Hydraulic Bumpstops

Anyone have a good resource to learn about these/the concept behind them?

I was told by someone that they are "delicate", which surprised me as their purpose seems anything but. I was under the impression most people at the front run them?

http://www.kingshocks.com/products/options/ibp-internal-bypass/ Different application and stuff but same basic idea, or at least that's one implementation - Bos calls one of their systems a "needle hydraulic bumpstop" and I'd bet money it's the same thing. Another implementation I've seen patents for is to have sort of a second floater piston at the end of the shock body, spring loaded and with some ports, that the main piston/rod just sorta bonks into. The needle style jobbies would let you do more with position sensitivity though, as long as the needle doesn't miss the hole, but I guess the other style could give you some external fiddly knobs. We all know how important knobs are, right?

Another cool thing that Bos has is a setup to "see" when the wheel isn't on the ground and open the bleed ports up to release the rebound circuit and let the wheel come down. Basically just a method of having the wheel platform have a little bit of lengthwise play compared to the spring platform, and it pulling down on the clicker when there's not weight forcing the wheel platform into the spring platform.

Fantastically cool stuff is out there if you like to geek out on the stuff and can figure out names to look up patents under... but unless you've got megabux to pay someone for the stuff, not all that useful.

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mekilljoydammit
Another cool thing that Bos has is a setup to "see" when the wheel isn't on the ground and open the bleed ports up to release the rebound circuit and let the wheel come down. Basically just a method of having the wheel platform have a little bit of lengthwise play compared to the spring platform, and it pulling down on the clicker when there's not weight forcing the wheel platform into the spring platform.

I'd been wondering how they did that... always assumed it was some sort of inertial thing. Neat stuff.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Yeah, there's lots of cool stuff that's doable inside shock absorbers - I especially like Penske's regressive piston designs, and Dynamic's DSSV spool valve dealies. None of it's exactly *cheap* though, and it's all covered by some patent or another even if you could get it to work.

(... pay no attention to the homebuilt shock dyno project in my barn...)

Have a look at this AV

Bumpstops

offroaders have been using them for years to eliminate the harsh axle action at the end of a long suspension travel.

Where you would try and mount them to a car with A arms and a relatively small travel arc will be the question.

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Yes, it's a Ranger.
Xr4Ti, it is rwd and was made in Germany.

Yeah, the ones that the high buck rally coilovers use are integrated into the existing oilybits.

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mekilljoydammit
Yeah, the ones that the high buck rally coilovers use are integrated into the existing oilybits.

Yes, this is what I was referring to.

I have a pretty good basic understanding of their workings, but the main portion of my question is how/why are they "delicate" as he told me.

I need good, strong suspension. Finicky crap that isn't consistent gets a pass.