Ideas for on-road suspension on offroad buggies?

[Coelacanth]

What are your ideas for making your offroad buggy's suspension work better for on-road driving with an on-road body? I remember back in the day, those of us with 1/10 offroad buggies wanted to drive around on the streets sometimes. Problem was, your suspension travel was much too much and would rub your on-road body's wheel-wells. I also remember some friends saying they drilled holes in popsicle sticks and installed those in place of the shocks.

That always just struck me as way too hokey, and should one of those sticks split apart from a stiff bump, the resulting dragging around of your buggy's undercarriage with no suspension whatsoever would certainly not be a good idea.

I was wondering that there HAD to be a better way to rig up temporary shock stiffeners without having to completely rebuild the shocks, or use ghetto solutions like popsicle sticks, and I came up with this idea. It hasn't been tested yet, as I don't have my car running, but what do you guys think?

I bought a foot of rubber braided heater hose. Measured the approximate amount of space between the bottom of the shock body and the spring cup. Cut off a piece of heater hose maybe 3/16" shorter than this space. Slit it down one side. Removed spring cup & spring, slid the rubber piece onto the shaft, replaced the spring and spring cup.

Instant on-road suspension with limited travel, and from what I would imagine, no danger of major damage, as the rubber piece has a bit of give. The even better part is it only takes about 10 minutes to remove 4 shocks, remove the spring cups/springs and slip on the rubber "on-road sleeves" and replace the springs/cups & mount the shocks.

What are some of your other ideas?

[Mikeyboy]

I just used travel limiters and stiffer springs. I used front shocks on the rear with a custom made rear shock tower.

[Coelacanth]

Cool--I guess that's essentially what this mod is, travel limiters. Without having to replace the shock tower, which is a more time-consuming process on an Optima. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test-drive it before the snow flies...

[drbelleville]

You should hit up some of the guys from Europe on here, 4wd buggies were the predecessors to the Touring cars, In Europe they raced 4wd buggies with "Saloon/Touring bodies" with special tires etc. It was very popular, you would see Yokomos, Optimas, Tenth Tech Predators, Tamiya, Schumacher etc. There were even a few dedicated conversions offered (which included shocks, tires and a body)