Mountain Bike Shocks Upside Down

[M3Shark]

Is there any downside/problems with mounting MTB Shocks upside down so that the piggyback reservoir is on the bottom? Do you run into problems with leakage? does it change the dampening curve? Does it effect anything?

We are looking into mounting them upside down in the rear due to clearance issues with them mounted upright.

[Wes Johnson]

You will probably change some acceleration sensitivity that the shocks have but I doubt you will notice the difference since you are using MTB shocks..

[Wesley]

Are you saying mountain bike shocks aren't appropriate for an FSAE application?

[Drew Price]

Depending on the particular design you are using, the nitrogen is probably separated from the oil reserve by a sliding piston so that they're sealed from each other. The piston slides to accomodate the volume of the shaft as is slides into the damper body. That's part of the benefit of gas charged dampers with an external reservoir, so orientation should not matter.

Keep in mind that if they're mounted with the reservoir / body end mounted to the rocker, the assembly will have a little bit more inertia since you're moving the damper body and oil volume, instead of just the free-end spring perch, shaft, and piston.



Originally posted by Wesley:
Are you saying mountain bike shocks aren't appropriate for an FSAE application?

lol


Best,
Drew

[M3Shark]

thanks guys,
Unfortunately even with them mounted upside down i don't think there is enough room.

Which leaves us with two options.
1) purchase new dampeners with remote reservoirs. Which i don't think their are any double adjustable units in our price range? What are the cheapest reasonable double adjustable remote reservoir dampers?

2) find a new mounting location for the dampers...

[Wes Johnson]

Originally posted by Wesley:
Are you saying mountain bike shocks aren't appropriate for an FSAE application?

Of course not. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[exFSAE]

If it doesn't break, it works, and it won't bust your wallet, I'd say it's appropriate.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by exFSAE:
If it doesn't break, it works, and it won't bust your wallet, I'd say it's appropriate.

I agree, the problem is how you define 'works'

[Drew Price]

Unless you arrange a trick sponsorship deal with someone, Risse has about the cheapest double-adjustable with a remote reservoir out there, the Jupiter 7R, you will have to give them a call to get current FSAE pricing though.

Best,
Drew

[js10coastr]

Originally posted by M3Shark:
Is there any downside/problems with mounting MTB Shocks upside down so that the piggyback reservoir is on the bottom? Do you run into problems with leakage? does it change the dampening curve? Does it effect anything?

We are looking into mounting them upside down in the rear due to clearance issues with them mounted upright.

more weight on the unsprung side.

[exFSAE]

Originally posted by Drew Price:
Unless you arrange a trick sponsorship deal with someone, Risse has about the cheapest double-adjustable with a remote reservoir out there, the Jupiter 7R, you will have to give them a call to get current FSAE pricing though.

Best,
Drew

Oh lord. Not Risse!!

I'm all for simple solutions that work, but Risse's start falling apart before you take em out of the box!

Most teams have so much friction in their suspension they might as well just use THAT as a damper. Bahahahaha.

[M3Shark]

Risse is what he ran on last years car, and what we don't ever want to run again. 1 of them started leaking before we even put it on the car. another one started leaking before the car was ever even driven. we sent both of them back to be rebuilt...both of them were again leaking before the car was even driven.

After the first time driving the car all of them were leaking...

Whats up with some of the internal reservoir shocks that i have seen out there? what are the disadvantages of these?

[The_Man]

We where almost about to order these Risse shocks, but now we are reconsidering. This is not the first time that I've heard of Risse's leaking, I remember the Delft guys cribbing about it.
But these seem to be the only double adjustable shocks around that fit our budget. Specially with their student discounts.
Any suggestions with alternatives? Else I think we might be forced to have to go for non adjustable ones.

@M3Shark: Could you send over the links to these internal reservoir shocks you are talking about. Are these adjustable in anyway?

Mahek Mody
IIT Bombay Racing

[Samo Simonian]

That could have been me cribbing on the Risse's. They were friendly guys at Risse, a bit slow though and I don't mean to be personally rude to them: but in my opinion the shocks really sucked ass on the fields of consistency, stiction and leakage. I've heard this from many other teams personally and from earlier years in our team.

I wonder wether you should go for that 7R just because it's cheap and has 4 way adjustability. Are you really going to use and validate that 4-way adj. ? I found that there's a shitload of work to do on driver training, basic set-up (springs ARBs, shifting etc.) and team training (logistics and communication) before even thinking about ant-fucking (dutch word for going in too much detail on one area) on 4 way damper adjusting. Again this is just my opinion, maybe I'm stupid or our car was forgiving on shocks or so.
Maybe you'll be fine with basic robust 2-way adj. dampers, that don't leak and are inconsistent as hell.

How much have other teams really, with hard data, proven that 4-way adj. works, and how easy was it to prove that?
We ride on tires with a ridiculously low spring rate, so I wonder how detrimental shocks are then. (don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the value of shocks).

Regards,

Samo
Delft University of Technology (06 07 08)

[The_Man]

Actually we were looking to buy the 2 way adjustable Risse 5 dampers only(Ones without the remote reservoir). We are really not "skilled" enough to use the 4 way dampers.

Are you sure that these leakage problems are only with the 7R?
I really hoped that since the Risse 5 don't have a remote reservoir they'll not leak. But since we are shipping it a long way, I'll not buy it even if there is one report of them leaking.

Anyone have experience with Tanner adjustable shocks(Gen2 or Gen3)?
These are also relatively inexpensive.

[Scalesy]

Yea, in regards to Risse...I just sent them a set of our shocks to get rebuilt, and if they come back with any problems I'm going to switch. They're nice light shocks, and easy to adjust but like someone above mentioned, we had one leak right out of the box last year. Another two started leaking at west.

Unless you have already have planned on using them (i.e. mounts, etc) then don't...at least until they get their quality up to par.

[Samo Simonian]

mahek_mody,

I'm not sure whether it's just with the 7R's, I guess it represents overall build quality over there as more people here say. Our problems wrt leaking were not really in the remote reservoir hosing but in the adjuster knobs and shaft seals.

As scalesy points out, if you're not dedicated to them yet, I'd suggest not using them. Just for extra's: the first time we ordered them they were all wrong lengths, they did fix this free of charge but it did cost an extra 5 weeks, so planning-wise that was quite nasty. I think it shows a bit of their slopiness.

Again not to be personally rude to Risse, but for me it wasn't a good experience. My team has switched to Cane creek double barrels now, queality-wise there have been no issues from what I've heard.

Regards,

Samo

[Scalesy]

yea in response to above, we had the 7's with remote reservoirs leaking around the adjuster knobs. I compressed one right out of the box and it leaked around the compression adjustment knob. The problem has nothing to do with the location of the reservoir...its simply just poor build quality.

[M3Shark]

But these seem to be the only double adjustable shocks around that fit our budget. Specially with their student discounts.
Any suggestions with alternatives? Else I think we might be forced to have to go for non adjustable ones.

@M3Shark: Could you send over the links to these internal reservoir shocks you are talking about. Are these adjustable in anyway?

Mahek Mody
IIT Bombay Racing


Sounds like you are in the exact same boat as we are. I WAS looking at a company called Romic. However, i did a little searching on them on over the weekend and it seems that their quality is also hit an miss.

However, we are definitely not going to run Resse again. period. Chances are i will just end up moving the shock location and going with a shock with a piggyback.

[The_Man]

ok Risse being out, leaves me with

1)Tanner Platinum 4
http://www.tannerracing.com/shocks.htm
2)Fox Van R
3)Fox DHX5.0
http://www.foxracingshox.com/f...edirect=riders_bike2 (http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_bicycle/bike_index.php?redirect=riders_bike2)
4)Oram (Italy)

Anyone have any issues with these?
The Fox Van R seems a tempting option cost wise, only concern being their travel.

About Oram, they don't have a site and they do not speak English when you call them but there is this picture in which they look good.
Anyone used them or know the their specs?

<IMG ALIGN="left" SRC="http://pcm.dmti.unifi.it/formula_student/ITA/IMMAGINI/2003/Car/DSCN0573.JPG">

[Wesley]

We've been running the Cane Creek Double Barrels for three years now, (though we switched to the FSAE revalve for '08) and we've been pleased with them so far.

[Peter]

Originally posted by mahek_mody:
ok Risse being out, leaves me with

1)Tanner Platinum 4
http://www.tannerracing.com/shocks.htm
2)Fox Van R
3)Fox DHX5.0
http://www.foxracingshox.com/f...edirect=riders_bike2 (http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_bicycle/bike_index.php?redirect=riders_bike2)
4)Oram (Italy)

Anyone have any issues with these?
The Fox Van R seems a tempting option cost wise, only concern being their travel.

About Oram, they don't have a site and they do not speak English when you call them but there is this picture in which they look good.
Anyone used them or know the their specs?


2) Vannila R used to be quite common in FSAE, not sure if you still can get them however?

3) Beware of the pro pedal feature on the DHX5.0

4) Looks suspiciuously like their Formula Renault 2.0 damper... probably a little stiff (unless you seriously tweak the MR) for FSAE.

Peter
Delft
04UK, 06FSG

[M3Shark]

Originally posted by mahek_mody:
ok Risse being out, leaves me with

1)Tanner Platinum 4
http://www.tannerracing.com/shocks.htm
2)Fox Van R
3)Fox DHX5.0
http://www.foxracingshox.com/f...edirect=riders_bike2 (http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_bicycle/bike_index.php?redirect=riders_bike2)
4)Oram (Italy)

Anyone have any issues with these?
The Fox Van R seems a tempting option cost wise, only concern being their travel.

About Oram, they don't have a site and they do not speak English when you call them but there is this picture in which they look good.
Anyone used them or know the their specs?


1) If you do a search on here you wil find that most don't seem to like tanner shocks. also it appears that those ones are non-adjustable.

2) Only Single adjustable. but yes, they do still make them. seem to be really good quality.

3) ProPedal feature steered my away from them. not really sure how it would affect the car.

3)Oram, like you said, they have no website and i don't speak Italian so i don't know anything about them.

[Peter]

These are the Oram dampers

http://www.oramitalia.com/prod...atori%20Auto&art1=58 (http://www.oramitalia.com/prodotti.asp?cat1=Ammortizzatori%20Auto&art1=58)

Peter
Delft
04UK, 06FSG

[Big Poppa]

If you mount the shocks upside down you can not read the stickers!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[The_Man]

Thanks for the help.
Finally we've ended up with Ohlins re-valved cane creek double barrels as our shocks. However that has brought me back to the original question of this thread: Are there any known issues(except higher unsprung mass and inability to read stickers) with mounting the db's upside down. Packaging allows us only to mount them upside down. Has anyone tried holding them upside down on a shock dyno?
Also one of our rear shock is quite close to the exhaust. Anyone know about the heat sensitivity of these shocks?
We have tried our best to have the piggy back as far away from the hot areas as possible and we also plan to insulate it well, but still they a about an inch and a half away from the exhaust.

[Drew Price]

They should work fine.


Best,
Drew