Looking for 12" long shocks

I'm working building my solo dwarf car. I need to find some shocks for it. All the dwarf car ones are steel bodied non adjustable. I'm looking for something that has a range of 9" compressed and 12" extended that is meant for road racing/ solo and is at least single adjustable. I plan to run spring rates between 150-250 in/lb. I keep finding tons of fancy drag shocks for decent prices, but I don't know what the difference would be. Anyone know? Anyone know something else that might use a shock that would be similar. I can go longer on the shocks if needed.

Sounds like you need a motorcycle coilover.

In reply to mw:

Legends cars use a Bilstein that is about that length if my memory is correct.

http://store.uslegendcars.com/site/department.cfm?refid=1&id=622DD78B-B0D0-791A-65335234A0874BC2

They used to run Carreras but had a rule change a few years back that banned them so they were available cheap from Legends racers. They worked well on the front of my open wheel car and I think I paid $100 for the pair with springs.

afco should have something

+1 on AFCO. They can tailor a set of their shocks to your exact needs (non-, single- or double-adjustable, shaft length, body length, upper and lower mounting styles) and are good to work with. I used a set of custom AFCOs on my MG.

I've seen a database for Monroe shocks that gives compressed and extended lengths along with part numbers, and you could cross-reference from there to get the application and thus performance variants. I used it to find some tube shocks for the MG in the Pre-transformation stage. it was not hard to find, probably on the Monroe website.

I'll look into the afcos. I did find some qa1 series 82's that look good except for the fact that they aren't adjustable. I do like that they can be revalved in 10 minutes.

If you want something cheaper, I run snowmobile coil-overs on my off road buggy that is not all that different from a dwarf car. I bought them used and they are rebuildable threaded coil overs. $40 a pair, all kinds of different sizes.

Also check the QA-1 site. They have a lot of shock info as well.

fastoldfart wrote: In reply to mw: Legends cars use a Bilstein that is about that length if my memory is correct. http://store.uslegendcars.com/site/department.cfm?refid=1&id=622DD78B-B0D0-791A-65335234A0874BC2 They used to run Carreras but had a rule change a few years back that banned them so they were available cheap from Legends racers. They worked well on the front of my open wheel car and I think I paid $100 for the pair with springs.

Yes the old Carrea's were adjustable they had 3 positions of fixed dampening rates you could select. You popped off the spring top retainer, remove spring collapse them fully and slowly turn the top eye you'll feel the rod drop about 1/16 then keep turning hear a click, look for punch mark in the eye to see what # (1,2,or 3) triangle its lined up with. I still have some as i bought hundreds after the ledgens rules changed people dumped'em. One thing to be awahere of the same part number is availible new but they are no longer adjustable but use same number! yes there on bilsteins now 44

Trying to impress the ladies, eh?

Couldn't resist.

Yamaha yzf-r1 shocks are 12 and 9, but with spring rates of ~500lb/in. I understand they can be revalved though. Already double adjustable. I got most of mine for under $20 ea.

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Yamaha yzf-r1 shocks are 12 and 9, but with spring rates of ~500lb/in. I understand they can be revalved though. Already double adjustable. I got most of mine for under $20 ea.

THANK YOU! That's the sort of thing I was hoping for. I'm going to buy one to test. I'm thinking with some pushrods and bell cranks I can make the spring rates work for me.

Best thing to do is get them with the bellcrank off ebay. To get down to 9" fully compressed, you'd have to remove the bump stop too. Small caveats. I'll say, I didn't even revalve them, and put 350lb/in eibachs at 7" x 2.25 ID and they seem fine. I haven't tracked it or anything of the sort, and am no expert though.

mw wrote:

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Yamaha yzf-r1 shocks are 12 and 9, but with spring rates of ~500lb/in. I understand they can be revalved though. Already double adjustable. I got most of mine for under $20 ea.

THANK YOU! That's the sort of thing I was hoping for. I'm going to buy one to test. I'm thinking with some pushrods and bell cranks I can make the spring rates work for me.

Hey Mike. I missed your original post but that's exactly what I did with the Europa. The shocks were $10 each and were brand new take offs from a R6.

Looks good. Where did you get yours Andy?

I used the R1 shocks with the 'parallel' reservoirs on the Abomination, they can be had cheap on eBay. L:ike this:

The only drawback is they use 2 1/4" ID springs but only have a cam type preload adjuster, due to the reservoir placement a 2 1/2" ID spring won't fit. If you can use the R6 or later R1 shock, the reservoir is 90 degrees to the shock body and now you can use 2 1/2" stuff, us the cheap eBay sleeves with good springs.

Koni makes a 2 1/4" coilover sleeve but the ID is too small to go over the R1 shock. Some time back I found a place which had a threaded sleeve conversion kit but the name of the place escapes me now. I do remember they weren't cheap.

QA1 makes probably the most reasonably priced coilover. I have a set of the single adjustables on the Jensenator. Link to their size chart: http://www.qa1.net/qa1_motorsports/drag-and-street/shocks-and-struts/custom-mount-shocks/proma-star/single-adjustable.html

mw wrote: Looks good. Where did you get yours Andy?

I picked them up at a bike shop that specalized in drag racing. They closed up shop last year. They pop up on Ebay cheap enough though.