NEW PRODUCT RELEASE!!!

Upgrade your 4th Gen F-Body suspension for optimum street to race performance with our double adjustable shock package. This package maintains the OEM mounting locations to give you a quality street ride but the ability to tune to track conditions. With our experienced and tested shock tune and wrapped in AFCO Racing shock technology, you are ready to out perform some of the best.

Click link below to pick up yours today!
http://www.shop.hoosierpe.com/4th-Gen-Fbod...y-Shock-Kit.htm

(IMG:http://www.shop.hoosierpe.com/images/1451402338751-1348958132.jpeg)

Thank you for your time,
Jason Massey
General Manager
(260) 245-0352 | info@hoosierpe.com
www.facebook.com/hoosierpe

How does this kit differ from the UMI/Strano/Afco set up they are offering soon??

Did you do testing as extensivly as they supposedly have done as to the valving for various f body; weights/spring rate spreads/adjustment ranges/set ups/etc.???

This post has been edited by dailydriver: Jan 6 2016, 12:20 AM

I'm not sure what the complete make up of the Strano/UMI/Afco setup is, so there I will have to speculate a bit until they introduce their setup. I suspect the front suspension will be offered as a coil over conversion. That is, the front upper spring/shock mount is removed and replace with a bracket assembly that accepts a solid spherical heim style upper mount on the shock. I'm not a big fan of solid mount (coil over conversions) for street cars that are also track driven or auto-crossed. I was a ride development and systems engineer at GM's Delphi division and I was the lead developer on many of their semi-active suspension systems. The OEMs put a lot of time and money in the development of their suspension mounting systems, a key component to good ride quality and isolation is the dual-path upper shock or strut mounts. Dual-path implies a separate mounting and isolation system or path for the shock or strut rod and another for the coil spring. The springs and shocks input drastically different loads and frequencies into the vehicle's body and require very different designs to provide the correct amount of isolation. When you jump into the coil over design you are down to a single path for both the shock and spring loads and this is typically the solid spherical heim joint. Even if the shock damping and spring rates were the same as OEM, the coil over conversion would drive a lot more harshness and noise into the car. The heims are typically not sealed and over time will start to wear and you will pick up more rattles in the car.

Our approach has been to focus on the Pro Touring and Auto-X crowd where their cars see a lot of street time and we want to give them the best possible ride on the street and significant damping adjustment range to allow optimal performance on the track. To achieve this, we retained the OEM dual-path top shock mount and designed a custom adjustable tenon adapter for the Afco shock rod that then fits into the OEM upper shock mount. I believe we are the only performance shop offering this unique configuration that keeps the rebound adjustment in shock rod near piston. I have been auto-crossing for over 12 years and have campaigned 4th Gen TAs for the last 8 years. With my GM ride development experience, I have selected a custom spring and sway bar combination that yields a very balanced vehicle in the corners and developed our own valving for the Afco shocks. We ran this combination this past year and had over 35 auto-cross and muscle car challenge events logged. What is really impressive is how responsive the car is to a couple clicks of rebound or compression, particularly at the rear of the car. It really lets you fine tune the balance and lets you get the power down sooner as you exit the corners. I had the fastest auto-cross time in the 2015 Motor State Challenge giving me the manufacturer's win for the weekend. Won the SCCA Great Lakes Division championship for the new CAM-C class and almost won the auto-x portion at the Midwest Muscle Car Challenge had I not blown the stock LS1 on the last corner of the very last run of the day. The setup is a top performer and we received all sorts of comments from people who can't believe how well this 15 year old chassis was performing.

I suspect both the Strano/UMI and our HPE packages will/can have similar track performance. The biggest difference will be with the on street ride quality where our package should shine. If you exclude the big shock suppliers who supply OEM and aftermarket shocks (like a Bilstein), I believe I am the only aftermarket shock developer with OEM ride development and extensive shock tuning experience (13 years with GM's Delphi). I know Kyle and Stacey Tucker of Detroit Speed had development careers at GM, but I'm not sure how much shock tuning they may have done. Most of the other aftermarket shock manufacturers have grown out of dedicated racing programs and most do not have a good grasp of shock tuning for street cars or dual purpose cars. Our 2000 TA is my wife's daily driver during the summer months and she logs about 50 miles a day of highway and city streets. She gets annoyed when we have the car down for development or repairs and doesn't like driving anything else.

Sorry for the lengthy response. I'm pretty passionate about shocks and ride development if you hadn't noticed. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will do my best to answer them.

John

This post has been edited by HoosierPE: Jan 7 2016, 05:44 AM

THANK YOU!! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/2thumbs.gif)

I will wait until the other Afco set ups are out and about, and then compare them to your set up to see which would give the desired results with the least horrid road NVH/knocking.

I realize that EVERYTHING is a compromise, and that I will give up some ultimate response with the OEM style, more rubber isolated set ups due to flex, but then again, IF they don't wear as quickly, or avoid setting off the engine's knock sensors (don't laugh, I WAS actually getting some knock retard with my old LG G2 Bilstein coilover set up with spherical bearings on both ends!!), when used on our bombed out roads, they do me no good. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)