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jamorton · 09-30-2010, 12:59 AM

I was asked by Source Engineering to help with testing of some new extra heavy duty shock absorbers for their ride enhancement kit. Source Engineering has been working with Bilstein, the providers of the current shocks in the REK to develop new oversize extra heavy duty shocks for an optional upgrade to the kit. After several months of development, prototype shocks were ready for testing, and since I have the trailing arms and standard ride enhancement kit installed and several thousand miles on the kit, they asked if I would like to help tune the prototypes and evaluate their performance.

I agreed to provide my rig and critical evaluation skills, and we arranged to meet at Sacramento Truck Center for the tuning / testing /evaluation. I finally met Jim Walls of Source Engineering in person, and he introduced me to Udo Putzke, the Senior Technician from Bilstein of America.

We got into the rig and I was directed along a course which included several miles of concrete freeway in what I would call moderate condition as well as several miles of surface streets that also had several areas of rough road and swoops and swales. After getting the feel of this road with the standard ride enhancement shocks on the rig, we headed back to Sacramento Truck Center to begin the testing.

Lawrence Cowan, the Lead Technician of Sacramento Truck Center Custom Chassis Service Dept. managed the work on the rig. They were able to change the shocks in less than an hour for the first trial of the new oversize shocks. We hit the road, and let's just say that the shocks needed some tuning. The ride was nowhere near as nice as my standard REK shocks. Back to the shop, off with the shocks and Udo worked his magic. Source will have a page up on their website soon with pictures and a story about this whole process. For now, here is a picture of one of the standard shocks next to one of the HD monsters.

Over the course of the day, we put the icing on the cake of the several months of development and testing. We got the new shocks tuned to the point where they handle every bit as well as the standard Bilsteins.

You may ask, if they handle the same, why change to the HD shocks ?

If you drive off paved roads, the HD shocks are more robust than the standard shocks. Similarly, if you drive on very bad paved roads, the HD shocks will handle the stress better - they can dissipate more heat than the standard shocks. If you don't drive in these extreme conditions, you probably don't need the HD shocks, although they will probably last longer than the standard ones under normal duty conditions. I am going to wait till my standard shocks wear out (if ever) before I consider upgrading.

Happy Trails!

Jim Morton

MonacoMama · 09-30-2010, 01:14 AM

...jamorton...I had no idea it was your coach they were working on that day.

I wish I had known because I would have included you in the "Signature Salmon dinner" that we made for Jim, Shaun and Udo that night!

Udo explained to us at dinner how he came up the day before and scouted out the roads for your "road testing". Maybe I should get the route from you so we can check the road conditions ourselves.

We have our own "Source-Bilstein" story to tell soon also!

jamorton · 10-04-2010, 07:47 PM

It would have been good to meet you. I look forward to a little more relaxed lifestyle where we can take more time and meet people and chat. As it was, I was in a hurry to get there for the work, and a hurry to get back home to do some things with the kids. Maybe we will meet on down the road some time.

Jim