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Shocker Revalving
Why would I need my shockers revalving? It’s not always necessary If your shocks were individually built for your particular application, they may well be just what you need and a simple service to put them back to the top of their game is all you need. However many race cars change hands or specifications and that’s when revalving can reap many benefits.
Why, what and how
Obviously there are many types and manufacturers of shock absorbers but they all perform the same function: to control spring and chassis frequency. This means on a race car we can also make them help with grip and control.
Many loose surface racers find an advantage to soften the drive shocks to allow a more compliant drive axle resulting in greater traction.
This usually must go hand in hand with roll bar changes to control body roll and inside wheel lift on cornering.
Unfortunately like all things in this world basic physics rule, and usually if you gain something somewhere you will pay for it somewhere else
Such is true in suspension.
However, with a little work we can usually get you somewhere near the optimum for a given spec of the unit you’re running.
All shockers work on a principal of moving oil through a restriction from one area to another, be it on a mono or bi tube type unit.
By changing the restricting device to make it either easier or harder for the fluid to pass through, the shocker will travel faster or slower (faster = soft, slower= hard).
Where the unit has an external adjustment it will, in one way or another, change the characteristics of the restriction. We can however change the range of where the restrictor works at its optimum by “Revalving”.
In affect we can pre-set internals of the unit to act faster or slower by Mechanical means or by viscosities..
Viscosity is a measurement of a fluids ability to flow through a given size restricton in a measured time frame. A thinner fluid will pass through the restrictor easier and faster than a thicker fluid would pass through the same restrictor, once again giving us scope for softer or harder characteristics.
The above is a “fag packet” explanation of how the race shocker works and by what means we can change their characteristics. Yeh I know there’s massive holes in the explanation but these notes are just to give people with no knowledge of shocker operation a basic of principals .They were never meant to go forward for a PHD in Fluid and Mechanical engineering.