How I ACR-ized my Gen 1 ... sort of

[Tom F&L GoR]

{Edited to include pix in text. Sorry for the large size.}

Like a lot of you, I wanted to lower and stiffen my '94. The choices seemed to be the Eibachs or expensive replacement shocks. If you're a DIY-er, persistent, and have access to a lathe, for about $400 you can do what I did. This works for a Gen 1, but not for a Gen 2...

First, take off the shock, remove the spring and remove the upper shock bushing.

Drill a 1/2 hole in the bottom and top shock eye. The upper one will be drilled through and tapped for a 5/16 UNC thread, the bottom one just drilled to the lower bushing.

Run a bolt into the threaded hole, chuck it in your lathe, and use a live center in the bottom hole. Turn down the upper shock eye until it's 2" diameter. It doesn't take off much metal.

That lets you slide the threaded height adjuster over the upper eye and onto the body.

<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by Tom, F&L GoR on 11-30-2002 at 10:51 AM</font>

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Part Two:

At the weld for the stock spring seat, cut a nice flat shoulder for the threaded tube to sit on.

Turn down the "cup" to 1.6" diameter and if needed, clean up the weld underneath. It will need to mate with the new upper spring seat.

Now you can assemble the shock and understand how it can't come undone if the spring unloads. The diaper pin keeps the upper spring seat pretty much centered on the shock shaft and the tie wraps keep the seat and spring together.

The whole thing together looks good.

The threaded body, with adjusting seat, upper seat, and pin are available as a kit for about $50 per shock from places like AFCO. Springs from Hypercoil are about $110/pair. It took me about an hour per shock to do the machine work. Add in time to remove and re-install, and then check corner weights.

I had the threaded body sit on the weld because I didn't want to cut the 0.030" groove for the snap ring. The shock body wall thickness is only 0.075" or so. It also exposes more to hold onto when adjusting the nut. Make sure the kit you buy is a nominal 2" inside diameter. Some dimensions may change depending on what coil-over kit you get. For a Gen 2, the rear shocks have forked feet, so you would have to find another way to put it in a lathe. I have two of those "feet" and if they unscrew on all Gen 2 shocks, I think you could cut the feet off and drill the hole for the live center in it. I will volunteer the two screw-on feet I have to anybody that wants them.

Thanks to Snake Bitten for the Gen 2 springs; didn't quite work out, but helped me figure it out. Thanks to Ken Adelberg for selling me parts so I had something to look at.

No, they're not on the car yet, but soon. Any questions, email me [email protected]

 

[malcoll]

So Tom.... how is this working out? I just found that one of my front shocks has a blown out seal...... so if I have to wait to reinstall everything... maybe I'll do this mod?

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

It's great! To do it properly, find someone with wheel scales so you can get the corners of the car to wiegh what you want - don't go by eye.

Mine was Gen 1 conversion, '96 is Gen 2 suspension? racecars on this board (look in supplier section) sells a kit or set that does something like this already.

http://vca2.viperclub.org/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=UBB24&amp;Number=556930&amp;page=0&amp;view=collapsed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=1

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Call these guys - they sell this mod as a service. They've done it for another pretty happy Viper owner.

Rick Myers-manager of performance vehicles 248-848-9200

 

[Early93Viper]

Call these guys - they sell this mod as a service. They've done it for another pretty happy Viper owner.

Rick Myers-manager of performance vehicles 248-848-9200

Is it still around $300 per shock? My only concern would be that the shocks would still be 12 years old and I am putting $1200 into them. Would it be better to just buy less expensive new shocks? I remember a post that had new coil overs for around 2k……..can’t seem to find it though.

Tom I wish I had your skill to just do it myself. But I had a hard enough time just adjusting my own shocks.

 

[Early93Viper]

What about these?

http://partsrack.blastmart.com/customer/product.php?productid=1307&amp;cat=149&amp;page=1

 

[Cal Cobra]

1996 RT/10 is Gen2 chassis &amp; suspension.

Cal

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Early, give them a call. I thought it was pretty cheap, considering the parts you have to buy (springs, adjustable body, spring hat) were around $150-$200 ish. If it were $300 each, that's only $100 labor per shock. Ain't gonna get any cheaper.

The ones at PartsRack are Gen 2- there's no eye at the bottom of the rear shocks.