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Confused on Shocks

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Skinh0agie

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What shocks do you guys recommend. I broke my stock ones hitting a pole and would like to add some bling bling factor but also have shocks that are flexible (adjustable for street or bashing).
 
You should get threaded shocks. What this means is there is a aluminum shock body that has threads on it. The thing that holds the springs at the top can be screwed up or down depending on the ride hight you want. You can get them in a few different colors and they look awsome!!
 
Hot Bodies sells threaded shocks for the Savage. However there have been multiple complaints about them. If I remember correctly SkyMaxx ran those on his Savage.

If you check the Annoucments section you will see a thread about the new threaded shocks that HPI just released.
 
I ran them for a little while and then upped my set up to a buggy shock set up. The choice was made based on my concern for the spindly nature of the full length Savage shocks. The buggy shocks were much beefier and handled just fine.

For the record, I never had a single problem with my Hot Bodies threaded shocks. I removed them after about three or four bashes in order to upgrade my set up to something that I felt was much stronger.
 
i run the buggy shocks too and have not failed me yet!! i gone off 8 feet jumps and nothing has happened :LoL:
 
What do you mean by buggy shocks? If using buggy shocks, do you still use two shocks per tire? Can you give me an example of buggy shocks? Are the INTEGY shocks a quality buy? What oil weight do you put in these shocks?

For threaded shocks, you can dial the spring compression up and down to make the ride softer or harder? Do i have this right? Say i buy a pair of shocks that arent threaded, will i have to change out springs to adjust for softness and hardness?
 
I'm not sure about your other questions, but i do know a little about the buggy shocks. you can use 2 shocks per tire, but that would be overkill. just 1 on each shock is enough. the traxxas t-maxx has buggy shocks stock(i think there buggy shocks, but there the same size) and if you put them on the savage, you would have to get different upper A-arms since the shocks are shorter. I'm not sure which a-arms are good for this though.
savager
 
For your seccond question the answer is sort of, i guess. What you can do is twist the spring holder either up or down giving you a lower or higher ride height. They are adjustable but I believe it is mainly for ride height. you can still change the springs with any kind of shock. Anyone correct me if I am wrong.
 
I don't like the Hot Bodies shocks that much (the threaded ones), but I do like their "High Performance" ones that use clip on spacers. The threaded ones use a dome shaped bladder in the top of the shock that is prone to getting out of shape when tightening the top and then they leak. The ball end of the shock is also too short on those and the spring cup hits the lower arm when the arm is at full extension. The high performance shocks HB sells doesn't have either of these problems. They are a lot like the stock ones except aluminum. I've heard good things about some of the piggyback shocks too. Oh yeah the bling factor is not as high on the high performance HB shocks though since they are a more satin finish and the other ones are polished.
 
i personaly dont like the hot bodies shocks they bind on the lower side of the shock body and will really get on your nerves!!its a negative for me but others may like them they are nice hpi just made a treaded one and integy ones!!! i just bought skymaxx's new era buggy shock arms...sky the check is in the mail!!
 
I'm leaning towards the INTEGY MSR4's. I like the buggy shock setup, but i plan on buying the Losi MT when it comes out, and it looks like that truck uses something similiar. I use the stock setup for my savage, just with Integy shocks. Now what parts to I need to buy to install these correctly? I have aluminun upper and lower arms, aluminum bulkheads, and aluminum shock towers all from GPM. Will these Integy Shocks bolt up to this shock tower easily?
 
I doubt the integy's are worth the $. bomber has integy msr4 shocks on his maxx. They are shorter than the savage ones, but he has destroyed 2 out of the 8. Where the shock body screws to the piggy back is pretty weak. The aluminum is so soft that on a bad wreck, it just rips apart. Yesterday, he ripped the internals out of one. The shaft just came out.

If I had to guess, the savage ones aren't going to be any better, if not worse since they are so much longer.
 
A couple things. Along with raising or lowering ride height, adjusting threaded shocks also changes spring rate, making the spring softer or stiffer ( ie. lower ride height and stiffer spring) shock oil choice will change how much damping you get, that is.. how much of a hit the shock can take w/o going boingy. Using light oil reducing the damping factor which doesn't slow down the spring action as well, and the opposite for heavier oils. Heavier oils allow for bigger hit like landing big jumps. Finding the right spring rate, shock setup, and shock oil will depend on what kind of driving you do. For example... if you keep your truck on the ground mostly and want it to handle well in dirt or pavement you might want to set up your shocks with a low ride height and install stiff springs. The low ride height will mean less roll as well as the stiffer springs. You might also want to use a lighter weight oil... this would allow the springs to be more reactive and "feel" the road more. Now this is just an example, if you bash and jump n stuff you definately don't want a setup like this or you'll break something. Well, I hope this helps you understand shocks a little more. If I fudged anything up someone be kind enough to let me know. later.
 
Before we go much further, adjusting the ride height is the only thing putting a pre-load spacer does or moving the upper retainer on a shock does for springs. Their spring rate does not change...you just pre load the spring. What does this mean? It just means that you are taking that much of the spring action out of play and causing the spring to react differently as it already has some of its compression in place.

Other than that, I'll ride on what Lessen stated...
 
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Ahhh... ok, I get it now. For some reason I was thinking that because the spring was already compressed it was stiffer but now that you point out the facts that doesn't make sense... a given spring has the same rate at any compression point. Is that right? Thanks in advance Sky
 
Pretty much. Then at some point, it just locks up since there aren't anymore gaps left.

By the way, sky, those HB shock springs are WAAAYYYY soft... But, the shocks seem to be holding up.
 
Lessen said:
Ahhh... ok, I get it now. For some reason I was thinking that because the spring was already compressed it was stiffer but now that you point out the facts that doesn't make sense... a given spring has the same rate at any compression point. Is that right? Thanks in advance Sky
Click to expand...

True...except in the case of multi or dual rate springs. In those cases the spring rate changes dependent on the amount of compression applied to the spring.

The only reason the spring might seem stiffer is that it's natural tendancy is to try and return to an un-compressed state. That is why it can adjust the ride height. If the weight of the truck compresses the spring a little and you force it to be compressed some more, it will try and uncompress itself that much harder...thus raising the truck up.

olds97_lss said:
Pretty much. Then at some point, it just locks up since there aren't anymore gaps left.

By the way, sky, those HB shock springs are WAAAYYYY soft... But, the shocks seem to be holding up.
Click to expand...

You are now finding one of the reasons I traded those shocks out for buggy shocks. At the time that I had those, there were very few options for stiffer springs. The only path available to me was to change out the shocks. NOW, there are several options and you can actually replace those weak springs with something stiffer. But, as you stated...the shocks are holding up (as they did quite well when I ran them myself).
 
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