Vintage/historic FF1600 dampers
I’m ready to try something different in the way of dampers for my 1970 Caldwell D9. These cars were said to have been based on the Merlyn Mk11. So, what brand and model damper have you had good results with? With the amount of FF historic racing going on in England, I’m very interested in hearing what’s popular there.
Last edited by ffhillclimber; 10.14.18 at 7:47 PM.
If your dampers are good, Why not try tuning with modern bump rubbers first.?
Eric - My limited understanding would say that bump rubbers are a way of tuning the spring rates, not changing the damping characteristics. Would you care to elaborate a bit more? Always looking to learn...Originally Posted by EricP
- Gerhard
Bump rubbers are self damping which means they work a lot different than springs. The biggest issue here is that to make a shock really work well you have to move the piston through the oil in the shock. Vintage cars such as the D9 have very low motion ratios. That means they do not move the shock piston through the oil very fast.
Eric's advise is spot on. Install some good bump rubbers. My suggestion is Dynamics. Get them from Carl Haas Auto.
I owned and drove a D9 when it was supposedly the new, hot setup. All I can say is that Skip Barber was a fantastic driver and he certainly could carry a car. But I did learn a lot about car setup trying to get that car comfortable.. Best of luck.
What he said...
Data
Here is a bit of info. Ryan at Haas was extremely helpful.
The secret to getting a Z10 to handle really well was getting the bump stops setup just right at the front. Years later I used bump stops in the rear of cars to help get the rear of the car to grip up and track over rough sections of a track, like turn one and two at St Petersburg, FL.
I learned to use bump stops from a well known Indy car driver. He said it was the an important tuning trick at Indianapolis when they went to rear engine cars. He had driven both roadsters and rear engine cars.
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