It just so happens that I've finished my shock test over 2 race days and 3 test sessions.

First I have to say that I use all the stock pieces on top and bottom of the shock. With that, using the stock bladders I have had no issues putting the shocks togeather as far as the top cap goes. I should add that when I put the shock togeather I put the bladder on the shock and then use the round ball end of my xray turn buckle wrench (if you have one you'll know what I'm tailking about) to make sure the bladder is well seated into the shock body, dispercing a small amount of oil, but making for a air tight seal. Then I put the plastic/ball top on the bladder and finally the aluminum cap. I seem to have no issues with the cap causing the bladder to un-seat itself and can get this done in one attempt most times.

I leave the cap slightly un-screwed and push the shock shaft all the way into the shock and then tighten the cap down, just snug, not over tightened. This has given me repeated shock reboound of about 2mm, or really next to nothing. I will say that I did have one shock that fought back a little but on the 3rd attempt it equalized out to the same settings as the others.

So testing I ran the original shocks (V1) which would run about 40% rebound all the time, since I've had the car. Going to the RCM shock, with no bleed hole or zero rebound, the stock RCM shock would produce roughly the same amount of rebound and not surprisingly, the same feel on the track, producing near identical lap times over and over, from test to test.

Now I decided to do the 1mm hole, pressure relieve, zero rebound shock. I can say that although this did not produce a overall faster lap for me, it did tighten the overall consistancy of the laps by a noticable amount. So much so that I'm pretty convinced that this would be the prefered shock build for me. To me it seems to make more sense to build the shock with the zero reound and have it be a controlable constant, than trying to get a constant rebound setting, (and I got pretty good at setting the old shocks). The feel of the car just felt a little more predictable with a more numb feeling to it. Not a bad numb though just a feel like it didn't kick back when you least expected it.

I also tested some of the different diff/oil setups and just when I thought I had it figured out, I think I'm even more mixed up. I had several combinations built and went anywhere from 2k2gear, down to 700/4gear, and the final 7004 is the one that felt the best on track, it produced the beast turn in and power down on exit, which isn't what I had expected. I actually am starting to get the feeling that this is going to be a best guess and drive around the short comings deal as I still have yet to get some kind of pattern as to when and where one is better over another.

I did find it funny that when looking at Tims setup I was also running the 450/400 shock oil, only to change a couple weeks ago to 35wt oil all around, which I see Ed was using.

One thing that I started to play around with a little more is the sway bars, now running a 1.6 front bar which seemed to take just that small overroll? of the front end of the car on corner exit out, so if you have them give them a try you might like the heavier bar feel.

I also went back and with my current setup, did the V1/V2 motor mount comparison, and at this point, the V2 worked better, and the original weird feel of the V2 from before was no longer a issue, although I can say that quite a bit has changed with car setup since I first did these tests.