XRAY - Model racing cars

Couple of questions on shocks – my ultimate objective is to convert the shocks that came with the T3’12 kit to alloy shocks

1. Does the Alloy shock set, part no. 308302-O, come with “standard”(if such a thing exists) shafts or with part no. 308362 "Hardened short shafts”? I should know as I have 2 sets of alloys already, but I don’t!

2. If the Alloy set comes with the hardened shafts – are these also used in the kit plastic shock set

3. If I have the right shafts do I just need to buy part no. 308322 “ Alloy shock bodies” to convert the shocks to the same as the Alloy shock set?

4. From an aesthetics perspective does part no. 308322 come with orange or silver “bottom caps”?

Bump
Hi Martin and colleagues; some comments on this would be appreciated - I want to get my '12 on the road .

Hi Yellowshark,

The alloy shock set you are after is part number 308306-O and comes in pairs.

To answer your questions...

The only carry over parts between the alloy shocks and the plastic shocks are the alloy top cap, upper and lower plastic mountings, bladders and foams. The shafts are different, as are the pistons and O-rings etc.

Hope this helps,

Phil Chambers
Team XRAY UK

Just as an aside with regard to the alooy shocks.

I only recently discovered that the alloy shock pistons have 1.1mm holes, where the standard plastic versions use 1.0mm holes.

Bare that in mind if you convert over.

Does anyone know what the rough equivalent oil is if the plastic versions had 450 oil, what do the alloy versions need?

I only can find part #308362 (hardened shock shafts) so I assume they're all hardened.

Regarding the oil it should be round about 500-550cst. But you can't say this clearly as you can't setup shocks with different numbers or sizes of holes working identically by using different oils in them. Because of this you have the setup options "piston" and "oil". At a certain piston speed they might be close to identical but as soon as the piston speeds differ, the shocks start to perform different compared to each other.

Other than looks, would there be a reason to switch to the alloy shocks on the T3 '12? I'm thinking weight would be a reason to stick with the stock shocks.

Swapped to the Alloy shocks about 2 years ago. Definitely a better ride on our track, quite bumpy; smoother more stable and doing some back to back testing, not a huge amount, the alloy shocks were returning better lap times, about .2 to .3 secs if I recall correctly. To be honest I never thought about a weight difference - was it 1500gms when I swapped I ask myself? But the improvement was noticeable which is why I was preparded to forego the adjustability of the kit shocks

Thanks for your comments guys, most useful

Phil yes you are right, part no. for the alloy shock set is 308306-O; sorry for the typo.
I am being a bit lazy here but I do not want to open the packet of the kit shocks until I have resolved this in case I want to sell them on. When you say the pistons are different, is this just the size of the holes or is the material different?
On the same lines, Skiddens, when I swapped from plastic to alloy two years back I set the combination of size and number of holes so they were all but dammit the same as I had with the kit shocks in total; within .2 in total if I recall correctly which was less than 10% so I kept the oil the same.

Phil do you know how the shafts differ? Like Greenwing I could only find part no.308362 for shafts and therefore was hoping that they were all hardened, ie the same. Also part no 308302-O for the kit shocks you buy separately states
“Shock rods are specially hardened to guarantee long life and maximum strength, and are polished for super-smooth operation.”

This seems to suggest in terms of hardness they are the same as the alloy shocks and part no. 308362 – could it be that the shafts supplied with the car kit are lower quality?


62

Yellowshark,

The plastic shocks use a different shape piston, they are longer and have a shoulder. The shafts have a machined flat on them and the hole on the pistons replicate this which stops them twisting. The E clip spacing is also much greater than on the alloy shafts.

The alloy shocks use a much lower profile piston with no shoulder, there is no machined flat on the shaft and the E clip spacing is much closer together.

Here is a link to the shafts for the alloy shocks...



And the alloy shock manual...

Thanks Phil. I didn't see part #308363. I have them on order and am excited how they will perform.

Thanks for clearing it all up Phil - looks like I wil be transferring the alu shocks from the 009 then