rear shock mount question

[Niko]

I'm building a Samurai right now with D44's and bought the Spidertrax upper rear shock mount so I could run the long shocks. I have the 32" DT8000 shocks. After reading Brents "shock placement" article and some older threads, I'm having reservations about my shocks being angled in at the top ( like this ^). Is this really a problem(lack of dampening, more body roll, ect.) or am worrying about nothing?

Thanks.

[Niko]

Anyone?

[billjohn]

The DT8000's may not be stiff enough for this application. When you run the shocks at an angle you need to compensate with stiffer shocks. I run Rancho adjustables. Depending on the load in back (tool box, seat with passengers, empty) you can adjust the level of control. If you just want a standard shock, try the DT5000 models. They are supposed to be stiffer.

[Niko]

Anyone else have any opinions on this. I did a bunch of searching and am just more confused now. It seems like people are 50/50 on going vertical or on a 45*. I can't decide if I want to keep the Spidertrax mount or use F-250 towers in the rear. I have waggy axles and the rear is in the stock location, so I should be able to mount the F-250 tower vertical without having any shock bind.

If it helps, I don't do much, if any rock climbing. I'm in Alaska and most of the trails are muddy with off camber washouts, ect.

[Niko]

Here's a mock up picture of each option I can do. The inverted "V" mount gives me 3" of rod showing, mounting the shock vertical obviously gives me more unless I cut the F-250 mount in half and lower it a bunch.

Inverted "V"


Vertical

[Tusker]

I outboarded my rear shocks to the wheel wells and it made a noticeable improvement in lateral stability. I would caution you to test flex the setup before welding in up though. I had to put 1" spacers on my 87 rear yota axle to keep the tires off of the shock. It was worth the effort though.

[catzuk]

Good looking set-up. I ran waggy 44's on my zuk in stock form for years. My opinion is go as close to straight up as possible. I angled mine in 5 degrees and ended up useing shorter rancho 9000's. I had a spoa with wrangler leaves and missing links and after cycling the suspension and measureing went with shorter shocks. I got all the travel the leaves would give me. Mine were mounted on the frontside of the axle inboard of the leaves, but as close as I could get to them with out them hitting. You will be happier if you can get them more verticle. Outboard of the leaves is great, but watch the clearence.

[Niko]

Thanks, I'll put them in the fender straight up and down then and just wait till rear is all done so I can check clearance first.

I appreciate the help.

[zukatude]

Mounting the shocks at an angle just reduces their effectiveness, but on a light zuk it isn't all that bad.

At a 45 degress angle, your shock has 70% of it's dampening left. At 70 degrees (or 20 degrees off from straight up) you still have about 94% of your shocks effectiveness.

If that's not enough, compensate with adjustable or stiffer shocks.

[Tusker]

Ah, someone who does vector addition. Now you're talking to me

Another thing I have always considered too is the amount of cycling you get. The same principals apply, but the cycle length of your shocks also gets reduced as you lay them over. I always figured that work=force x distance principal affected the dampening as well as the law of cosines. Not sure if that is correct though.