Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I just got a wheel alignment for my vit and purchased new rear shocks. I explained to the guy there that my vehicle sits 50mm above standard and i need new rear shocks wif longer travel, as i have buggerall down travel. I made the point of telling him the new shocks needed to be longer. He gave me some that they use for the 50mm lift kit for vits and assured me they were longer. Well instead of paying $88 for fitting i fitted them myself and when i took my OE ones off, they were the exact same length. It pisses me off that people who should be experts are so incompetent. What other rear shocks would be good for a 50mm lift, and i use my car for touring, gravel roads, and lots of beach work.

go to supercheap, look in the gabriel catalogue and find toyota cressida shocks for a sedan. they should be 630mm extended (in the shock specs part). they are a bolt on fit for a vitara, and ride exactly the same as ome shocks

plus you'll get great articulation with them

will i get the rear tyres scraping the guards with the cressida shocks? most of my driving is on road. When i do go off road its mainly on the beach or beach tracks.

it shouldn't. my 30x9.5's dont hit the guards anywhere with the shocks on

Im looking att he catolouge is it part number 81416

Only thing to be aware of is that the Cressida shocks are long enough to potentially allow the spring to fall out at full extension (depending on the brand of sprigns you have with them).

I wired my springs in but you shoudl really extend your bumpstops. It's your choice......

cam yagan wrote:Im looking att he catolouge is it part number 81416

i'm not certain but it does ring a bell

and like andrew said, you will have to wire the springs in with these shocks, i just used zip ties on the bottom around the axle

cam yagan wrote:will i get the rear tyres scraping the guards with the cressida shocks? most of my driving is on road. When i do go off road its mainly on the beach or beach tracks.

Do you mean the top of the guards?
If so, the shocks have absolutely nothing to do with stopping your wheels from travelling to far up into the guards.

Your bumpstops are used for this adjustment.
Some shocks are designed with internal bumpstops, but using a normal shock as a bumpstop will quickly kill it.

cheers

z

I dont think i want to go to all the troubvle just to get a few more cm wheel travel. I just want a shock that is 50mm longer, coz even that will increase the whell travel a fair amount. Thanks for your help guys. Ill have a look in pedderes when i take the shoks back.

i purchased vl shocks wich are 590mm at full stretch. Does this sound pretty sweet? Im scared the coil might fall out. It is raised by 50mm

hmmmmmmmmm, it'll be close. the cressida shocks in the back of mine are 630mm extended, which is 40mm longer than yours. my spring drops out probably 60mm from the coil cup at full droop, so it might pay to wire them in to be safe

ok. sorry if i sound dumb but how do i wire it , and where do i attach it

i just used a zip tie, ran it through the lowest part of the coil (the one that sits on the coil bucket) , then under the coil mount but above the axle......if ya get what i mean

so u got no problems once it is tied in there? does the zip tie loosen over time?

mine haven't. though i did break one when it got caught on a rock, but that was a freak incident

ok i might just get some tie wire. So the ride is ok on them? or will there be heaps of body roll?

A word of caution about fitting longer shocks.

The important figure for a shock is its compressed length. If the compressed length for a "longer" shock is much longer than the stock shock, and you don't extend your bumpstops, you will be using the shock as a bumpstop. They do not like this.

A longer shock WILL make the compressed tyre go up further into the guard. The point around which the suspension is pivoting on articulation is the compressed side bumpstop, to when the drooped wheel falls further, the compressed wheel will go higher.

There is no way of making a shock that is the same length compressed as a stock shock and 50mm longer on droop, that's why you got a stock length shock when you wanted a "longer" one- if it will bolt into stock mounts, the compressed length must be very close to stock.

Ver good rear travel can be achieved with commodore type rear shocks if you are willing to extend the bumpstops.

I think that the internal bumpstop is a bit of a myth. NO shock manufacturer would ever recommend uing a shock as a bumpstop, whether it had a bumpstop in it or not. (I do not know of any for sure) I have seen some old doestch tech foam cell shocks inthe US with urethane bumptops onthe shock shaft (under the eye) and they also had rebound rubbers insode the shock, beween the seals and the piston. I believe there were there to save the shock rather than to bottom the car on.

wiring in coils will have no effect on body roll. It just stops you leaving them behind on the track when you articulate.

Bear in mind though that once your springs go loose, you will have heavily reduced traction on that wheel. If you also have open diffs, then the traction that drooped wheel with a loose spring will probably not be enough to drive the car. ( There has been hearty debate about this on the Rover forum, and while the result was that there is/may be useful traction on an "un sprung" wheel, I think that for a car with light wheels/tyres/light diffs/open diffs, this kind of travel is pretty much cosmetic.

some shocks have there fluid reservoir down the sides, or seperate from the shock, whereas most standard shocks have fluid reservoir on top..this can make more travel using stock mounts..OME are one example, not sure of any others, christover

????

Can you demonstrate this with some links to manufacturer drawings or something? This is a concept I have never some across before.


My understanding is that there are two broad categroies of shocks.... single tube and twin tube. Single tube shocks are basically bilstein, as I think they own the patent. These have a "floating" secondary piston in the bottom of teh shock with below it and oil above gas. The gas is nitrogen, which does not expand as it heats.

It is true that single tube shocks can be mounted upside down, meaning that the "resorvoir" will be "at the top" But the gas must be kept separate from the oil.

As I said, only Bilstein owns this technology. It is far from "standard".

When a single tube shock is fully compressed, the length of the shaft inside the shock is increasing the internal volume significantly, pushing the little "floating" piston way down towards the bottom of the shock. At full compression, there will only be a tiny amount of free space between both pistons and the bottom of the shock. I don't believe there is a subtantial difference between the collapsed length/extended length ratio of a bilstein VS a twin tube shock.

It is easy enough to do the experiment - I have a G wagen bilstein at home and an OME 80 series shock - they are quite similar in length.

Twin tube shocks have a secondary cylinder inside them with the piston running in that. The space between the outer and inner cylinders is where the interface between teh lower pressure gas and the oil rakes place, sometimes with foam in here to prevent "aeration" (nitrogentation?) of the oil.
Between the inner and outer cylinders, the oil flows through a foot vlave, which is fixed at the bottom of the shock. This foot valve is what is adjustable in a Rancho.

90% of original equipment shocks are twin tube style, and so are OME. OME shocks are generally only a teeeny bit longer than a stock shock. Certainly less than 50mm.

Steve.

http://www.arb.com.au/

cant find any info to back that up, maybe it was an over enthusiastic sales person that told me that, or my old advertising material that came with the suspension kit.....tho the interfacing down the sides may be what they meant, and would help the travel a wee bit, or maybe the excess fluid can be bled off down the sides to allow more up?... mine definately have more travel than the originals whatever the reason..but the LTR is definately a remote cannister, it looks like an interesting idea, christover

Chris,

Remote reservoir shocks are a different fillet'o fish and do permit more travel my removing the foot valve/floating piston completely and placing it in the reservior - that way the piston can travel all the way to the bottom of the body of the shock, so for the same compressed length as a "twin tube" or "mono tube" shock, there will be more shaft for a longer extended length.

However, more important to the (slightly) incresed travel, again not more tha a couple of inches, is the fact that remote reservior shocks add heaps of surface area and oil to teh shock, so on cars that are very shock dependent, like LC80&100's, they will last longer and not fade as quickly on heavy corrugations etc.

i put the vl shocks in after finishing uni today and then went to test the articulation. I was relieved to see that fully compressed, the Vl shocks are the same lenght as my originals, yet had 6cm more travel. I ramped it up and the spring has no chance of coming out. It was the first time i had taken my vit offroad since getting new OME struts, 50mm lift at the front and a 15mm lift at the back. The difference was unbelievable. All in all im pretty happy.

so all up my vit is 55mm above OE height, with coils and spacers

cam yagan wrote:so all up my vit is 55mm above OE height, with coils and spacers

very cool, nice work, and little spent, christover