CrawlinPepper

What is the point of having shocks with air reservoirs? Is it more of a comfort thing or climbing? Just curious.

holycaveman

If you are talking "remote reservoirs" this is why they are better.

Normal shocks use an emulsion type of system. This is where the air and oil is mixed and flows through the valving. Simple system .

Remote reservoir shocks separate the air from oil. Good systems use nitrogen, which is only more consistent than air. When you separate the oil from the air you get much better control of your dampening forces. Its also is more adjustable. And you can service the shock, and rebuild it rather than replace it. You can change the oil viscosity as well as the internal valving. Very tunable.

SeriousOffroad

Remote reservoir shocks run cooler because of the increased oil volume. The cooler the shock, the less fade.

CrawlinPepper

I see, thanks for clearing that up. I was always curious what the big deal was. Would you say more for street use or heavy offroading (O/R is what I'm assuming)?

holycaveman

In my op its not worth it to get them for street usage.

CrawlinPepper

Cool beanz, thanks.

ktmracer419

98% of all wheelers will never get their shocks hot enough to experience significant shock fade.

but they do look cooler...

holycaveman

Yea, I forgot about the cool factor... GO FOR IT

Then if you want you can race score, where they actually use the shocks to their potential.

Lead Foot

This isnt 100% accurate. Yes there is a little more oil in the complete shock assembly but that alone isn't what allows the shock to run cooler and reduce fade. If it was ONLY for the extra oil volume then why is there another piston in the reservoir?

Like touched on in another post, the purpose is to seperate the air (nitrogen) from the oil. When a shock starts compressing and rebounding really fast the oil flowing through the small valve orfices at higher speeds causes friction (heat) and cavitation. Cavitation is where the air bubbles in the oil seperate and/or foam. Since air flows through a small orfice alot easier then oil this causes your valving to vary through out stroke and decrease the dampening consistency/efficiency. This makes your shocks feel sluggish and unpredictable.

By seperating the charged nitrogen from the oil, a big amount of this cavitation is reduced and the shock can continue to preform has designed through harsher conditions.

93XJLI

You don't need a remote resi to separate the oil and gas.

SeriousOffroad

pg. 19, http://cart.bilsteinus.com/pdfs/off-road.pdf

Lead Foot

I stand by my statement and detailed explanation. Oil capacity ALONE is not the ONLY reason or even the MAIN reason that remote reservoirs were designed and currently used today in the offroad community. I didnt say you were 100 percent WRONG or that your statement was incorrect at all. Just that your explanation was majorly lacking and summed into "the cooler the shock, less fade" when there is alot more to it then that.

Lead Foot

but by putting it in a remote body you can leave the shock body shorter with the same amount of shaft travel as an emulsion shock. Imagine trying to install a shock in a stock mounting location that is now 3 inches longer when compressed because the floating piston was in the main shock body. You would have to run a shorter travel shock as a replacement which just isnt ideal.

93XJLI

Ok. That's still how many companies make em. Bilstein, OME, etc.

holycaveman

Well since we are drawling this thing out.....

Also by adding a remote reservoir you can control the rate at which the oil flows, by an external adjuster