Street Suspension [TECH CENTER]

Street Suspension [TECH CENTER]

I drive my short-course truck mostly on the street. How can I make it harder to flip over? If I take a corner any faster than about half throttle, it usually flips and really tears up the body.

As you’ve discovered, the soft, long-travel suspension that helps your truck in off -road conditions is a liability when you’ve got a lot of traction—and there’s no higher traction than a set of tall, soft off -road truck tires on pavement.  Thankfully, there are easy adjustments you can make that will allow you to corner at higher speeds without a rollover. Begin by moving the shocks farther out on the suspension arms and shock tower, if there are extra holes to work with.  is reduces the arms’ leverage on the shocks, making the suspension effectively stiffer.  is will reduce chassis roll, so the truck is not as quick to transfer weight to the outside wheels when cornering. Next, increase spring preload by adding a spacer above the shock spring (or by threading the collar down the shock body, depending on your truck’s setup). About 3 to 5mm should do the trick— the goal is to remove some of the suspension’s sag, not jack it up. Those are the easy adjustments; if you don’t mind a little more wrenching, you can put spacers inside the shocks to reduce their travel and lower the truck. If swaybars are offered for your truck (check your manual), these will also reduce the tendency to traction-roll.

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Moving the shocks farther out on the arms will help the chassis stay flatter in turns.

 

install_spacer

Install a spacer to reduce suspension sag, but don’t overdo it—a 3 to 5mm spacer is plenty.

 

swaybar_glow

Adding a swaybar (highlighted in green) will help the chassis stay flatter while cornering and reduce traction rolling.

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Updated: February 6, 2017 — 5:43 PM
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