Dan Shea

Hey everyone,


Seems as though I haven't been on here since summer started but I've been busy. I just got back from my first event with the new motor (NNJR at Mosport) and had a blast. But I also seemed to run into my first problem of the season. As I was setting up for the event I wanted to adjust the damper on my QA1 (huntley racing) coilovers because the rear seemed too soft. I started by turning the adjuster all the way to the right, but it didn't make it any stiffer. So I figured i might have turned it the wrong way. I turned it all the way to the left. This made the rear oscilate a bunch when I pushed on it. Obviously worse, and obviously the wrong way. So i turned it all the way back to the right, but the car continued to be WAY to soft and oscillated. I ended up stealing the Koni's off of our turbo in order to participate in the event.

So on to my question, Does anyone know if I can get the QA1's rebuilt/fixed?
OR since i would like a stiffer shock and dual adjustablity, What is the cheapest threaded shock w/o buying a coilover kit?

Oh and BTW the Koni's helped make the car fly, and I have some in car footage I'll put up when i get to a faster connection.


THanks,
Dan

caster951

The qa1 shocks can be rebuilt, qa1.com has info on this. Make sure the set screw isn't loose, had that happen on mine when trying to adjust them on the car. I had much better success adjusting them off of the car, which obviously defeats the purpose.

xsboost90

mine get very tight when all the way to the right- from what i hear, you dont want to run them all the way loose or tight. They will blow out.

DVC

Hey Dan,

Talk to these guys:

http://www.dndracetech.com/

This is probably what happened: There is a washer in the shim stack that is forced up on the compression stroke. One the rebound stroke, the washer is forced back down onto the carrier. Think of it as a trap door.

This washer is only .006" thick, and they can shatter. This allows the oil to flow unimpeded in either direction, i.e., the shocks are worthless. The solution is a bit more complex than just throwing on another washer. It will just break again. We can use a thicker .008" or 0.010" washer, which will resist breakage better. But this will stiffen up the shock on the compression stroke. No problem, I can just run the shocks on a lower click setting to compensate, right?

Nope. The rebound stroke would now be mismatched to the compression stroke. Road shocks are designed with a strong rebound bias (way more rebound resistance than compression resistance). So I would go from a (just a guess) 30c/70r to a 50/50 shock. And the compression stroke at the same number of clicks would be brutally stiff.

So D&D can put in one of these thicker washers, but drill a small (about .003") hole in the piston with a mill. The oil can flow freely through this hole. This will reduce the resistance on compression to compensate for the stiffer washer. It will also generally make the shocks a little softer on little bumps, but the main circuit can handle the high-velocity stuff. Another benefit is that the shocks will work less hard on a road course. The drilled holes will allow at least some oil to move unimpeded back and forth across the piston, which will help keep the oil cooler. And further help keep the new washers from breaking again by lessening the load on them.

Finally, the QA1s that we use are super digressive, meaning that small changes on the lower end of the click scale have big effects, but changes on the upper end of the click scale are so small that they have very little effect.

JimV8

I can hardly wait for your in car footage.