We have been doing this in crawlers for many years. Low CG is definitely a thing then you are constantly on the verge of tipping. But racing would see a slight benefit as well as disadvantages. I am surprised it has taken the racing world this long to realize it.
In crawlers it makes sense because you want a lower CG but you also increase the unsprung mass which doesnt matter in a slow driving crawler. Compared to fast driving RC cars or any normal car for that matter its pretty dumb because on them you need your suspension to be able to follow the road and bumps so you want less unsprung mass and not more. This is controproductive on fast traveling vehicles.
Sure but adding weight to the Unsprung weight keeps the wheels on the road. I’d suggest most lcg crawler principals apply to racing lower almost always equals better handling at any speed. Have great day dude!
I saw this done on HPI Baja clone, Rovan Baja. Because the first few releases of their 5th scale shocks leaked so bad, people started to invert the dampeners to stop them from hemorrhaging the dampening fluid. That was back in 2014ish or there abouts.
Curtis Husting did it on his RC10 at the 1985 Warm Up Cabin Fever Breakout. Mostly as they were bottom loaders back then i figure, but then there's the LCG aspect as well.
I literally brought this up on a forum a decade ago(I'm sure I'm not the only one; this was back on the old XTM Racing forums, before XTM went out of biz), asking people if the slightly lower CoG could be beneficial in an RC. My question back then was inspired by motorcycle front forks, since there's both inverted and non-inverted fork applications. I never tested it(I wasn't racing either, just a basher) and everyone said that it probably wouldn't make a noticeable difference, but I never bought that answer(since it was obviously just an assumption; and RCs are already super lightweight [a 1:10th scale RC would weigh ~300lbs at 1:10th the weight of a fullsize car] so the shock bodies make up a not-insignificant percentage of the car's weight. Really REALLY cool to see that my suspicions were actually right(well, more so weight transfer than for cornering advantages, but still... lol) - almost wish I would've poked & prodded someone that raced a decade ago to try it out lol.
I think it is helping through the corners on high bite tracks for sure. Like he said helps get the front wheels down some instead of squatting on left or right rear. Pretty crazy how you thought of it though! When I was 10 I thought of regen braking for electric cars before it was a thing lol. No one listens.
I do it on my micro-DT with the losi oil filled shocks on it because they are leaky. They leak a lot less when upside down and since I'm just using the car to chase the cat around the house, I don't worry about dirt/rocks dinging them up. Considering how small the shocks are, they only hold 2-3 drops each, so any leakage is noticeable pretty quick.
i run inverted on my ecto crawler. ..big advantage for crawlers as it add the unsprung weight and lowers the overall CG...i did it few years back on the yokomo Bmax2 buggy...it feels great..its just that i have to use lower spring rate and lighter abit tad shock oil trying to maintain the reduced bodyroll effect due to the deducted top deck weight..did great on my tamiya M05 race kit too..... and the drive definitely feels more planted.
It keeps the piston submerged in the oil longer through its travel. Keeping the piston submerged keeps the shock from cavitating which makes the valve work properly. I have been running shocks upside down on real drag cars for a long time.
Yeah this guy is talking about the 3rd and 4th affects and is not paying attention. They are actually designed to be run that way. I agree with you Jason
@@kyleteal5888 only on emulsion shocks is there air in the chamber. If you bleed your bladder shocks correctly and they don't leak at the seals then there will be no air in the chamber. The piston will always be submerged in oil.
Coming from a full size car racing background , the biggest impact inverted shocks will have on an RC car is to massively increase unsprung weight. This will make the shock work even harder, leading to cavitation and poor wheel control. This will outweigh any advantage gained by marginally lowering centre of gravity.
@@Deezul653 fluid action doesn’t scale, your right in that regard, but un sprung weight is even more critical in lower weight vehicles. By inverting the shock the shock body and all the oil becomes part of the unsprung weight as opposed to the shaft and ball cup in the conventional setup. This will mean the shock is unable to control fast changes of direction leading to loss of wheel contact more often.
@@Deezul653 it’s diminishing returns though. By inverting the shocks you’ll probably struggle to measure the reduction in CG, but the unsprung weight will probably increase by 25%+. I imagine any increase in performance is purely a placebo effect.
@@RyTrapp0 I disagree. Massively increasing your unsprung weight is not a good idea on any surface. Traction will be compromised on both surfaces and loss of grip will be less linear meaning it will be harder to catch when it does break traction.
I remember this being a fad in the mid nineties, it didn't work then either! If the car handles better with them upsidedown, the chances are you're under-damped.
I've done this for a few years now. For two reasons. The weight is put lower. This worked excellent on my hand-made 1/16 grave digger. A979 and my Rampage. Plus they are less likely to leak as fast.
That's why Schumacher invented the "laydown" shocks in the 80's or '90's... Lower COG without killing the suspension... And I believe they won the world title with that car. This might work ok on carpet or smooth indoor tracks but if you flip the shocks on a bumpy outdoor track, you greatly increase the unsprung weight on each wheel. This makes your suspension less effective and reduces traction and grip. People have been experimenting with this on dirtbikes since the 70's and RC cars since the ~80's or 90's (that I can remember). It can give you a minor advantage under the right circumstances but 9 times out of 10 it will do more harm than good.
20 years ago we did that on our nitro buggies 👍 I still do it. The disadvantages are not that noticeable, but the advantages are 🥳 We have some races, like box stock where it is not allowed 🙂
Weve been running inverted shocks for ages... with custom caps on our kyosho cars. The issue that we have is stiffness. On fast flowing tracks the inverted shocks work so damn good.
He mentioned that it's not ideal for bumpy tracks. I would say this is strickly for smooth indoor carpet tracks. But who knows until you actually try it!
I used to run my shocks upside down in the mid 90s in the TCS. while cg was the center of the show the real reason was that the shocks then leaked like crazy. we ran the plastic shocks with single o rings in them. this way the shocks would not leak then the car was being transported or overnight :) let alone the race itself... Today I still run my shocks upside down if it fits in the car. (most of the time it will rub on the knuckle or something.) and today it is for CG as the shocks really do not leak.
This is my first hearing about this, but it makes sense. Quick question.. given that shocks have "always" been top heavy since forever, would you recommend upside down shocks as standard from now on?.. I know that there are drawbacks and the answer is probably "it depends", but if you had to pick a default, what would it be?
All motocross bikes use to run right side up front forks until the late 80s when they put them on upside down and realised the bike handled better. I think there is a lot of similarities between rc offroad racing and motocross/supercross so maybe this could be a decent handling improvement? I'm no rc racer just a fan.
Here is a racing question...if racing carpet oval, would installing the inside shocks upside down help keep the center of gravity biased to the left? Would it help the car to rotate in the turns, or make it push? Good explanation, thanks😎
If you've gotten this far... What about crawlers? I've never seen shock bodies down on a crawler. Wouldn't it add unsprung weight? People pay hundreds to get weight down low. What am I missing?
@@KiloWattRC lmao, must be why I call my car shocks "inverted - oh wait, no I don't, because it isn't a motorcycle so the shocks aren't "inverted" from anything... Yes, RC "technically" adopted inverted shocks - if you're trying to describe an RC setup using motorcycle terms🤷♂
@RyTrapp0 everything from cars, trucks, motorcycles, dirtbikes adapted inverted shocks. I only mentioned motorcycle because the shocks get rebuilt constantly like RC shocks, and not replaced like u see in the automotive industry. All OP did was take the inverted mounted shocks and mounted them in standard upright position. Go enjoy your life
Looking at your car at around 5:15 the rear shocks are inclined vertically with the highest part towards the rear of the car . If you added a longer screw and more spacers so the shock was leaning forward would this resist the squatting better? The shock would be more in line with the squatting force therefore stiffer . Imagine a sumo wrestler leaning forward instead of back . The leaning forward would resist the force better Is that a thing!?.
I think that the weight of the shocks is neglected for the center of gravity compared to other components. On the other hand, the additional weight of unsprung mass is negative.
I think your missing a few major things about suspension theory and setup... And for perspective, this is coming from someone who does shock valving on actual dirt bikes, snowmobiles, etc. As well as raced RC I the past. With the shocks inverted, you just killed your rebound damping performance. You slowed it down due to the increase in unsprung mass. The tire will have harder time following the ground surface as a result. Ideally you want a controlled rebound so the tire doesn't impact surface but instead follows it to keep tire pressure on the ground. Instead of doing this, I would instead try increasing your spring rate so you reduce the amount of preload for ride height to minimum. When you have lots of preload, while shock is rebounding and almost fully extended, there's still significant spring force as it tops out. A heavier spring with little to no preload instead has very little spring tension left at top of stroke. This would help reduce the weight transfer which is what your trying to reduce here. Higher spring rate = less weight transfer; damper itself does less work. Lower spring rate = more weight transfer, damper has to do more work to prevent bottoming out and etc. The best thing to do here would be to slow down your rebound and therefore your weight transfer, but that also effects your compression damping too So a even better fix to the issue would be a different shock piston with shims or check balls to separate compression and rebound. That is how real shocks separate rebound and compression ports on the piston allowing way better control of all of this. MIP bypass paiotms are piston and shim kits and even Traxxas has metal shim kit that makes this work. This would allow you tune compression and rebound independently which really does wonders. Note: A universal truth to suspension setup is you want your unsprung mass(weight not supported by suspension, I.E. wheels, hubs, suspension arms) to be as LOW AS POSSIBLE. You increased that greaty by flipping the shock. Previously the mass of fluid and shock body was hung and supported by shock tower making them sprung mass, while your shock shaft, eyelet, and spring we're unsprung mass. Unsprung mass makes very poor rebound performance, it's slows it down while also giving it momentum causing tire to impact the ground harder leading to bounce If you got this far, yes my shock nerd, and yes that was a total involuntary info dump.
Look at the old motocross bikes. That’s how there shocks where. They changed it for a reason, I’m betting after a few years the Rc guys will decide to do the same.😊
Eh, I got inspired by this idea years ago because of inverted and non-inverted forks in the motorcycle world - but I wouldn't go comparing 2 & 4 wheel suspensions much beyond that, they have very VERY different requirements(and, frankly, motorcycle suspensions are pretty damn underdeveloped compared to 4 wheel vehicles - blows my mind that we don't have a variety of different front end designs on the market, everyone just running the same ol' forks).
This highlights a potential hole in the market that I am surprised nobody has ever bothered to exploit. If it matters to the handling of a vehicle where we place the shock body, why not make it's placement easily adjustable? This wouldn't be hard...
In full size racing you only run shocks that are gas (nitrogen) charged, with the shock body bolted to the shock tower ..less unsprung weight. Oil filled shocks mount the way you just did it
looks at every off road full size racing rig and they are all oil filled with nitrogen gas bladders. Every single one has the shock body mounted to the frame. Why, less unsprung weight.
We used to do this in the 1980’s !! New trend lol 😂. We mainly did it to keep the piston in the oil , and we also had some very dodgy seals in those days :-).
More unsprung mass and the inability to relieve air from the valves umm I’ll keep to the conventional as I’ve never had an issue setting up and tuning a car’s suspension!
Just a thought, anybody doing adjustable shocks with a knob instead of changing weight. Or the other thing im trying to make(for drag rc) a 1 way reed valve that closes 2 of the piston holes after compression to keep the rear sucked down
Put a thin flexible shim washer on the rebound side of the piston to reduce or close the holes on the piston during rebound. But flexes open on compression. Like a reed valve.
People have been doing this for a long time in rc oval racing. And it was even done with a few 1/10th stadium trucks in the early 2000s. It's not new it's just now getting popular.
The way RC shocks are designed, they literally don't give a damn what way up they are. The piston is just a plastic disc with a couple holes in it - there aren't shims or anything to valve them in a sophisticated way like automotive style shocks, it's just a disc with holes sliding up & down inside a tube. They are absolutely dead nuts simple and damp basically the same in both directions(technically one side has the displacement of the rod and the other side doesn't, but that's a minor difference in the grand scheme). Honestly wish we could see more sophisticated options in the RC world but, honestly, I don't know if that's even viable(physics doesn't scale, so it isn't as simple as just scaling down a Fox desert racing shock or something), a disc with a couple holes might be offering as much "tuning granularity"(via oil weight) as we can get at this scale.
I'll tell you boys where your problem originates from - YOU'RE NOT RUNNING THOSE OFFROAD BUGGIES IN DIRT. About 15-20 years ago, everyone started trying to make offroad vehicles run better on clay and carpet. There's essentially no reason to even have such large suspension componentry on the track you're showing. You'd turn faster laps by running short arms on that vehicle to reduce the leverage on the damper and hence, reducing weight transfer.
I been flipping my shocks on touring cars and dirt oval for years dating back to 1990 on my custom works dominator and my losi jrx pro. This isn't new and it does work
I was about to make a similar comment. I remember my uncle ran his shocks upside down back in the mid 80's. Never knew the reason, but I was 6 or 7 so I didn't care.
With every advantage, there's a disadvantage. Buy inverting the shocks you add a lot of unsprung weight. This will make the car less stable off jump's and in bumpy high speed situations. So on carpet with small jump's the inverted shocks will help.
@@mattster197 that would mean dirt would have to fly all the way up, normal set up dirt would be flung from underneath. Moral of the story Dirts gonna make stuff dirty regardless
@@mojojoji5493 think about it, You got dirt lying on top the piston now, much more likely to work in around the seal and affect the shaft. Would have to run boots for sure. IMO> end.
We have been doing this in crawlers for many years. Low CG is definitely a thing then you are constantly on the verge of tipping. But racing would see a slight benefit as well as disadvantages. I am surprised it has taken the racing world this long to realize it.
It’s not a new thing in RC lol.
I’d think lcg in racing would help.
But for me it’s all that matters lol.
In crawlers it makes sense because you want a lower CG but you also increase the unsprung mass which doesnt matter in a slow driving crawler.
Compared to fast driving RC cars or any normal car for that matter its pretty dumb because on them you need your suspension to be able to follow the road and bumps so you want less unsprung mass and not more. This is controproductive on fast traveling vehicles.
Sure but adding weight to the Unsprung weight keeps the wheels on the road. I’d suggest most lcg crawler principals apply to racing lower almost always equals better handling at any speed.
Have great day dude!
@@rcarty419 the opposite is true
Have you tried turning the rear spoiler upside down? Makes mine fly round the track.
I like it, I'm changing mine tonight
Free weight reduction at speeds lol
put back wheels on the front and front wheels out back for better turning under acceleration!!
@@unkulwilly controlled rotation under braking and throttle is key👍
Lol
I saw this done on HPI Baja clone, Rovan Baja. Because the first few releases of their 5th scale shocks leaked so bad, people started to invert the dampeners to stop them from hemorrhaging the dampening fluid. That was back in 2014ish or there abouts.
Curtis Husting did it on his RC10 at the 1985 Warm Up Cabin Fever Breakout. Mostly as they were bottom loaders back then i figure, but then there's the LCG aspect as well.
I literally brought this up on a forum a decade ago(I'm sure I'm not the only one; this was back on the old XTM Racing forums, before XTM went out of biz), asking people if the slightly lower CoG could be beneficial in an RC. My question back then was inspired by motorcycle front forks, since there's both inverted and non-inverted fork applications. I never tested it(I wasn't racing either, just a basher) and everyone said that it probably wouldn't make a noticeable difference, but I never bought that answer(since it was obviously just an assumption; and RCs are already super lightweight [a 1:10th scale RC would weigh ~300lbs at 1:10th the weight of a fullsize car] so the shock bodies make up a not-insignificant percentage of the car's weight.
Really REALLY cool to see that my suspicions were actually right(well, more so weight transfer than for cornering advantages, but still... lol) - almost wish I would've poked & prodded someone that raced a decade ago to try it out lol.
I think it is helping through the corners on high bite tracks for sure. Like he said helps get the front wheels down some instead of squatting on left or right rear. Pretty crazy how you thought of it though! When I was 10 I thought of regen braking for electric cars before it was a thing lol. No one listens.
I do it on my micro-DT with the losi oil filled shocks on it because they are leaky. They leak a lot less when upside down and since I'm just using the car to chase the cat around the house, I don't worry about dirt/rocks dinging them up. Considering how small the shocks are, they only hold 2-3 drops each, so any leakage is noticeable pretty quick.
i run inverted on my ecto crawler. ..big advantage for crawlers as it add the unsprung weight and lowers the overall CG...i did it few years back on the yokomo Bmax2 buggy...it feels great..its just that i have to use lower spring rate and lighter abit tad shock oil trying to maintain the reduced bodyroll effect due to the deducted top deck weight..did great on my tamiya M05 race kit too..... and the drive definitely feels more planted.
Interesting.
Next video:
Reversed tires trend explained
This trend is so cool I even inverted the shocks on my real car. I definitely can see wing inversion on the horizon.
It keeps the piston submerged in the oil longer through its travel. Keeping the piston submerged keeps the shock from cavitating which makes the valve work properly. I have been running shocks upside down on real drag cars for a long time.
Yeah this guy is talking about the 3rd and 4th affects and is not paying attention. They are actually designed to be run that way. I agree with you Jason
@@kyleteal5888 incorrect.
the pistons are always submerged in oil?
@@down6ibuprofens no not really when cap up, but running a blatter cap helps alot.
@@kyleteal5888 only on emulsion shocks is there air in the chamber. If you bleed your bladder shocks correctly and they don't leak at the seals then there will be no air in the chamber. The piston will always be submerged in oil.
It really works. My crawler climbs so well with inverted shocks
I dont even run shocks
i'm shocked 😲
Coming from a full size car racing background
, the biggest impact inverted shocks will have on an RC car is to massively increase unsprung weight. This will make the shock work even harder, leading to cavitation and poor wheel control. This will outweigh any advantage gained by marginally lowering centre of gravity.
Most offroad carpet tracks are flat so I don't think you need the fast working work shocks do on a outdoor track
@@Deezul653 fluid action doesn’t scale, your right in that regard, but un sprung weight is even more critical in lower weight vehicles. By inverting the shock the shock body and all the oil becomes part of the unsprung weight as opposed to the shaft and ball cup in the conventional setup. This will mean the shock is unable to control fast changes of direction leading to loss of wheel contact more often.
@@Deezul653 it’s diminishing returns though. By inverting the shocks you’ll probably struggle to measure the reduction in CG, but the unsprung weight will probably increase by 25%+.
I imagine any increase in performance is purely a placebo effect.
It's literally going to be a case by case basis - smooth surface, great idea. Bumpy surface, maybe not a great idea.
@@RyTrapp0 I disagree. Massively increasing your unsprung weight is not a good idea on any surface. Traction will be compromised on both surfaces and loss of grip will be less linear meaning it will be harder to catch when it does break traction.
Did that with my 1/10 touring 4WD indoor car back in 2000, and lowered the battery and drivetrain in the chassis, it worked quite well
upside down shocks been going back to the early 80's due to them leaking, specially the old srb chassis
I remember this being a fad in the mid nineties, it didn't work then either! If the car handles better with them upsidedown, the chances are you're under-damped.
So what’s your point? It works or doesn’t work?
I've done this for a few years now.
For two reasons.
The weight is put lower. This worked excellent on my hand-made 1/16 grave digger. A979 and my Rampage.
Plus they are less likely to leak as fast.
Do u mean wlk a979??
Been doing this on crawlers for years to lower the cg 😅
very interesting
need a revolution in how shocks are designed it seems
That's why Schumacher invented the "laydown" shocks in the 80's or '90's... Lower COG without killing the suspension... And I believe they won the world title with that car. This might work ok on carpet or smooth indoor tracks but if you flip the shocks on a bumpy outdoor track, you greatly increase the unsprung weight on each wheel. This makes your suspension less effective and reduces traction and grip. People have been experimenting with this on dirtbikes since the 70's and RC cars since the ~80's or 90's (that I can remember). It can give you a minor advantage under the right circumstances but 9 times out of 10 it will do more harm than good.
20 years ago we did that on our nitro buggies 👍 I still do it. The disadvantages are not that noticeable, but the advantages are 🥳 We have some races, like box stock where it is not allowed 🙂
I did this in the early 2000’s running dirt oval and 1/10 sedan. No one ever noticed.
Weve been running inverted shocks for ages... with custom caps on our kyosho cars.
The issue that we have is stiffness.
On fast flowing tracks the inverted shocks work so damn good.
do you have to make any other adjustments or tuning?
He mentioned that it's not ideal for bumpy tracks. I would say this is strickly for smooth indoor carpet tracks. But who knows until you actually try it!
I used to run my shocks upside down in the mid 90s in the TCS. while cg was the center of the show the real reason was that the shocks then leaked like crazy. we ran the plastic shocks with single o rings in them. this way the shocks would not leak then the car was being transported or overnight :) let alone the race itself...
Today I still run my shocks upside down if it fits in the car. (most of the time it will rub on the knuckle or something.) and today it is for CG as the shocks really do not leak.
Wouldn't changing to a piston with smaller or fewer holes accomplish pretty much the same thing?
Great informative vid. Thanks.
I think you just discovered the correct way to mount your shocks.
This is my first hearing about this, but it makes sense. Quick question.. given that shocks have "always" been top heavy since forever, would you recommend upside down shocks as standard from now on?.. I know that there are drawbacks and the answer is probably "it depends", but if you had to pick a default, what would it be?
These theories are interesting and worth experimenting with.
All motocross bikes use to run right side up front forks until the late 80s when they put them on upside down and realised the bike handled better.
I think there is a lot of similarities between rc offroad racing and motocross/supercross so maybe this could be a decent handling improvement?
I'm no rc racer just a fan.
Here is a racing question...if racing carpet oval, would installing the inside shocks upside down help keep the center of gravity biased to the left? Would it help the car to rotate in the turns, or make it push?
Good explanation, thanks😎
If you've gotten this far... What about crawlers? I've never seen shock bodies down on a crawler. Wouldn't it add unsprung weight? People pay hundreds to get weight down low. What am I missing?
It came from us crawlers first.. we've been doing it for years.. helps with leaky shocks and less weight up high
First time I'M hearing of it at all...
people have been doing this since the dawn of rcs
If you know about motorcycles, you would know that when the cylinder is above the piston and rod that would actually be inverted shocks.
These aren't motorcycles, that's why no one uses motorcycle terms to describe RC cars...
@RyTrapp0 a shock is a shock lol. Rc technically adapted mounted inverted shocks.
@@KiloWattRC lmao, must be why I call my car shocks "inverted - oh wait, no I don't, because it isn't a motorcycle so the shocks aren't "inverted" from anything...
Yes, RC "technically" adopted inverted shocks - if you're trying to describe an RC setup using motorcycle terms🤷♂
@RyTrapp0 everything from cars, trucks, motorcycles, dirtbikes adapted inverted shocks. I only mentioned motorcycle because the shocks get rebuilt constantly like RC shocks, and not replaced like u see in the automotive industry. All OP did was take the inverted mounted shocks and mounted them in standard upright position. Go enjoy your life
@@KiloWattRC lol sure, whatever you say...
Mmm R/C noob here, I’ve been mounting biking for years and this became a thing on higher end downhill/xc forks, tech borrowed from dirt bikes etc.
Thanks for the info Brou.
Now you have a heavier part moving up&down, lagging the movement of the suspension
Looking at your car at around 5:15 the rear shocks are inclined vertically with the highest part towards the rear of the car . If you added a longer screw and more spacers so the shock was leaning forward would this resist the squatting better? The shock would be more in line with the squatting force therefore stiffer . Imagine a sumo wrestler leaning forward instead of back . The leaning forward would resist the force better
Is that a thing!?.
I’m thinking this might work on a touring car!
Been seein’ this a lot in the drift community as well 👌🏼
maybe inverted is good for on road?
We where always taught sprung weight was bad 🤔 .
But glad your getting good results .
When I was racing back in the late 1990s and early 2000s some of the on-road awd sedan class racers did that... lowering the center of gravity???
Makes complete sense!!
Well, I race motorcycles and there's a reason every manufacturer runs inverted front forks. Very interesting to see it in rc racing. Well done.
I wonder what this will do for bashers like the arrma kraton ? If it’s even a good idea I feel like the shocks may break easier but I could be wrong
I think that the weight of the shocks is neglected for the center of gravity compared to other components. On the other hand, the additional weight of unsprung mass is negative.
We were doing this at least as early as the mid 80's. As always, it has its pros and cons.
I think your missing a few major things about suspension theory and setup... And for perspective, this is coming from someone who does shock valving on actual dirt bikes, snowmobiles, etc. As well as raced RC I the past.
With the shocks inverted, you just killed your rebound damping performance. You slowed it down due to the increase in unsprung mass. The tire will have harder time following the ground surface as a result. Ideally you want a controlled rebound so the tire doesn't impact surface but instead follows it to keep tire pressure on the ground.
Instead of doing this, I would instead try increasing your spring rate so you reduce the amount of preload for ride height to minimum. When you have lots of preload, while shock is rebounding and almost fully extended, there's still significant spring force as it tops out. A heavier spring with little to no preload instead has very little spring tension left at top of stroke. This would help reduce the weight transfer which is what your trying to reduce here. Higher spring rate = less weight transfer; damper itself does less work. Lower spring rate = more weight transfer, damper has to do more work to prevent bottoming out and etc.
The best thing to do here would be to slow down your rebound and therefore your weight transfer, but that also effects your compression damping too So a even better fix to the issue would be a different shock piston with shims or check balls to separate compression and rebound. That is how real shocks separate rebound and compression ports on the piston allowing way better control of all of this. MIP bypass paiotms are piston and shim kits and even Traxxas has metal shim kit that makes this work. This would allow you tune compression and rebound independently which really does wonders.
Note: A universal truth to suspension setup is you want your unsprung mass(weight not supported by suspension, I.E. wheels, hubs, suspension arms) to be as LOW AS POSSIBLE. You increased that greaty by flipping the shock. Previously the mass of fluid and shock body was hung and supported by shock tower making them sprung mass, while your shock shaft, eyelet, and spring we're unsprung mass. Unsprung mass makes very poor rebound performance, it's slows it down while also giving it momentum causing tire to impact the ground harder leading to bounce
If you got this far, yes my shock nerd, and yes that was a total involuntary info dump.
Look at the old motocross bikes. That’s how there shocks where. They changed it for a reason, I’m betting after a few years the Rc guys will decide to do the same.😊
Eh, I got inspired by this idea years ago because of inverted and non-inverted forks in the motorcycle world - but I wouldn't go comparing 2 & 4 wheel suspensions much beyond that, they have very VERY different requirements(and, frankly, motorcycle suspensions are pretty damn underdeveloped compared to 4 wheel vehicles - blows my mind that we don't have a variety of different front end designs on the market, everyone just running the same ol' forks).
Guess AE will have to make 2WD front-arms that would work with an inverted shock?
But dit it help.....
Or was it just diffrent?
The reason shocks were turned upside down was to reduce unsprung weight..
if you dont need to have them upside down.. turn them right side up.
Now you have HEVYER UNSPRUNG MASS....
Just heard you talked about it....
Its always a balance of searching the right setup
This highlights a potential hole in the market that I am surprised nobody has ever bothered to exploit. If it matters to the handling of a vehicle where we place the shock body, why not make it's placement easily adjustable? This wouldn't be hard...
we were doing this in the 80's
did this on 1987! 👍🍺🇬🇧
Read about unsprung weight. Then you will turn them the right way again….
In full size racing you only run shocks that are gas (nitrogen) charged, with the shock body bolted to the shock tower ..less unsprung weight. Oil filled shocks mount the way you just did it
looks at every off road full size racing rig and they are all oil filled with nitrogen gas bladders. Every single one has the shock body mounted to the frame. Why, less unsprung weight.
very interesting.
Has this method been tried on clay tracks or just carpet.
3:50 Is where he explains why it would be a bad idea to do this if you run on bumpy terrain.
The track conditions is smooth.thats why I asked the question.to the man who filmed the video
@@johnyakoobian2450 Then it makes no difference.
If you don't like me trying to answer your questions, then simply ignore me....
@@johnyakoobian2450 lol no wonder why ppl say the rc community is toxic.. smh. poor man child
@@hobbs37110 Dont mind him. I was wondering the same thing on a smooth clay. Im going to try it next practice
Pretty sure the companies doing all their R&D have thought of this and they don't do it for a reason.......but, thats just my opinion, I guess.......
Motorcycles. Inverted forks.
We used to do this in the 1980’s !! New trend lol 😂. We mainly did it to keep the piston in the oil , and we also had some very dodgy seals in those days :-).
Thanks for all you lot do
Been there done that long time ago. Don’t help racing unless perfectly smooth track.
hi，I'm interested in your video and I got some questions，how can I get in touch with you..
More unsprung mass and the inability to relieve air from the valves umm I’ll keep to the conventional as I’ve never had an issue setting up and tuning a car’s suspension!
Just a thought, anybody doing adjustable shocks with a knob instead of changing weight. Or the other thing im trying to make(for drag rc) a 1 way reed valve that closes 2 of the piston holes after compression to keep the rear sucked down
Put a thin flexible shim washer on the rebound side of the piston to reduce or close the holes on the piston during rebound. But flexes open on compression. Like a reed valve.
its weird that this a “new trend” we’ve been doing this for a while now in on road rc cars for ages now
Disappointed I never thought of this this is genius
Would of just boosted your ego.
I'm doing this to my actual car now
People have been doing this for a long time in rc oval racing. And it was even done with a few 1/10th stadium trucks in the early 2000s. It's not new it's just now getting popular.
Ah ha ok thats nice advise thanks TA/HB
Rock crawlers have been doing it for years and it reduces leaks
People have been trying this since the beginning of R/C. The shocks arent designed to be ran like that.
The way RC shocks are designed, they literally don't give a damn what way up they are. The piston is just a plastic disc with a couple holes in it - there aren't shims or anything to valve them in a sophisticated way like automotive style shocks, it's just a disc with holes sliding up & down inside a tube. They are absolutely dead nuts simple and damp basically the same in both directions(technically one side has the displacement of the rod and the other side doesn't, but that's a minor difference in the grand scheme). Honestly wish we could see more sophisticated options in the RC world but, honestly, I don't know if that's even viable(physics doesn't scale, so it isn't as simple as just scaling down a Fox desert racing shock or something), a disc with a couple holes might be offering as much "tuning granularity"(via oil weight) as we can get at this scale.
@@RyTrapp0 lmfao.. Ignorance is bliss..
@@stevefrench3564 lol, yup, that's what I though...
Anyone try this on dirt oval?
I'll tell you boys where your problem originates from - YOU'RE NOT RUNNING THOSE OFFROAD BUGGIES IN DIRT. About 15-20 years ago, everyone started trying to make offroad vehicles run better on clay and carpet. There's essentially no reason to even have such large suspension componentry on the track you're showing. You'd turn faster laps by running short arms on that vehicle to reduce the leverage on the damper and hence, reducing weight transfer.
I been flipping my shocks on touring cars and dirt oval for years dating back to 1990 on my custom works dominator and my losi jrx pro. This isn't new and it does work
I was about to make a similar comment. I remember my uncle ran his shocks upside down back in the mid 80's. Never knew the reason, but I was 6 or 7 so I didn't care.
A disadvantage would be more unsprung mass.
upside down isnt a new trend, sorry people been doing it since forever specially in the crawling world
Team Losi has been doing this for a number of eons
upside down shocks leak less but oil gets dirty faster. Other benefits are marginal at best. Do what works for you.
With every advantage, there's a disadvantage. Buy inverting the shocks you add a lot of unsprung weight. This will make the car less stable off jump's and in bumpy high speed situations. So on carpet with small jump's the inverted shocks will help.
street bikes did this years ago
Been doing this for years now all started with crawlers..
I bought a car off temu and it came with upside down shocks
My first and only purchase from Associated was a 1/24 scale Element Enduro. I simply cannot trust this company anymore..... pathetic
So u don’t need servo top plate and esc fan..😂
Motocross Kawasaki did it in 1990
Its simple, not a theory at all either man, it's xalled "droop"
It originated from motorcycles and dirt bikes
lol Its just strange and will be detrimental to the shock long term, dirt collecting on top of shock at boot at rod hole entry. it just looks odd.
Isn’t dirt always gonna fly by those openings ??? Not big of a deal it’s already exposed to the elements
@@mojojoji5493 you are upside down a bit different entry point posibility
@@mattster197 that would mean dirt would have to fly all the way up,
normal set up dirt would be flung from underneath. Moral of the story
Dirts gonna make stuff dirty regardless
@@mojojoji5493 think about it, You got dirt lying on top the piston now, much more likely to work in around the seal and affect the shaft. Would have to run boots for sure. IMO> end.
@@mattster197 imo racing very dusty tracks in Hawaii almost doesn’t matter just do ur normal maintenance and polish the shaft lol
This isn't new I was doing this 25 + years ago lol
We all know nothing was around in the world before 2000s lol I been racing rc on and off 40 years seen alot of stuff can and go
Oh no!
To bad it wont work on 1/8 buggys
Is the shocks too big interfering with the wheel?
Someone better bust out the mudboss bible and see if this is legal.
That's not new. I've been using inverted shocks on my RCs for many years.