>I am now looking at the Spax adjustable hydraulic shocks and trying to figure
>out exactly how to adjust bump vs rebound.....
>
>Scott Chaiken
>Lotus 7 Series 1 chassis 503
>VSCCA #776
>
i looked into shocks quite extensively earlier this year, when I was buying
shocks for the Merlyn. My understanding of Spax (the "normal" gas spax
shocks, not the more sophisticated Track Spax types) is that they have a
quite rudimentary adjustment mechanism. It adjusts compression (bump) only,
in a linear, non-velocity sensitive, manner, and has no effect on rebound.
The basic damping setting is not adjustable. When I ran them on Mini's,
that's just what I found. I used the damping adjustment on the Spax on the
rear of the Mini to control the corner entry oversteer characteristics -
more adjustment was the equivalent of stiffer springs (more compression
damping force) in the rear of the car. Fronts I just set to 3/4 hard and
left until they lost their effectiveness, they seemed to last about two seasons.
The Penske's that I ended up with are also single adjustable, but the
adjustment is for low speed rebound damping. This is considered to be the
most important for setting the handlng of the car as it enters corners and
has the most effect of controlling roll rates. The Penske is also fully
adjustable by taking it apart and changing various washers that control the
basic characteristics of the shock. Also, it's velocity sensitive - you can
adjust the low speed and the high speed settings independently by using
different shock internal options. If you go to the external reservoir
models you can get to where you can vary the high and low speed bump and
rebound externally and independantly, but I stayed away from the external
reservior since I didn't think it looked all that vintage.
Downside is that they're expensive. Upside is that they'll do what you
want, if you can figure out what that is, and teh're very high quality.
Other upside is that since my local dealer is a friend, he said he'd rebuild
them and revalve them for free as long as I owned them!
cheers, Brian
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