short travel vs. long travel

[amrein1743]

I built a new Jeepspeed and I'm trying to work the bugs out. Class rules allow 10" front/ 12" rear travel. I have equal approx. 5" compression/5" rebound in the front and 6" compression/6" rebound in the rear. My question is how are other limited travel cars/trucks set up? My Jeepspeed sits a little lower than everyone else and it looks like they all have approx. 8" compression/2" rebound in the front and 8" compression/4" rebound in the rear. How are 7s set up? Are they similar? Does it make sense that a long travel car would ride in the middle of it's travel but a short travel car would not? Any help you can offer is appreciated.

Thanks, Chris Amrein

[IvanDan]

I built a new Jeepspeed and I'm trying to work the bugs out. Class rules allow 10" front/ 12" rear travel. I have equal approx. 5" compression/5" rebound in the front and 6" compression/6" rebound in the rear. My question is how are other limited travel cars/trucks set up? My Jeepspeed sits a little lower than everyone else and it looks like they all have approx. 8" compression/2" rebound in the front and 8" compression/4" rebound in the rear. How are 7s set up? Are they similar? Does it make sense that a long travel car would ride in the middle of it's travel but a short travel car would not? Any help you can offer is appreciated.

Thanks, Chris Amrein

Hey Chris~

I think it comes down to driver preference and how you like it to work. Also, how it works in comparison to other Jeepspeeds. You may be able to rally better but you might not be able to take the hard hits as well but you make up your time in other areas. Look at our 7 truck, we don't have anywhere near the travel the other guys in our class do for the rough stuff but we make up the speed on the faster stuff. Just a difference in where you can go fast and your competition can't and vice versa.

[amrein1743]

I agree that different set ups work better than others in certain conditions. I was just wondering if there is a "preferred" set up. Our car was very comfortable in Parker on the long, fast sections, but we got passed in the rough stuff. The guys that were fast in the rough were hitting the whoops hard and able to stay on top of them. Our car seems to get out of shape when we hit the whoops real hard. We still need to make some adjustments to the shocks, but I wanted to start with the best possible set up.

[Josh_K]

"Does it make sense that a long travel car would ride in the middle of its travel but a short travel car would not?"

Yes it does. Long story I hope I don’t bore you because it is about this stuff but not 100% direct to your question.

When I first bought my class 8, it was less than an ideal set up. The first thing that I noticed once I got it home and started taking it apart and checking it out was that the front shocks were mismatched in there mounting by about 4”(one would max out 4” before the other would). I had dual 3”x14” kings but the guy who built it obviously wasn’t thinking on the day he set this up so the truck had about 12” of usable travel in the front when I cycled it. The first mod that I ever did was to mount the shock correctly. This gave me about 15” of usable travel and it as a huge improvement. About 6 months later I build new arms and this brought the travel up to about 18”. This was a slight improvement. Now the entire front end has been cut off and redone and I am running about 19” to 20”of travel and the improvement and was just slight vs. 18” of travel. The point I am trying to make is that when you are dealing with a limited amount of travel like 12” or less, you can’t set the car up for what is theoretically ideal. Also, I have found that the magic number is about 15” of front travel for a large truck. I was telling this to the guys at Enduro racing and they agreed. Dave told me that along time ago he raced a class 4 (4wd F-150) and the class was limited to 15” of front travel and that was the point that good things started to happen. Of course your setup had to 100% on target.

So, I guess that point I am making is that your setup is a compromise and you need to set it up for up travel.

Josh

[phorensic]

A while back ESB Mike commented that the best handling stock 4wd Toyota Pickup he had ridden in has his ride height cranked to 7/8 of his total travel, that's where it worked best. In trying to tune my stock 4wd Toyota Pickup I found that going from a near 50/50 ratio of uptravel to downtravel to closer and closer to a 7/8 type setup makes the suspension work better. For some reason, most people have found that in low travel setups, more uptravel usually works best.

Read all that, then take a look at a modern TT with 4" (exaggeration/estimate) of uptravel and 24" of downtravel at ride height and dream on.

[matt_helton]

i run my 12" travel front end at 3" down and 9" up with alot of valving and air bumps.


quality not quantity.

oh hey chris, i think we went to the same high school....

[amrein1743]

Did you go to high school in Orange?

[matt_helton]

maybe........lol ill tell you the rest is a PM. id rather not make it public. haha