4 GTS shocks are considered by many as some of the best 90mm shocks currently available. Add to that the fact that Traxxas recently released a series of optional springs in both higher and lower rates so that between springs and shock oil you can really fine tune the suspension to your driving style and terrain.

I might pick a pair of these up used if i could find some.

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by Shinchu

...you will most likely get more "performance" from external spring due to the fact you have more travel as you can have dual springs stacked all the way down to the axle.
internals are limited to the spring only as long as the shock body. also consider the spring is taking up space that could have been used for more fluid, so your actual damping is compensated a bit also. smaller diameter also reduces damping.

pretty much you would see the best benefit of internal spring shocks by using them on a truck with leaf springs, and remove the internal spring, run thicker oil in the shock to slow them down.
basically go read some RC4WD TF2 suspension threads. that's your best bet on learning how to run internal spring shocks with spring removed on a leafed truck.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by atholliday

Thanks for all the responces they are all good points. The reason i asked was i want to go with a 90MM shock instead of the 95MM stock shock which is a good shock i just want to lower the truck just a little more.

Internal shock limiters can be useful tuning tool. Internal spring setup is a huge PITA when swapping out springs for tuning. I do not run internal spring shocks, unless the springs have been removed and just using them for damping ala my RC4WD TF2.

Originally Posted by Inspector86

The stock Traxxas TRX4 GTS shocks are considered by many as some of the best 90mm shocks currently available. Add to that the fact that Traxxas recently released a series of optional springs in both higher and lower rates so that between springs and shock oil you can really fine tune the suspension to your driving style and terrain.

Yes!

Originally Posted by atholliday

I might pick a pair of these up used if i could find some.

RCC classifieds or Ebay.