In a message dated 1/12/02 9:42:37 AM Central Standard Time,
alextzi@yahoo.com writes:
> 2) The distance from the end of the shock body on the shaft side to
> the end of travel without the bumpstop must remain as stock.
>
> 3) I say, who cares about the bump stop. its a $.79 piece of foam or
> rubber, It hardly costs anything, and to remove it or alter it is no
> big deal, so why not let bump stops be free and measure to the end of
> the shaft as in suggestion #2.
>
The inherent problem with this and even as currently stated in the rules, is
that it's impossible to achieve once you factor in legal ride height change
parameters. The conflict is the rules allow changes in pressure, valving,
and other variables which can result in lowering, but at the same time
they're saying you can't have the distance between the bumpstop and the body
reduced to less than OE. So what does that mean?
That means you either shorten the bumpstop, which the resultant change may
need to be more than the OE bumpstop thickness, or you have to shorten the
body; i.e variance in body/shaft length, which just cirmcumvented the rule
you were trying to achieve. Furthermore, to challenge this you would have to
remove the the aftermarket shock to install the OE shock and *hope, pray, or
otherwise wish heavily* that you can get the car settled enough to accurately
determine distances of shock travel. What if the aftermarket shock is
intentionally valveded to "jack down"? IMO, this idea of measuring static
ride height shock travel clearance is impossible if you really understand the
dynamics involved; it's just not clearly thought through.
Furthermore, the bumpstop wording as was in the 2001 rulebook implies that
you could eliminate the bumpstop altogether: "The distance to the initial
point of contact with a bumpstop may not be reduced, though the bumpstop may
be shortened for the purpose of installing aftermarket shocks". So you could
technically shorten it to ZERO with an aftermarket shock, even though
previously you were not allowed to eliminate the bumpstop until moving to the
SP classes.
So the rules are saying you can have any ride height achievable within
certain parameters, but they're also saying the opposite with either the
bumpstop wording or your proposed wording by trying to say you can't be below
the OE static stroke clearance dimension. Well, which is it? You can't have
both and that's the root of the problem. There has to be a variance in
length from OE including static stroke clearance position, or else the only
way around is to say OE only, which is a whole new set of problems. IMO, the
only way aroound the bumpstop issue is to say OE bumpstop only, but there are
aftermarket shocks that come with integral bumpstops and are not readily
replaceable, so the reality is the whole bumpstop issue is impossible to
control or enforce without rewriting the entire shock rules, again another
whole set of problems.
How hard to we want to make it? You can bang your head against the wall from
here to eternity or you can just face the facts and open it up because there
really is no simple solution.
Mark Sipe
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