I agree with Ghea, this thread is awesome.
To me, the aspect that is missing in all of this is real data. Having a shock dyno is great, and they are fairly straightforward (but not cheap) to build for RC use ....However the missing components are things like damper speeds (how often does the shock go up and down in 1 second on the track? Some 1:1 road race cars have damper speeds of 20in/s!) and how they relate to lateral accelerations.
The way to get this is with an onboard datalogger with 3 axis accelerometers and shock position measurement (probably linear potentiometers as used in full scale). With this, and a shock dyno, real repeatable results can be attained.
Sound impossible? A few years ago it might have been, but digital electronics have made huge strides in the past few years. I am attempting to do this very thing. I have the following so far:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pro...oducts_id=8627
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pro...oducts_id=9431
I am still looking for a way to measure shock position in real time. Linear pots are expensive..anyone want to whip me up some custom hall sensors that I can run in the preload collars ?
Travis Sewell
Mechanical Engineer