Jeff@Tri-Point said:
Wow, are you really saying this? The Proof isn't enough? When a car wins on k-sports... it isn't the shocks/springs that are doing it and i'm 99.9% sure of it.
And the same car went just as fast (1:05.049 at PIR to be exact) on KSports, as it did on Cusco Zero 2Rs and Tein RA's. Check that time vs. the Koni Cup qualifying times and you'll see KSport, or anyone for that matter isn't deserving of a thread like this.
So now let's compare two Moton triple adjustables, retail for close to $2000 *each* shock. These are two rear shocks, new out of the box for the same car. Sorry for the Excel charts, my shock dyno guy doesn't give me electronic data.
Rebound:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/phoenixR34/motonrebound.jpg
Compression:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/phoenixR34/motoncomp.jpg
Not exactly the same either. I'm not claiming to be a shock expert, but nearly 2000 newtons of rebound difference at some speeds. Now are you going to start claiming Motons are crap too?
I have two Koni DAs with light use that I'll take off the car and dyno here soon.
My gripes with threads like this:
1. Talk to engineers from Bilstein, Moton, KYB; engineers from car companies and so on, and they'll all say more or less the same thing: "Two shocks that look exactly the same on a dyno plot, can feel totally different on the car. Tune a car by feel, not what you see on a shock dyno graph."
Everyone I've talked to about shock dyno charts (since they're so popular these days), says 99% of the time a dyno plot is used to determine the shock is working properly, range of adjustment or that something isn't horribly wrong. Data is taken for reference, but tuning is done based on the feel from driving the car.
2. Shock companies coming on the internet and ripping each other apart with data that *no one* knows how to f-ing read. You see it on here, honda-tech, rr-ax, freshalloy and more. Perhaps you (tri-point) can shed some light on this, but how is anyone supposed to be able to relate to a shock graph without owning a dyno themselves and going through an insane trial and error process?
example: Dyno a set of shocks. Put them on the car, buzz off 20-30 laps (or be a damn good evaluator on the street), make a judgement. Change the shock tuning, dyno it, retest on the track/street.. go through that process of tuning, dyno testing, evaluating and repeat for 20 years. And be sure to put fresh, zero-tolerance tires on for each test as well, because the performance of race tires can vary seconds though their life cycle. Do all that and *then* maybe I would believe what the person is saying.
You have many curves and graphs to look at on a race car. And I say race car, because who in their right mind would spend 10 seconds worrying about a shock dyno curve for their daily commuter?? Anyways, you have dyno curves, camber curves, steering effort curves, shock dyno curves.. shock dyno curves have to be perhaps the most complex and least understandable graphs on Earth. So why all the emphasis?
3. On my local track I probably have a couple thousand laps over the last ten years... on my current track car I've tried the Tein HE, Tein RA, Cusco Zero 2R, KSport Kontrol Pro, GAB, Tein Flex and now the KSport GT Pro. I won't deny for a second that all shocks felt different.. some had more rebound, some were too soft, some had way too much compression... it's fairly easy to compare when I have a thousand laps of comparison data. But the one truth in all this: Lap times *barely* varied. Sure, I had to change springs on some and adjust the shocks, but with one exception (RA), there was never more than a tenth or two difference between any of the shock setups.
So if that doesn't matter, what does? Ride comfort? If that's your worry then perhaps we should all be running OEM Toyota shocks.