ugly duck

Soooo... newb question but I've been searching for a couple days now and couldn't find too much with regard to choosing which suspension settings on my Volcano. I realize that it will be a trial/error thing for the most part and will depend entirely on what surface I plan to run on that day, but it would be nice to have a bunch of suggested settings for different conditions in one place.

So, what I'm looking for would be a list of things you've done on your MT for settings, the conditions you run them on, and an overview of the way it behaves.

i.e., what weight of oil are you using in your front shocks compared to your rear shocks? What holes are you using on the front and rear? What preload spacers are you using on the springs? What camber settings are you using (if you've measured them) front and rear? What about toe? Are you jumping lots and what kind of air are you getting? How does it launch/land? Are you running on gravel or pavement or grass or sand? Does the truck drift or maintain stability when cornering, and what happens when you hit the throttle mid corner? What tires are you using? Have you bent the tabs on the pan for more or less travel? Have you had to change your dogbones or do anything else to make this setup work for you? What have you done to the diffs as far as grease?

Things like that...

My HSP Tyrannosaurus is pretty much completely stock and I don't intend on spending a bunch of money on upgrades unless I break something, but I'd like to tweak the stock parts as well as I can. I switched the rear diff grease to white lithium grease and it seems to lock up better than the front does, but I'm going to try some real sticky red axle grease next. I reduced the negative camber on all 4 wheels so that the rears are pretty much at 0 and the fronts are at about -0.5 degrees. The rear toe isn't adjustable but I've got the front toed in a little bit. My shocks are all on the lower-middle hole on the top and on the inner hole on the bottom, and I have no idea what oil is in them but I'm going to get me some 30, 40, and 50 to play with. 50 is probably going to be way too stiff... I mainly plan on bashing with it but I don't exactly know the terrain yet.

ugly duck

One thing I DID find was that with the rear turnbuckles in the stock position (though I bought this truck used, no other holes were threaded so I assume they're in the stock position) the suspension geometry causes the dogbones to bind up before the suspension has gone through half it's travel. No wonder one of my dogbones is bent!

A little rework of the turnbuckle position and I've got LOTS more travel, though I had to sacrifice camber gain a little bit.

I've sure got to get used to the light touch it takes to snug up one of these screws... I tend to overtighten them.

And I bought the LOSI shock oil sampler pack (20 through 50 weight) so I've got lots to play with. Still looking for suggestions, though.

AllAboutFunHobbies

Your suspension settings really depend on what you want to do with the truck.

el_tonto

Do you have plastic-bodies shocks or aluminium? if you have plastic, I wouldn't go too thick for the oil - pistons with fewer holes and/or thicker oil will cause increased pressure in the top chamber of the shock, and with the plastic-bodies shocks you risk blowing the tops out on big hits.

As a general rule, softer front suspension settings will improve steering, while softer rear will tone it back a little (i.e. more stable in corners, less chance of spinning out on loose surface). Likewise damping - thinner oil on front will improve steering etc.

Preload spacers are to set ride height only, not to stiffen up the suspension. They will increase the spring rate *only* if you eliminate droop. If you eliminate droop, then handling on bumpy surfaces will suffer, as the whole truck falls into the hole rather than the suspension merely extending down into it and absorbing it.

Another point - if your truck shocks bottoms out from say a 2-foot drop, it will bottom out from 2 feet at *all* settings of the suspension. Moving the shock mounting point will soften or harden the effective spring (and damping) rate at the wheel, but at the expense of travel. Proof: a falling truck has so much kinetic energy, which is absorbed by the springs. A compressed spring has so much potential energy, based on its spring-rate and length of compression - both of which are constant no matter where the spring is mounted on the arm. Therefore the springs can only absorb a fixed amount of the falling trucks kinetic energy, regardless of mounting location (the dampers will also absorb some of the energy, but again this is constant for a given oil and independent of mounting point). SOOOOOO if your truck bottoms out you'll need to stiffen the springs. Simple as that.

Redharris

Good post el tonto.....
You covered a lot of ground there...
Let me add a couple practical pointers.

You should be able to drop your truck from Chest level and the shocks should not bottom out. Sadly, the Volcano shocks will not pass this test.
You may want to upgrade to TMAXX shocks. They will Dramatically improve your suspension. However Tmaxx shocks are made for a Heavier Truck, and you will find them to be a bit too stiff until they "break in". To alleviate this Stiffness, you can mount your shocks at a lesser angle.
What I mean is that the TMaxx shocks should be mounted like this / \ rather than like this ] [ to soften the suspension a bit.
You will also want to bend the tabs on the pan to limit the Tmaxx shock travel, as they are slightly longer than the stockies and will cause some binding at full extension.

As for weight of shock oil.... If you are just bashing, it s not gonna matter a Great deal. The Tmax shocks come with an Un marked bottle of shock oil that looks to be about 30 weight. The kit also comes with an assortment of Damping pistons. I use the ones with three holes in My Volcano SV.

ugly duck

Before it goes any further off track, I will take the liberty and quote myself:

So I'll try again: What settings do you use on your truck, what conditions do you run it on, and how does it behave?

Red/Tonto: Thank you for your input, guys - I do appreciate it, and it's good information in general but it's not exactly what I'm looking for, is it? Tonto, your post about the plastic bodied shocks hits home, but I'm not going to upgrade unless I break one, so in the meantime what weight of oil is "too thick" like you suggest? Yes, I know, it's a tough question but you started it I'll save all information about the Traxxas shocks and the oil/discs to use for when I get a set, Red - thanks for the input there too.

pede_187

Before Red posts pictures of how to mount the T-Maxx shocks I'd like to say that his Tmaxx shocks are on the pivot ball volcano and the HSP uses the Hub type. Tell me when and I'll post pictures (It's with stampede shocks but it should mount the same).