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From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Shock absorber testing, detailing load settings and observations on ride quality.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 16\7\  Scan178
Date  14th May 1929 guessed
  
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that the loads at the rear should be as high as 75 lbs. up
and 150 lbs. down. We started all our tests on shock absorbers
over again with the supposition that R.{Sir Henry Royce} was right and
starting with his loading we altered it step by step until we
got the best results. We found that at the front the best
setting for all round purposes was 60 lbs. up and 60 lbs.
down with five dynamic restrictions fitted. At the rear
80 lbs. down and 80 lbs. up again with five dynamic restrictions
fitted. We have come to the conclusion that theory is
absolutely useless in springing a car as all our pre-conceived
ideas of what a shock absorber should be seem to have been
knocked on the head from the practical results we have obtained.
We were really quite anxious to get away from the dynamic
restrictions and only came back to them because they gave us
the best results. We are also quite positive that the upward
and downward loading must be somewhere near equal to give the
best riding. The main advantage in the dynamic restriction
is that they are removed from the front and the rear we have to put up
the fixed load to over 100 lbs. to get the same high speed
control of the car and in consequence we do feel that the car
begins to rid uncomfortably harshly at low speeds.
Our indicator tests have shewn us and our own
personal impressions on the road confirm, that we get a lot
of cushioning due to the fact that the shock absorber arm
twists an appreciable amount when load is applied to the
ball end owing to the fact that the torque puts a load on the
relatively flexible arm.
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