Rough Country shocks - Velocity Sensitive Valving?

Do you have any plans on selling these items in your store? I had a look at the ORA site and shipping to Aus is not an option. I could/would call if I did need to get them to see if they are willing to ship here. But I look forward to hearing from you after some field testing (hopefully within a months time).

Rob at Offroad Armory is on this forum as G187EEV so you could PM him direct. I know he was talking about expansion to Australia.

Martin

if i get some time over the weekend ill get up some pictures side by side of all the different shocks es1000's es3000's and the rough country's

coming from Dave at LLama he says the hydro 8000's are like an ES3000 shock and the Gas 9000's are like the ES9000's

The ES1000's are a procomp version of the original OE shocks but remember USA trucks are nearly all 3 TON :laugh:

the downside with rough country is they dont do many thin body shocks hence the longer 3 - 4.5 shocks tend to let the springs dislocate

hopefully after the new year ill have some shocks ready that allow you to adjust the damping rates from easier than the standard shock with 16 positions right upto harder than the ES9000's but they wont be ES1000 money

bluejimny wrote: hopefully after the new year ill have some shocks ready that allow you to adjust the damping rates from easier than the standard shock with 16 positions right upto harder than the ES9000's but they wont be ES1000 money

Thats what I want to hear

Money is not a huge issue, although still a contributing factor, as long as I can get 3", soft ride and good flex. That being said the Ranchos are ridiculously priced (and no flex).

es3000 i got and got good flexs procomps will go to 5" out not to stiff either mate

In the main, there are only two types of calving used in shocks. One is a pressure sensitive valve which opens wider the higher the pressure and the other is effectively just an orifice which allows fluid to flow through.

The pressure sensitive valves are also known as velocity sensitive (as the only thing that increases the pressure is an increase in velocity)

In a single orifice valve design, it will only provide critical damping for one combination of mass and spring rate. Adjustable shocks are almost all single orifice and the adjustment means you can tune the damping to your vehicle mass and spring rate. The trouble is the perfect tune is very narrow. Increasing the mass of the vehicle (passenger getting in for example) can badly affect the damping.

The reason for the pressure sensitive valve is to increase the bandwidth of the shock. The variable orifice can be designed to give acceptable damping over a wide range of mass and spring rate. That's why you can fit almost any shock to any vehicle and the worst it will do is feel a bit hard or soft.

RC saying their shock is velocity sensitive is really just marketing as so are the vast majority of others!

You also get position sensitive valving where the stiffness of the shock changes as it is compressed. This is generally what multiple bypass shocks are about. The various bypass pipes come in to play depending on the position of the piston within the shock.

The difference between a cheap and less cheap shock generally just comes down to how much bandwidth the valving has. In my experience, Old Man Emu shocks have the widest application range - which is probably why people consider them to be a very good shock. Chances are, if you fit them they will have enough bandwidth to adapt to you. Whereas a cheaper shock may not always. However, even for the cheapest shock, there will be a combo of spring and mass for which it's perfect!

You can only really make a comparison of the 'hardness' of a shock if the two vehicles have the same mass AND the same spring rates. Thus it may well be that the same shock is soft on one and hard on another identical truck, simply because the springs are not the same!

Si