labrat Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 When installing shocks, do I want to install the shocks completely extended or do I what to make sure they are compressed an inch or two, or half the stroke of the shock? The shocks I am going to use have a seven inch stroke and they are going on the front of the car (installing weight jacks in the car). Any and all info is gratefully appriciated! Thanks Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancer52 Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 not an easy answer,this is how I do it....the left front you will want to jack the car up (unloading the suspension) and tack weld the mounts then let the car down and make sure you still have a couple inches of travel at ride height (for bumps). On the right front I leave the car at ride height and manually compress the shock about 2 inches and mount there....then remove the spring and jack the suspension up and make sure it is not bottoming out before the control arms do.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwmbishop Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 Ideally they should be centered in the stroke at ride height. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancer52 Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 well..maybe I should have asked if this was for dirt or asphalt.....if you center up a dirt car your gonna bottom them out..or lift the left front....if its asphalt.....dont ask me....dont know...dont care...lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truck99 Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 well..maybe I should have asked if this was for dirt or asphalt.....if you center up a dirt car your gonna bottom them out..or lift the left front....if its asphalt.....dont ask me....dont know...dont care...lol AJ hit the nail on the head - how you design your shock mounts is different for asphalt and dirt. With modern asphalt setups, you'll see much more compression travel than rebound travel on the front, so you'd want to build your mounts accordingly. In the rear, you don't see a whole lot of shock travel up or down, so centered up or something close to that would work fine. On dirt, it's a whole different can of worms. One thing to remember - the shock doesn't know where the piston is in relation to the available travel in either direction - until it bottoms or tops out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAPA Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 I love these kind of questions. I get to learn something!. Question....How come the Dirt cars can come run on Asphalt and run so damn good? Do they have two different shock mounts or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancer52 Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Na...its just cause dirt drivers are so much better....lol. couldn't let that one go....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwmbishop Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 I love these kind of questions. I get to learn something!. Question....How come the Dirt cars can come run on Asphalt and run so damn good? Do they have two different shock mounts or something? Seems that it would be able to handle less travel easier than more! If the shocks are not bottoming or topping on dirt it is unlikely they would on asphalt as there is less travel involved. As Chase said - the shocks SHOULD be consistent all the way thru the travel until bottom or top is reached! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
labrat Posted September 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 The car is going to be set up for a street stock at I37 for next season. This car was set up once for this class untill I bought it and converted it over to asphalt, but now it is going back to dirt. I still have the orignal set up for the front, but I don't like the way the shocks were mounted and I want to mount them a different way. When I remount them I just want to make sure it's done right the first time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 well..maybe I should have asked if this was for dirt or asphalt.....if you center up a dirt car your gonna bottom them out..or lift the left front....if its asphalt.....dont ask me....dont know...dont care...lol I love that answer AJ. Right on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sm44 Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 Na...its just cause dirt drivers are so much better....lol. couldn't let that one go....... Don't know how much better we are, we just aren't worried about our paint jobs and how shiny everything is, we just drive it off in there and hope for the best coming out...Hehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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