AlanC

I'm currently running Mallett/Penske 8100 shocks on my C5 hardtop.

Although these are great shocks, I haven't been autocrossing lately and I'm probably only doing a couple of track events a year for the time being.

The car is going to be seeing more street time, so I'm thinking about replacing them with something else.

If I decided to sell the Penskes, what would you recommend I replace them with? Koni? Bilstein?

I'd like something that still performs well for HPDE type events, but also provides a tolerable street ride.

I'm running VB&P springs and bars. I don't have the exact rates handy, but they are fairly stiff.

Suggestions?

95jersey

Based on what you said (meaning sounds like your more street, but do occasionaly track), I would ditch your stiff leaf set up (keep the sways) and go with a set of adjustable coil overs. Then you can dial them in for street or track. You're never going to get your desired effect with fixed leafs and fixed shocks, the only answer to your issue is adjustable coil-overs. Flexibility is the key with coil-overs.

Go for the LG adjustables, great price and great product!

AlanC

Thanks for the reply!

I've already been down the coil-over route (I still have numerous sets of c/o springs to choose from for my 8100s). Although I haven't tried the LG setup, the Mallett/Penske setup always seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. The car was a PITA to corner weight and we could never get the ride height where we wanted it. After returning to leafs, everything just worked.

I'm really not interested in going coil-over again, so I'm looking for recommendations for shocks that work well with leafs.

Thanks!

Alan

gumby4mayor

Koni yellows are the way to go for do everything shock. Pfadt is a nicely priced alternative as well.

95jersey

I use the LG set up and our corner weight almost turned out perfect. The front was 50.3, the rear was 49.7. Left was 51.7, right was 48.3 and that was with 200lbs of ballest put on the driver side (left). I couldn't have asked for more.

drivinhard

why not just stick with the Penske's with leafs?

AlanC

I will probably do just that. Just wanted to explore the options.

Its looking like there's not a lot to be gained by selling the Penskes, considering the price of suitable replacements.

John Shiels

your springs / leafs are giving you the stiff ride not the shocks. If your car is set up properly now meaning the shocks fit the leafs how much can you can you soften the ride with a shock change?

AlanC

Makes sense.

I've been running around with rebound full soft on the street. The compression is harder to get to, so I haven't really played with softening it up yet.

The stiff ride isn't really bothering me. It was more of a question of "Do I really need Penske shocks on the car when I'm not going to be tracking it very often."

drivinhard

I would say no, but I would also say if you don't need them, you wouldn't need a Koni/Bilstein, etc either. Why not just OEM?

I have looked at the C5Z OEM curves on a dyno at Penske, and the slow speed stuff is really lazy, the OEM's are going to do that to get the car to ride good on the street.

If you can tolerate the ride with the Penske's, I would keep them. Not hurting anything and you'll take a beating selling them used.

What piston are you running in them?

John Shiels

I'll swap for for my Bilsteins and you will have a nice ride!

AlanC

I had them rebuilt and re-valved by Penske a while back. I've got the printout somewhere so I'll get back to you on that.

autoxer6

A penske at full soft is softer than stock at the low speed. I would expect that a stock shock is going to be a harsher ride, with less grip on track.

If the penskes are valved well, I cant see you gaining anying by going to a lower cost shock. The first thing I noticed going from Koni 3013's to Penskes was the nice ride on the street. The big penske pistons work much better than stock, bilstein, or Koni shocks.

Stick with what you have as long as you don't have some crazy stiff valving in them. If you do find you dyno sheet, it probably wont show the shocks at full soft since the builder wasn't worried about that end of the adjustment range. So I wouldn't make decisions off of that. Penskes get really soft.

AlanC

Build sheet says 1/1 Linear.