QA1 Motorsport Shock Absorbers

QA1 Motorsport Shock Absorbers.

Custom built by Smithees for each race car application….
We looked around for a long time to find shocks this good.

The price is around $400 Australian each. With development of your car, QA1
shocks can be easily re-valved for differing requirements. This costs $A75 per shock.
You get a real racing shock with race type valving. Other shocks are often sold for
racing with road type valving characteristics. For racing, this will cost you a lot of grip.

The QA1 Motorsport shock absorber is the latest release from QA1 Precision Products, a quality components manufacturer in the US. In addition to shock absorbers, they produce in excess of 1.5 million rod ends, for racing use, per year. So they have the capability to manufacture to very tight tolerances, and very high quality.

QA1 is a proven supplier of speedway shocks and street rod shocks in the US. Other perhaps better known brands in America are Carrera, Proshock and Afco. But these other brands are not readily adaptable for road racing in Australia.

In Australian road racing, we need a range of "rebuildable" shocks, where the valving can easily be changed. With QA1, we can custom build a baseline shock, and then as the race car is developed, modify compression and rebound "force vs velocity" curves, to look for extra performance. Note that these shocks do not have any external adjustment. It is not possible to buy a good racing adjustable shock for under $A800, let alone the $A400 a QA1 shock can cost.

This new shock is a twin tube design incorporating a gas cell. There is no gas pressure on the piston rod, so that ride height will not be affected when the shock is fitted. The shock comes with either spherical bearings, or standard type road car (stock) mountings. The part numbers as received by us are for speedway applications in the US.

We can build the shocks here in Australia with any stroke and any type of mounts, as required to suit most racing applications. The baseline shock valving is tailored to your specific car. Then, as the car is developed, the valving can changed very economically, by changing the deflective disc stacks.

The shocks are also available with aluminium bodies, and adjustable height coil overs. The coil over type can be used to replace old style Armstrong single adjustables in historic racing (they can come with single adjustable knob). Or, even to replace a front suspension coil spring on A-arm suspension sedans and sports cars, while still retaining standard upper and lower suspension arms.

Pricing

Initial cost is less than $A400 each, (incl. mountings, custom valving and dyno sheet.) for steel body stock mount shocks.

Re-build and re-valving: $A75 (including deflective discs for changing the valving and dyno sheet. Any replacement parts required are extra.)