Hey Guys,

Just wanted to let you know that I will shortly be doing a series of shock dyno testing for the following shocks:

Tokico Illumina Front (RX7)
Tokico Illumina Front (RE-Speed Race version)
Tokico Illumina Rear
Tokico Blue Front
Tokico Blue Rear

I just started fabricating the holders to make our shocks attach to the shock dyno, I'll post pictures of those parts later on, but hopefully by the end of the week I can have all of them done, or atleast all the illumina's.

Here's a few teaser pictures:

 

Incoming noob question:

What is a shock dyno?
What would the results mean?

 

What is the (supposed) difference between the standard Illumina and the ReSpeed Race version?

 

no konis? I have some I may be willing to guinea pig for the good of all.

 

A shock dyno shows the compression and rebound properties of a shock. So how quickly it reacts to bumps in the road and the smoothness of it.

To the average Joe this does not mean much, but to the people that race, this will help them fine tune their cars a bit and help them select the appropriate shocks for their application.

This system is mostly used for shocks that have full adjustability of valving and not just preset values as in our case. But to our purposes as mentioned its just a comparison,between various shocks.

 

The race is actually an mr2 shock or one jetted like that. Billy from RE-speed can correct me on that one if I'm wrong. Basically its suppose to have higher resistance in the compression part of the shock allowing for better control with higher spring rates installed.

 

If you're willing to loan them out to me for a little while I would be more than happy to get then tested.

This goes out to anybody that also has anything different for a first gen.

 

Just a thought, but as your will already have the rig setup, may I suggest you test more then one of the same shock? (ie) 2 Tokico Blue front, 2 Tokico Illumina front, etc. This would allow you to see if each shock is evenly matched.

I did some digging on this subject a few years ago and found some interesting information. One particular websites (I will try and find the link) showed proof that most of these shocks, regardless of price level, which had external adjustments rarely did an accurate job of adjusting the shocks according to there dials. IIRC the person who made the web site/ blog, does shock testing for a living. He stated ***** best use is to help assist a shock on a shock dyno so they can be evenly matched and never touched again.

I just thought it would be interesting to see if his claims where true while you had access to this test rig, that is if its at no extra trouble for you. Either way I'm sure you will get some interesting results.

 

This is going to be interesting.

 

Yes, i can do so with set probably. I can't do them all as they take enough time to do already. Also I should mention that I dont have a new pair of tokico blues on hand so it will be a used pair that I will test unless someone has a new pair to loan me for better data

 

subscribed! this will definitely be interesting.

 

sweet! this info will be more than helpful, ecookies for you!

http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets6.html

i think that's the shock dyno website

 

Subscribed. Should provide some interesting data.

 

Good link! Thanks for the ecookies but could I have efruits instead I'm on diet

 

1 vote for archive when completed

Thanks man! Glad to hear you made it back to canuck land too

 

Lol, I always make it back, nothing like being vack in my igloo

 

no problem! ebannanas then!

 

http://www.koni-na.com/civicdyno.pdf

Not rx7 related but would be interesting to see how it compares in changes to settings

 

You're going to adjust the Illumina's through their entire range, correct?

Super interested in seeing the results

 

FYI, compression side of the valve is for controlling the suspension(unsprung weight), rebound is for controlling the spring.

You will find that there isn't a lot of movement on the compression line and none of the shocks you have will damp a spring over 500lbs/in.

Nice rig by the way...

 

That is correct on the spring rates, but most of us on here don't really run more than around 300# spring rates. Me personally will be running 325# front and 175# rear. I will be using the front RE-speed race inserts for now, and the illumina rear.

 

This is the site I was referring to, there's lots of good information on there.

 

that's what i have (basically)

my car is really light, but so far my impressions are that its a little stiff on the street, but its fun too, hard to explain, but its like it reacts very fast to your inputs, its very direct

 

I will be very surprised if the rates are that high.

-billy

 

Jeeze Sam, where do you find the time for all this stuff?

I have a set of rear Bilsteins, but you'd have to wait until winter to get them from me. No way I can live without them now that race season has started.


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