SX REAR MOUNTED SHOCK MOD

[stegger]

In jimmy's report (and what a great report) there's photo's of si moss's car with the rear shocks mounted behind the rear shock tower.
1/ What benefit does this have ?
2/ Is it only for certain tracks ?
3/ Do you run different oil's, pistons, spring with the mod ?
Thanks in advance

[Chrislong]

Hey Ste, There is an easy way of doing this mod, all you need are four long screws, 2x M3 locknuts and something to shim the tower back further. If you remove the wishbones from the gearbox sides, and literally put them on the other side of the car (but remember to get toe in right).... this achieves rear mounting positions on the wishbone, while wheelbase being marginally shorter (2mm). Then mount the tower on the rear of the tower mount, but with some spacing (I used about 6-7mm by using 4x Losi pistons I had lay around) and use longer screws here. Then using long screws to mount the shocks, followed by 2x lock nuts (so the shocks are behind the tower and nut under it as with the std shock screws). The only thing to modify is the rear bumper, which needs to be cut narrow as the blocks now hang further back than they did. You may need more antisquat, as the wishbone on LWB binds on the blocks otherwise.

I have seen two other ways of doing this. One involves swapping wishbone but not blocks, and then modifying the wishbone - this acheives a very short wheelbase. The other way is leaving the wishbones alone and redrilling them - so nothing else on the car changes - just the shocks.

The benefit, is when the wishbone flex's, because the shock is on the rear it is now the front of the wishbone which flex's and this helps the car drive very bumpy tracks such as Talywain - this is where it was tried and was found to be good.

It was done for a certain track, but this mod will give benefits on all tracks... as it also moves weight rearwards which I believe the car needs. it also does other things (depending on which way you do the mod, there are 3 ways of achieving the rear mounted shock). but the way most have done this, makes the car shorter, and the angle of the driveshafts creates better forward traction.

I would not change the setup for the initial try. Shouldn't need to be any different.

Ste, PM me your email address, I will email you some photos tomorrow of how mine looks.

[jimmy]

Good stuff Chris - I was just told 'its better over the bumps boss' - but you actually explained it all!

[restimax]

any images?

[Losi_110]

hi chris, a quick question. Do you not run the roll bar on the back of your car? I'm assuming that with the wishbones turned round you can't use it any more.

[tony12795]

Mossy tried what Chris has said and yes the idea was to make the car better over bumpy sections. But at Ozfest he put the whish bones the correct way and just left the shocks at the back, The Team are just testing little tweaks here and there to fine tune the rear end a little. So Mossy did run the rear roll bar at Ozfest.

You will also notice that that he is running the car a little harder too (Grey springs)

Tony

[Chrislong]

Yeh to mount the rear roll bar, you will need to drill holes in wishbone for the way I have explained.

Some people have only swapped wishbones, not the blocks, but then file 3-4mm off the back otherwise the car is mega_short.com.

I think Mossy has left wishbones alone but then drilled new holes for the shocks on rear of wishbone, so nothing other than shocks has changed. Apparently the method above gives better forward traction than this due to swept forward driveshaft angle.

The way I have done it is somewhere between these two. Will be giving it a thrashing on Saturday. I haven't seen anyone achieve rear shocks with my method yet either.

An unmodified car is still excellent. For example Grant Williams was in the A-final at Oswestry with his car unmodified. So its all down to personal taste. Don't just follow a trend like a mindless sheep thinking it is necessary, as it isn't always.

[martin]

Schumacher will shortly be releasing a little conversion bag to move the shocks to the rear, the bag includes the hardware to do this as well as a new link mount to move the ball forwards to miss the shock.

[stegger]

Where's the info on this boss

[Chrislong]

Im intrigued

[tony12795]

Hay Chris, Jonesy was running the standard rear end too and he made top of the B at Ozfest....

[Chrislong]

Yeh, Jonesy did well, I wanted him to make the A final.

I was just making the point that rear mounted shock mod may be more of a trend than a necessity. So dis-couraging everyone jumping on the band-wagon.

Fair enough people trying it, I am, I intend to also try other mounting methods over time (possibly during Belgium). But im quite prepared to go back to front shocks.

[Mossy]

We made the change at Talywain like Chris said to try and allow the car to handle the smaller bumpy sections better. Shocks at the rear of the car have allowed me to run a stiffer back end with bigger hole pistons, allowing us to reduce some of the pak.

All i have done is drill a hole in the rear of the wishbones to allow me to just change the shocks rather than the wishbone direction aswell. With the wishbones flipped round i wanted to reduce the angle of the driveshafts to a more level angle, hence returning the wishbones to the original place.

This is somethin we as a team are going to continue to develop, but the good thing is we have an extra option to try rather than just the standard shock layout.

Si

[Losi_110]

Originally Posted by Chrislong

Yeh, Jonesy did well, I wanted him to make the A final.

I was just making the point that rear mounted shock mod may be more of a trend than a necessity. So dis-couraging everyone jumping on the band-wagon.

Fair enough people trying it, I am, I intend to also try other mounting methods over time (possibly during Belgium). But im quite prepared to go back to front shocks.

Like you say It's worth thinking about as an option as it's one that's so easy to change back if it doesn't make an improvement, the setup I've got on my car is really good, just have to be a bit careful that it doesn't roll over, but I'm still waiting for my front one way to turn up and hopefully that will sort the problem.

[MHeadling]

Discostu ran his Cat last night at Faversham with the rear shock mod, he did by turning the arms and mounts round and cutting down the rear bumper.

The car looked good and drove well when I had a go with it.

Stu get some pics up if you can!

[stegger]

Yeh chris where's the pic's you promised

[Chrislong]

LOL, in a minute or 5....

[Chrislong]

[Chrislong]

Those are the pictures. If anyone needs to see any other angles, just let me know and I'll do it.

[stegger]

Think you've covered it fella