strut & shock question for the racers ... Options

[SirAndy]

i got a mid '80s carrera frontend with the black struts, so i'm assuming i've got the stock 911 boge shocks.

the car is lowered quite a bit and i was hitting the 3-piece rubber stops frequently.
i was told i could safely cut the rubber stop down to 2 pieces, which i did and it helped quite a bit, adding more shock travel.

but i still bottom out occasionally on a larger bump etc.

so, my question is, for the boge shocks, can i safely remove a second piece from the rubber stop and run a one piece stop only ???
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/idea.gif) Andy

[groot]

QUOTE (Racer Chris @ Feb 19 2006, 02:41 PM)

You can run without any rubber at all ... as long as you have something on the shaft that is thick enough to prevent the shock from bottoming out internally.  Race parts suppliers like Pegasus sell plastic disks with a slot and a hole in the center that you can stack on the shock for this purpose.  If you actually collapse the shock to the point that the disks are engaged the spring rate will rise suddenly instead of gradually like with the stock bump rubbers.

I respectfully disagree, Chris.

Some dampers have internal bump stops (very few actually) and then you can run without external bump stops ... and the plastic disk does not count as far as I'm concerned, because it's too thin.

Here's why.... Go look at a cut-away view of a twin-tube damper (which is what your front strut is) on the Koni website. Wihtout a bump stop you will crash the piston (located on the rod) into the base cage, ruining the damper. You can easily screw up a mono-tube, too (which some of you may run in the rear). But the piston crashes into the floating piston.

Another reason to use bump stops... and long ones... is to raise the spring rate more gradually, which helps the tires do their job. For an example of why this is required, check out that picture of Sir Andy's car on 2 wheels.