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Lowered my truck with a new method last night

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G

Gordz

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Hey lads. Thought I'd post this up for a bit of fun.

As I have phaltlines on the way, I set out to lower the truck without using the fuel line method (fuel line split and desintergrated after 2 weeks)

I won't overly explain it, so hopefully you can work it out with the pics =)


Enjoy.


HAHA HOW LOW IS IT?! Still has about 5mm of suspension travel + sponge.

What do you guys reckon?
 
uhmm. hmm. so by the looks of the pics, you dont have any real working suspension? when you say sponge, are you refering to the sponge in the tires? it looks pretty low, thats for sure. let us know how it handles.. if the fuel tubing didnt work for you, then use the same method as now, but use very thin cable and cable crimps. you can make diffrent lengths and still be able to use your suspension wich may improve your handling
 
sponge of the tires + 5mm suspension. it's not like its going off road like this! the method of the madness is because it's a 5 minute job to get it back to full ride height for off roading Vs on roading. The height is still 10mm adjustable becuase they are after all turnbuckles... when my new spurs arrive we'll see how it handles. I'll take a vid. When I lowered it with fuel tubing it would not flip even when i tried. it would drift or spinout at worst. The only thing I can imagine breaking in its current state is the turnbuckle plastic ends in worst case scenario. If they break in a roll or something then all that will happen is the wheel will return to normal ride height with full suspension travel.

Parputt, what do you see getting trashed?
 
Sorry man, but u are gonna break som' with this set-up. It sure looks cool but its just asking for a break...just my opinion.

Edit: i see you were watching house i think.
 
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can you elaborate though? I'm open to suggestions, but when you're saying 'you're going to stuff it', i'd really like to know what you think is going to break?

Edit:/ yeah that was a pretty trippy episode ey? But I spose I have to do something to entertain myself while house is on... hence the slammed sav? :D
 
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how is there still 5mm of travel is it not just solid on the turnbukles? I'm sure it rides on rails sittin like that. it would be sweet for a big parking lot race or something
 
Do you intend to do any jumping whatsover with this truck? If so, I'm gonna call a a-arm, a shock or even a shock tower break...:puke:
 
absolutely no jumping like this! flat track only.

stevo, the inner diameter of the turnbuckle rings are 4mm ea, and the screws that go through them are what... 2mm? which leaves 6mm of free play (although under tension) so there is a little high tensile suspension there. but really, even on phaltlines there is still a large degree of sponge from the tyres so on flat track i really don't see how suspension travel would help, and I don't see how no suspension would break things... It's just a miss-shaped go kart now! but changeable back to MT in 5 mins... thats the idea behind the whole thing. less fkn around to change the setup
 
sounds pretty cool. i may try it, my buddy has a mugen electric car and id like to race him on the parking lot trck one day. and my truck would flip in a second with the bashing setup on the suspension
 
With nearly no suspension travel, I'm going to wager that 1 of 2 things will consistently happen. Either (A) you will slide around like crazy or push like a dump truck when trying to turn at speed. You will certainly have to slow down quite a bit to turn it well. Or (B), if you have any reasonable grip you'll traction roll as there's again no suspension to soak up the weight transfer.
 
The reason that guys are predicting that you will break parts is because the truck is now going to absorb the force applied on it regardless, whether it breaks on the first jump or cracks up over time from the vibrations of running on-road. My concern would be more along the lines with candyman, I think if you want to race on-road with it there's probably a better way to set up the suspension to function and maybe then it would actually handle. But if you're just driving around then you wont care that it can't go around a curve.

You could do some research on puller suspensions, they are set up with only turnbuckles, no shocks, but they're also set up to be rebuilt after each pass.

Oh yea, you may want to go ahead and order some new springs if you don't have any yet, because those are going to be shot after a few days of being bound up like that.
 
hey candyman, I appreciate that post mate.

What i've found in the past is when I had it lowered with the fuel tube, when it would normally roll in a fast corner, it would grip more, but indeed when I past that threshold, it would drift and spin out. but still, this is far more desireable that having a cartwheeling truck. Also, with the adjustable upper arms and running negative camber on all four corners, the thing is basically on rails. It's going to be awesome with the phaltlines!

Noted about the springs too, cheers... i'll probly remove the inner shock when she's running low, which will prolly only be 20% of the time. I do like to bash =)

and AGAIN. IT WILL NOT BE JUMPED WHEN IT'S LOW LIKE THIS!!!!! Thats why I made it a 5 minute change over so when i DO want to jump, i can make the ride height HIGH. *guh*
 
IMO arms, shock mounts or turnbuckles are at a high risk to break in a hard roll over at high speeds. I will say I like the idea of the lowered truck for running on pavement, I also think it looks pretty good like that.

I know it would take a little more time to swap from pavement to off road but have you thought about using shorter shocks? Maybe some Maxx shocks? That might eliminate the turnbuckle and give a little more actual suspension travel instead of plastic flex.

Another option would be making some type of limp limiting strap instead of the turnbuckle, this would also allow for down travel.

Just tossing out ideas, can't wait to see the video!
 
That is how we set up for our sled pull competitions. Dont wana transfer weight during pull, so we just lock out all of our shocks. Lemme rephrase, we take the shocks off and put turnbuckles in their place.
 

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