Thread: You know you are hard on your equipment when this happens......

Im not sure I follow. Both at the same time, same direction for both sides? huh.. They are bent almost extactly the same to each side. I dont think it was blunt force trama, it would seem that they both bent over time at the point the base touches some other suspension part. Weak or deffective rods?

I dont know, seems crazy to me! Best of luck with the next set.

I like the bottom out theory. But both doing it about equally does seem a little unlikely. Any monster truck jumps on the circuits you visit Chris?

We didn't 'bottom out' and didn't hit any curbs so that theory is ruled out anyway

Looks like case hardened and soft core. Weak.

By road racing do you mean stage rally?

lol @ those shocks

road racing as in Road America, Mid-Ohio, Grattan, Gingerman, Gateway, Waterford Hills, Autobahn Country Club, Blackhawk, and Putnam

To do something like that you are either hitting the body of the shock on something or one of your bushings are binding.

When you get the replacements put them on without springs and run the suspension through its full travel. You will find your problem at that point.

Things it could be.

Upper bushing is binding the shaft and putting a lot of pressure on the shaft.

The shock is hitting something during travel and putting side load on it.

From the looks of the suspension that is basically a coil over shock, not a strut where is is taking side loads. The shaft is pretty small if there are any side loads involved.

Is the car lowered? Did you mess with the bump stops?

Ok, I just looked at the pictures again. That big mark on the side of the shock is one clue, what is that from?

Did you really sock down on the top urethane bushings? Is there a sleeve in there so you can't overtighten? If you really crank down on the top bushings it will go pretty much solid and could do what you saw. Good place for a spherical bearing to be used.

Do you have hats that the front spring sits on or does it just sit on the plate that the top of the shock is on.

Factory parts have the spring on the mounting plate but the springs are a bigger diameter. The smaller coilover spring should be on a hat that is fixed to the shock shaft, that takes any bending force out of the picture. I have set up a B15 rear shock like that and it works well. I can do a diagram of what I am talking about if you are interested.

We have ground out the 3rd link to prevent binding/hitting and raised the car up 3/4" inches so we'll see if this helps and how it works with handling. Time will tell!

This is my guess. Looking at the upper mount in the pic, I'm betting the center hole isn't large enough and therefore causing bind. Esp since we see the bend is at the top.