Help! Baja King sliding like crazy!

[El Mexican 1]

I recently swapped the oil-filled shocks from a TA03R to my Baja King, which comes with un damped coil-over friction ones. The problem now is that the King slides and fishtails insanely and has a lot of trouble getting any grip, which didn’t happen with the stock shocks.

The new ones I installed have red springs (soft) in the front of the car and yellow (medium) in the rear. I assume the oil that comes in the TA03R is of the standard 40w variety since there is no indication on the bottle. The car is just used running in a street outside the house and has a 13x2 motor.

Would you recommend:

a) changing the shocks oil to a lighter one? Maybe to 10w to achieve more damping action?

installing ball diffs in both front and rear gearboxes to get more traction?

c) change the rear shock’s springs to a softer kind?

d) go back to the stock dampers?

e) any other recommendation?!

(Changing tires is out of the question. There are no soft or foam tires that fit the wheel of the Baja King in Mexico and you really, really don’t want to order something from an online store for one simple reason: you’ll never see the item you purchased. Customs will retain and disappear it. The Super Gripper included in the kit ones will have to do).

A million thanks!

[BalmyBaldwin 0]

Try softening up the rear end e.g. softer springs, and less damping. that should give you better traction at the rear. You could also harden the front end which would reduce front end grip, and help balance the car (but doing this too much will mean your car will behave very strangely indeed.)

Not sure if you can adjust rear toe-in on the Baja King, but if you can, give it about 1-2 degrees of toe in.

[sosidge 624]

Have a feel of the suspension, just by compressing it by hand - does it feel much stiffer than the kit settings, and is the damping too heavy, does it take too long for the suspension to lift back up to its standard position?

I expect the TA03 is running with pretty heavy oil, and small-hole pistons, whereas the buggy would like large hole pistons, and a lighter oil. The springs may be too stiff, try fitting the kit ones (I thought they were the same diameter?).

What about shock length? The TA03 shocks may be built up shorter than the Baja versions - remove any internal spacers to get them the same length, and add long shock ends as well if required. Too little suspension travel on a buggy will reduce grip.

Once you've got the settings right, the oil shocks will be much better.

[ideal2k 3]

quote:

Originally posted by sosidge

What about shock length? The TA03 shocks may be built up shorter than the Baja versions - remove any internal spacers to get them the same length, and add long shock ends as well if required. Too little suspension travel on a buggy will reduce grip.

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What I think is happening is that the shocks are too short, and then when he hits the throttle the back end of the car goes down a little, and touches the ground - and hoopla you have no grip on the rear end.

That has happened before, you know

Open up the shocks and remove the internal spacers.

[El Mexican 1]

Yes, all of you guys are correct. The shocks on the TA03R are a little shorter than the coil-springs in the Baja. I think one problem is the holes used in the pistons: the TA03R uses the dish with just one hole, so I´ll try using the 3 holed one and largening them.

Thanks a million everyone!

[WillyChang 1814]

You could either:

1) swap the front (softer) springs with the rear. Softer = more grip.

or

2) just put your friction shocks' silver springs onto the oil shocks.

On any new ride I'd usually try with equal springs all round first, before attempting any fancy tuning with different springs F/R.

[El Mexican 1]

Yes, thats probably the most sensible decision, Mr. Chang. I´ll get to it. Thanks!

[aaronmihe(2) 0]

On my Baja Champ I run the TA03 oilers with the 3 hole pistons, the soft oil as supplied with most kits and the orginal Baja springs.

The shocks are built to max length and give 16mm of travel. overall the ****** is very driveable on rough ground although beeach (hard sand) and smoother surfaces shoudl have it set a little lower to reduce wear on the drive shafts.