Broken Varishock

[NickChassisworks]

The most likely scenario is since the spring is both to long and to soft it is over compressed and has allot of stored energy, like you might set a front drag shock up. Now you’re driving the car with all this stored spring energy and every time you take a corner the car has excessive body roll. Meaning one spring compresses easily, for lack of rate, and the other releases the stored energy real hard over extending the shock. When you over extend a shock enough times you can blow shocks apart.
Behind the closure nut is a curved plate called the rebound plate. The curvature of this plate is what loads the closure nut and keeps it tight. When you over extend the shock the piston hits the back side of this rebound plate. When the rebound plate gets hit enough it starts to flatten out thus unloading the closure nut and allowing it to back out and eventually the shock comes apart. This is, at this point, speculation. Until we see the shocks it’s hard to say exactly what happened.
This system uses a 12” long 200lb spring, on average. I am the VariShock guy at Chassisworks, meaning anything that comes up VariShock comes through me and I have never seen a damaged shock body from a flexing spring, but I am glad to look into that issue. As far as shock angles our cantilever system for Mustang lays almost flat, and virtually every triangulated system uses an angled shock for proper Pro-Touring performance.
Call me and we can get you an RMA to have both shocks looked at and repaired. I will even warranty the damaged shock for you, but we need to look at the numbers on shock and spring lengths both compressed and fully extended. (See attached work sheet)

(916)290-7612 Nick Spinelli

[dhutton]

Thanks to Nick for offering to repair and upgrade both of my shocks. And thanks to Frank for calling Chassisworks and asking them to take care of me. Great customer service on all sides.

I will post an update once the new shocks and the recommended 200 pound (assuming that is what the measurements above call for) springs are installed.

[ProdigyCustoms]

Call me and we can get you an RMA to have both shocks looked at and repaired. I will even warranty the damaged shock for you, but we need to look at the numbers on shock and spring lengths both compressed and fully extended. (See attached work sheet)

(916)290-7612 Nick Spinelli

INCREDIBLE customer service. I knew when I called you that you would help. But to warranty a 3 year old shock that most likely had a incorrect spring cause the damge.............. pretty damn cool!

You just reinforced again why we proudly promote your Chris Alston Products!!

[MoparCar]

NickChassisworks
Way to go! Nice customer service. Great to see you guys going beyond.

[David Pozzi]

NickChassisworks
Thanks for helping a member.

Mary has the Varishocks and loves them. She's put a lot of miles on them with no issues at all.
David

[ArtosDracon]

Thanks for putting some math to this. Does this analysis take the angle of the shock into account?

I don't know what the shock angles are like, however it wouldn't really effect the spring issue in pure bump/droop situation, strictly in roll.

[ArtosDracon]

Wow, great to see this kind of customer service, I think I just decided on what shocks to use on my forthcoming projects.

[Bow Tie 67]

Nicks the man, I spoke at length with him last year about what I was doing. My car has never handled better, he has first hand experience racing.

[JRouche]

I love it Nick!!! Wanna know how many new customers you gained? Prolly more then you care about. Cause from the sounds of it you are more concerned about the costumers you ALREADY have. THATS a sign of a great company. And ummm, they happen to put out some decent products too. Imagine that... Good looking out. JR

[dhutton]

CA turned my shocks around very quickly. They received them on a Thursday and I had them back on the following Tuesday. I just made the measurements and calculation in the above pdf and came up with spring rates of 233 pounds for street and 186 pounds for handling. I used the original 175 pound springs to do the measurements. I think I will go with 225 pound springs since that will give me slightly higher ride height and a little more available compression to deal with the poor roads here. I'll post another update once they are installed.

Thanks again Nick and Frank.

[dhutton]

I've had the 225 pound springs installed for a couple of weeks now. The difference is like night and day. Much smoother ride without the high spring preload. It's interesting that I had the same poor ride with the 175 pound springs because I also had to run close to the max amount of preload on those springs to get the shock to the specified length. With the 225 pounds springs I have no more that a half inch of adjustment on them. I have a similar situation with the front coilovers, no preload,and I now think that is why it rides so well.

Thanks again to Frank and Nick for their help. These problems were of my making and it was above and beyond for them to step up and help me out. Nick's calculations for spring rate were right on the mark.

[ProdigyCustoms]

Another happy ending! Thank you Don for all your business.