[baw888]

This is the thread I've been waiting for.

After working on numerous Mounain bike suspension systems and creating some great acting forks in the process. I though shim stack pistons in an RC car would be a breeze.
I did make some great looking pistons using Stainless steel shim material. placed above and below the piston. Covering some of the rebound holes and most of the compression holes.
After trial end error and months of rebuilding with various shims I came to the following conclusion:

It would stiffen the slow speed compression, so the car would behave like the oil was too stiff. Felt like the suspension was binding. Equals terrible handling on the bumps.
On jump landings if would let the oil flow, and the car would slap the ground.

It seemed like I had made a shock with the worst of both worlds.

So if we(you) are to ceate a damper of the next level. We need to establish what we need the shock to do, eg, what is the graph of piston speed/resistance of the ideal damper. If we can work this out, then we can engineer the rest.
Maybe we will come the the conclusion that the damper needs a linear resistance up to a point, then a higher resistance to help in landings, ie exactly what we already have.

I have had a different line of thought, Rock Shox in the Moutain bike world created a fork that basically disconnected the dampers from the wheel, and inbetween had a very stiff, short spring, that would smooth out the transition between compression and rebound. It was like riding on a very large balloon tire, But still retained the same levels of damping throughout the rest of the stroke.

Could we use this theory to let the wheel quickly react to bumps on the ground, and then be able to increase the overall stiffness of the shock.
In other words, stiffer suspension to stabalise the car and make it more drivable, but still allow the tyre to follow the ground and keep traction. Much like a Yokomo Bmax and Kyosho FS. (By using flex)