I have to say, I'm using Ohlin Flag-S's right now, revalved to 10k/8k (which are stock DFV spring rates).


I understand now why people strive for accurate 2 way adjustable shocks. I found that I have a bit more roll than I like, in which during autocross means the car loads constantly shifts significantly more weight to one side to another. The only way for me to really cure the issue would be to increase spring rates, but then I'd have to revalve my shocks (which I just did recently) and it gets pricey.

The inability for me to custom set-up my dampers make it a bit of a downer for me.

However, they are VERY comfortable shocks. I recommend them for weekend warriors. (albeit the price for them are a bit high)

**disclaimer: do let me know if there's a range where I can stiffen/loosen my spring rates without the requirement of a revalve. (e.g. 10/8 to 12/10? without revalve)

 

If they are valved for 10/8 you can probably go up to 12/10 without issues although you'll lose a bit of the adjustment range.

 

As Steve said, for customers that need a little more spring we recommend moving the front springs to the rear and going 650 in the front. The shocks can handle it, but you will most likely need to stay on the 10 (out of 30) stiffest settings to reduce wear on the valving. Also, you can either stiffen the sway bar (I know stiffer springs are the better way to do it but it helps) or even simply run the shock on stiffer dampening to reduce roll.

That being said, we dont recommend going too stiff. Some body roll is OK. You actually loose grip by going to stiff and the car "skates". For Autocross or smoother tracks you can obviously go stiffer, but in general I think 700+ is too stiff for a car that weighs ~2600lbs.

The fastest time Attack Front Engine, Rear Drive car in the world only uses 12/10KG. Everyone notes his car does roll, but he keeps setting records in Japan and Australia. There is a fine line between too stiff and just right. The car should roll a little to load the tire. Even in Formula 1, many cars are softening rates to improve grip.

Patrick

 

@rdk- Your car has VERY low rates for auto-x applications most likely. As you said it's a trade off between comfort and handling, but you can go pretty high in rate and still have a decent weekend warrior with the right shock. You mention too much weight transfers. The problem with soft spring rates isn't how much weight is transferred its how quickly the weight is transferred. In isolation, a slow tight turn likes soft rates (generally gives the car more grip). But in auto-x your often throwing your car back and forth from turn to turn and with softer suspension you'll have trouble getting the car to settle before the next turn. Some of the faster auto-x guys here have insanely high spring rates between their ASBs and spring/ shocks (like 1500lbs+ per corner).

@patrick- I think that your Japanese time attack car and F1 examples are not to relevant to our s2ks. SO MANY factors there. But I will say all the fastest socal TT s2ks have 900lb springs. Which may well be to stiff for some tracks and these cars are not insanely light like some of the builds on this forum.

 

In my experience, the 1 way shock limits you on springs; you fall out of critical damping fairly easily because with a stiffer spring, you typically run less compression and more rebound damping. YMMV.

 

I've run the Ohlins in the stock class for several years now. I bought them used and got a great deal on them, so my justification could have been a little different.

My co-driver and I spent about 4 races to finally find the correct setting we both liked. They are consistant and I've not had any issues with them so far. I've driven some DA Penskes and couldn't really tell a difference. I'm not a national caliber driver, but I've had a few FTDs, and have several National guys in my region.

Would I like to have the other adjustment? YES. But at this point my skill level needs to improve before buying another shock.

 

@rdk- Your car has VERY low rates for auto-x applications most likely. As you said it's a trade off between comfort and handling, but you can go pretty high in rate and still have a decent weekend warrior with the right shock. You mention too much weight transfers. The problem with soft spring rates isn't how much weight is transferred its how quickly the weight is transferred. In isolation, a slow tight turn likes soft rates (generally gives the car more grip). But in auto-x your often throwing your car back and forth from turn to turn and with softer suspension you'll have trouble getting the car to settle before the next turn. Some of the faster auto-x guys here have insanely high spring rates between their ASBs and spring/ shocks (like 1500lbs+ per corner).

@patrick- I think that your Japanese time attack car and F1 examples are not to relevant to our s2ks. SO MANY factors there. But I will say all the fastest socal TT s2ks have 900lb springs. Which may well be to stiff for some tracks and these cars are not insanely light like some of the builds on this forum.
[/quote]

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty new to the autox world, heck to the car even. Just recently won the novice class slush series in Vancouver. My shocks feels pretty good autox in the wet, but I definitely don't seem to enjoy it as much in the dry. I'm hoping to put some slightly stiffer springs on them. However, already sitting at 16/16 from full stiff, I'm a bit afraid that stiffening the springs would require me to go max stiff and still won't get the right settings for damping. As I'm getting used to the car I find that I'm enjoying the stiffer ride (more likely because I enjoy the responsive car than back breaking daily drives)

Regardless, I still believe Ohlins provide great dampers. However, with it being single adjustable at that price point, it makes it for a hefty investment with not a lot of range for future proofing growth in driver skills and knowledge. Like someone said above, improve the nut behind the wheel first - but as the driver improves and reads into the knowledge of suspension geometry, there are better alternatives for shocks at that price point that would let you tune it to the level of your growth. Moreover, as driver skills grow, driver preferences also develops. The more I learnt about my car and the shocks, the more I wish I bought something that's dual adjustable so I can fiddle around with the car to have the car exactly how I like it.

To take a bigger chunk of the market share from KW line, I believe Ohlins need to either drop the price point slightly or provide dual adjustability to their DFV line. I believe if it's dual adjustable, people would flock to buy them over KWV3s. You can't really compare Moton/AST/Penske using DFVs, since I believe that's where TTX line is designed to compete against. (which I drool over everyday)

PS: I don't know how the shock dyno on the DFVs look, but the Flag-S is a linear shock. So it's not "the most advanced" out there. (They are old shocks though). If DFVs are digressive they'd be a lot more appealing as well.

PSS: They need to shorten the Flag-S shock body. My rears are dropped to the lowest available groove and I'm still basically at stock height! (maybe 1/2" drop) [this is where you can see the ohlin flag-s is really track oriented *i believe]

 

I'd probably go to the 12/10 and then also go to a pretty stiff set of sways if you can.

For autocross I consider my car "soft" and I'm 800F/700R lb/in (I have penske shocks). I do run softer sway bars than most in the autox world though, my front is 700 lb/in and my rear is 140 lb/in.

Urge's points about going too stiff don't apply until you're up in the 900 or 1000 lb/in range or higher, IMO. For autocross, I could see a high mechanical grip setup with 600 or 650 lb/in springs doing well with sway bars similar to mine but any lower than that and for sure you're too soft to be ideal.

This is for autocross, on the track lower spring rates maybe could work but I don't have as much experience with that. I still think springs more in the range of what I have would be better even for that.

 

@rdk- Your car has VERY low rates for auto-x applications most likely. As you said it's a trade off between comfort and handling, but you can go pretty high in rate and still have a decent weekend warrior with the right shock. You mention too much weight transfers. The problem with soft spring rates isn't how much weight is transferred its how quickly the weight is transferred. In isolation, a slow tight turn likes soft rates (generally gives the car more grip). But in auto-x your often throwing your car back and forth from turn to turn and with softer suspension you'll have trouble getting the car to settle before the next turn. Some of the faster auto-x guys here have insanely high spring rates between their ASBs and spring/ shocks (like 1500lbs+ per corner).

@patrick- I think that your Japanese time attack car and F1 examples are not to relevant to our s2ks. SO MANY factors there. But I will say all the fastest socal TT s2ks have 900lb springs. Which may well be to stiff for some tracks and these cars are not insanely light like some of the builds on this forum.
[/quote]

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty new to the autox world, heck to the car even. Just recently won the novice class slush series in Vancouver. My shocks feels pretty good autox in the wet, but I definitely don't seem to enjoy it as much in the dry. I'm hoping to put some slightly stiffer springs on them. However, already sitting at 16/16 from full stiff, I'm a bit afraid that stiffening the springs would require me to go max stiff and still won't get the right settings for damping. As I'm getting used to the car I find that I'm enjoying the stiffer ride (more likely because I enjoy the responsive car than back breaking daily drives)

Regardless, I still believe Ohlins provide great dampers. However, with it being single adjustable at that price point, it makes it for a hefty investment with not a lot of range for future proofing growth in driver skills and knowledge. Like someone said above, improve the nut behind the wheel first - but as the driver improves and reads into the knowledge of suspension geometry, there are better alternatives for shocks at that price point that would let you tune it to the level of your growth. Moreover, as driver skills grow, driver preferences also develops. The more I learnt about my car and the shocks, the more I wish I bought something that's dual adjustable so I can fiddle around with the car to have the car exactly how I like it.

To take a bigger chunk of the market share from KW line, I believe Ohlins need to either drop the price point slightly or provide dual adjustability to their DFV line. I believe if it's dual adjustable, people would flock to buy them over KWV3s. You can't really compare Moton/AST/Penske using DFVs, since I believe that's where TTX line is designed to compete against. (which I drool over everyday)

PS: I don't know how the shock dyno on the DFVs look, but the Flag-S is a linear shock. So it's not "the most advanced" out there. (They are old shocks though). If DFVs are digressive they'd be a lot more appealing as well.

PSS: They need to shorten the Flag-S shock body. My rears are dropped to the lowest available groove and I'm still basically at stock height! (maybe 1/2" drop) [this is where you can see the ohlin flag-s is really track oriented *i believe]
[/quote]

First, I love all the positive feedback and comments, despite some differing philosophies.

We focus on engine building but are quickly building up data on suspension and have sold a lot of DFVs and TTX in the last year, run both on our shop car in addition to Motons for 2 years before that. Most of the posters have much more suspension experience than us personally, but we do record a lot of feedback and data from our customers.

The DFVs are linear on the shock dyno for the slow speed path, but that is all a shock dyno can really test. You can start to see the High Speed path kick in, but you never see the Super High speed Path the DFV gets its name from. The shock dyno can not react fast enough to get into that valving. That is what gave me the confidence I felt over larger bumps or really hard bumps at speed. The car simply recovered so well. Again, may not be seen during Autocross.

The DFV really does have some unique valving that makes them perform with much more expensive shocks. Yes they are expensive for a one way, but what they give up in adjustability, they make up for in valving and quality. Ask anyone who rebuilds them, the DFV component tolerance are better than other 4-5K shocks and they typically last a lot longer than other more expensive shock.

Obviously there are many other variables, but I know several AutoCrossers running DFV that can compete with the National guys who run JRZ & Motons. One of our customer has consistent FTD now over National guys with high end suspension. DFVs are a little soft and again, single adjustable but valving/damping is in a higher class. DFVs simply provide Grip and stability over a wide range of racing that makes drives confident.

Again, love all the feedback. We are taking notes too. Patrick

 

Looks like there was a huge price drop on these. Anything new in the works to justify it? ?