| Author | Message | ||
     Jason (Disco94jason) New Member Username: Disco94jason Post Number: 3 Registered: 02-2003 |
Does anyone have experience with the firmness of these two shocks? Which one has a stiffer ride? Thanks for your input. | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1869 Registered: 02-2002 |
Different spring rates, different weight distribution in different Discos that I've ridden in vary and can account for some of the noticed differences, but IMHO, the Bilsteins seemed to be firmer than the OMEs. To me, the OMEs felt squishy.... but it could have been that there were lighter-weight springs and more weight in that vehicle. IMHO, FWIW.... -L | ||
| Todd Juneau (Toddxd) Member Username: Toddxd Post Number: 66 Registered: 11-2002 |
From what I have been able to compare, both on vehicles with OME HD springs, the Bilsteins were definitely firmer. The OME's have a reputation for being a softer shock that is suited well for someone looking for a softer ride on the street. | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 523 Registered: 09-2002 |
Jason, there are OME shocks that are firmer than Bilsteins. Ask John or Ho at EE. peter | ||
| Steve (Steve2) New Member Username: Steve2 Post Number: 14 Registered: 09-2002 |
the bilsteins are a monotube gas shock. definately for the street in ride quality and protection. no question the best choice for a car or a rig that is not wheeled. the ome is a twin tube design with much stouter construction. also they are matched to the springs, this is something missed by alot of people. the ome is a suspension SYSTEM. the main ome engineer at arb has over 10,000 combinations of internal deflector bushes as well as the proprietary glacier bushing that no one else has. he spends months and months testing out different combos - blasting up and down outback trails. the shocks have to pass a test that requires it to withstand 3 meters of travel PER SECOND !! ome's also run cooler than monotubes as there is more oil and more metal to act as a heat sink. if i had a audi quattro or vw to shock up - no question bilsteins, or a street only disco with 18"s. on a rig that is wheeled - ome's hand's down with a set of ome springs. they are TUNED to your rig and offer a nice ride. stiffer shocks on a older rig will make it a rattle box - but hey some people are into that. steve | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 529 Registered: 09-2002 |
steve, is that a lot? let's see... you ride over a curb at 20mph, something that's not inconceivable. That is about 14 meters per second. the wheel needs to climb about 10 cm (4") of curb height in about the same distance (so you don't bend the rim), which will give you the wheel vertical travel speed of the same 14 meters per second. if this number comes from OME sales brochure, that really downgrades it in my eyes (not that they'd care). you made a bunch of statements here that are unrelated, uncomplete, and your conclusions are as untrue as they are over-generalized. (1) Bilsteins are a monotube gas shock. It has nothing to do with ride quality and protection. What it does give is faster heat dissipation, and in combination with 200 or so psi of nitrogen pressure inside the shock, it keeps the oil from foaming and cavitation. (2) best choice for ... a rig that is not wheeled. Count the number of OME shocks and Bilstein shocks on Baja 1000 rigs. Or they are not considered being "wheeled?" (3) the ome... are matched to the springs. To which springs? Stock LR springs? OME MD? OME HD? They all are different. I've bought a set of OME HD springs and shocks to replace stock springs and Bilstein shocks - and guess what, they were grossly mismatched. The Bilsteins went back in, the OME shocks were sold. This is not to say OME shocks are inferior to Bilsteins, but as a counter-argument to the "SYSTEM" in all caps. (4) ome's also run cooler than monotubes... That is pure bullshit. Where did you get that from? Metal has very small capacity to hold heat compared to oil, but an extra layer of it may and does act as a barrier for heat dissipation. Remarkably, you never brought out the fact that OME's rod dia is 18mm, compared to Bilstein's 14. (BTW, it has more than one consequence) So, hold on with pouring out autoritative opinion on something you don't know a whole lot about. | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1871 Registered: 02-2002 |
Okay, how about "name that shock": · Nitrogen gas charged · 240-hour salt spray resistant black finish · Black polyurethane boot included · Eyes arc welded 360 degrees · Heavy duty 18MM hardened chromed rod · 10-stage velocity sensitive valving · Massive 44MM (1-3/4") piston · High fluid capacity twin tube design This is the shock that I put on the wife's Disco, FWIW.... -L | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1872 Registered: 02-2002 |
Oh, PS: a) that was copied from the company's site, *I* didn't choose the wording, lol.... b) they're not too firm, they're comfy c) they're not OME or Bilstein d) I'm not knocking the quality on OME or Bilstein FWIW.... -L | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 530 Registered: 09-2002 |
Black Diamond XT. | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1873 Registered: 02-2002 |
 Someone was paying attention to what I said in the other thread! lol...... They're good shocks, IMHO.... -L | ||
| Mtb (Mtb) New Member Username: Mtb Post Number: 6 Registered: 02-2003 |
Peter I don't think they sell them for Rovers anymore ??? But for the price of a D-90 I will sell mine | ||
| Ron Poole (Angler) New Member Username: Angler Post Number: 5 Registered: 02-2003 |
I pondered for quite a while and decided on rancho 9000X as I wanted to be able to alter the ride to suit what I was doing at the time. It is extremely easy to alter the setting, both sides in about 30 seconds or you can go dash mounted control if you are rich and famous. I tow 2000kg at times and other times just use my disco around town. I like being able to change the setting from bone hard to limo soft. | ||
| Jon Bowers (Jonbowers7) New Member Username: Jonbowers7 Post Number: 29 Registered: 07-2002 |
I went w/ Land Rover HD springs (from Rovers North) and a set of Bilsteins. They are great on the road (even here w/ the aweful roads in N.E.) and the setup has worked great in all the offroad stuff I've found so far (rocky, backwoods in VT and NH) My .02... | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 531 Registered: 09-2002 |
Leslie, to tell you the truth, i just copied a line from your post and pasted it into google. Black Diamond popped right up Did you order them for a stock height or longer? Care to post the part #? peter | ||
| Steve (Steve2) New Member Username: Steve2 Post Number: 15 Registered: 09-2002 |
peter who peed in your coffee mate? everything i listed came straight out of the mouth of my western region sales manager for ome. he is an honorable man, and last i checked (though not a shock engineer) am not that much of a dullard. he personally gave me a shock demo weekend before last out at TRD. maybe i am gullable, as i understood and bought the whole idea. the 3m of travel per second is based upon travel of one end of the shock on a special machine. hey i was impressed. the thought of one end of a shock - or anything being subjected to the kinetic forces of travel of 3m per second impressed me. perhaps this is a carnival trick? i'm SO GLAD we agreed on one thing that the bilstein is a monotube shock. i feel it provides good heat disipation also - however - one good rock strike on the shell of the monotube and you could compromise the internal piston of the bilstein. the following is my understanding: the ome suspension is meant for long and hard treks in the outback, hundred or thousands of km's from anything civilized. the suspensions are meant for expedition style driving. baja racers most likely need the stiffer shocks for immense speeds generated, and also they have support teams that can replace parts. don't know alot about baja racing - i can only assume it is simular to rally racing as on the wrc. two completely different kinds of vehicles.... one is a 5-7000lb expedition vehicle - the other a tube frame racer.....? for me - the last thing i want to do on the trail is get under my rig and change a shock. well there are other things that i would not want to do -but you get the idea.... again, in my eyes the extra layer of protection, not only from the upper shock sleeve - but the dual layer of metal seems a might tougher than one layer. it made sense to me. if i could be so bold as to say the ome has a better 'limp home' capability than a bilstein as an ome, even if severly damaged externally, could make it back 'home', vs a bilstein with same external damage. in my ome suspension catalog #15 (north american version) there are clear applications for shock # and spring # depending on load anticipated. to me matching a spring and a shock make a system. that also makes sense to me. again might be a carnival trick.... as far as the ome's running cooler - there is more mass to a ome, more metal, more to get hot, but there is also more cooling area. maybe it is a toss up - but the heavier construction of the ome's is what gives me warm fuzzies. in every rig i've ome'd up - there has been improved ride quality both on and off road, as well as the benefit of a mild lift. i've been super happy with the set ups. i'm sorry you weren't happy with yours. i'm glad you found a set up that works for you. actually after thinking about the poster's question about stiff shocks - i can say without a doubt that procomp shocks are immensely stiff and should make his rig ride like a skate board. peter - again my apologies if i offended you in anyway. i believe what i was told, being a arb/ome distributor- i enjoy the propoganda, but i use the products and am very loyal to them as they "have never let me down" LOL! steve | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 537 Registered: 09-2002 |
Steve, you have not offended me a little bit, and i hope i have not offended you. What i saw was exactly what you described - a few bits of information hacked together into a "compelling story" by a salesman. The "three meters per second" bit falls in perfectly - it made you impressed because you never gave it a thought. Funny thing - I agree with you in the overall take on the things: if I were facing a 5kmi trek in no-no-land, I'd chose OME shocks (or, more likely, Black Diamond, after Leslie mentioning it). However, you have to filter out the BS from the facts (or reasonable assumptions). OME can have shocks mis-matched to the springs, Bilstein shocks may match nearly perfect some OME springs, and so on. I know a few people who use Fox shocks on their Discos - despite them being much stiffer than Bilsteins! Also, some comes from personal experience. I've had several sets of Bilsteins on four different vehicles, used and abused in many ways. Never had a Bilstein's monotube as much as scratched - and I have a pair of Rancho shocks sitting on my shelf that looked like they have been lunched on by a great white. Heat issue. The specific heat of steel is about one-fifth of that of oil. You need a LOT of steel to serve as a momentary heat sink for oil! What do you do with that heat afterwards? It needs to be dissipated somewhere outside - and adding a second tube to the shock will definitely harm this capacity. There is no more cooling area in a twin-tube shock compared to monotube - all there is is what's exposed to air. The "dry net" from here is - the more oil is there in the shock, the better is its heat holding capacity (less instantaneous warm-up). The less steel is on the casing of the shock, the faster will this heat dissipate. There's more to it. OME and Bilstein shocks have about the same external tube diameter, OME has much larger rod, and much smaller internal tube diameter - therefore smaller clear piston area. You can get the same damping characteristics with the smaller piston, but you will definitely be looking into foaming of the oil. The only answer to which is to pressurize the shock - just what Bilstein pioneered, and others followed. (At an expense of some lost travel). The original question of this thread was stiffness of the shocks. It doesn't make any sense to compare it brand-to-brand, for both OME and Bilstein make a vast variety of shocks. You can get stiff OME shocks and soft Bilsteins. You can get stiff as hell Ranchos and soft as jello Ranchos, you can get Monroe shocks of every variety and Gabriel. There are so many applications that you can cross-reference them and get just what you want - and this is where Expedition Exchange shines. BTW, the coffee indeed tasted like shit. Don't want to know what did they put in there! | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1877 Registered: 02-2002 |
Peter, I ordered stock length, given that this was for my wife's Disco, and she doesn't want it lifted (yet!).... I had David at the Thatched Roof Garage order them for me... On Black Diamond's website, http://www.blackdiamondoffroad.com (note: Netscape doesn't like their pages, IE is needed), you have to pick "Stabilizers", underwhich you'll find a bar that says "Application Charts". Underneath that, there are 3 listings: : "Shock Absorbers", "Shock Boots", and "Steering Stabilizers".... click on the arrow next to "Shock Absorbers" to launch the complete listing. The XT shock for the front of a coil-sprung Rover (D90/D1/RRC) is 788029, and for the rear is 788028. Black Diamond is more geared to the Jeep/Ford/Chevy crowds, but their XT is a well-built shock... FWIW... -L | ||
| Peter Matusov (Pmatusov) Senior Member Username: Pmatusov Post Number: 538 Registered: 09-2002 |
yes, i felt like they've combined the best of OME and Bilstein together. I also need to get the longer front shocks for the jeep, but Bilstein is a PITA to cross-list anything. I've found a pair of 5100-series for the rear - and they rock! - but not for the front. Black Diamond looks like they've got more details on the web. Most of my Bilsteins came from Off-Road Warehouse, and these guys are equally uneducated in Land Rovers and full size jeeps. peter | ||
| Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) Senior Member Username: Leslie Post Number: 1880 Registered: 02-2002 |
They have that handy chart which shows compressed and extended lengths, which you can use to figure out alternates if you so desire. My plan is just to use some brackets to offset the mount by an inch or so when the time comes to re-spring her Disco for my own use ..... 'til then, the factory length is doing very well. Yeah, I too found that a lot of places aren't FSJ saavy, and especially not with Rovers... hmm, maybe that's part of my liking of these particular beasts... lol.... For the Wag, I did go w/ Ranchos... not "bad", but, not stellar to the point that I'd go back to them for the Rovers, FWIW.... -L |
