Here you will find all the necessary parts to build a functional RC car shock, from the body to the spring, from the holders to the piston... for a hole to hole length from 55 to 110mm, in steps of 5mm.

This publication is complete, with 12 different bodies and springs length, 6 different pistons and 2 different length shock holders.

If you take a deep look, there are some parts which need to be printed in TPU. Those are the holders, the "seals" and the piston. This is necessary if you want to run your shock with real shock oil or silicone.

But maybe you just want to give it a try without oil, then you could print the piston and the top seal also in PLA or petg. The TPU holders will be necessary if you want some "flexibility" in the holding points.

As you can see in some of the photos, I'm using the smallest one (55mm) as a key-ring just now :) The same way I used 100mm ones time ago in my pickup, and now shorter ones for my on-road Tesla chassis.

Of course they will wear out faster than sourced ones, but they are very cheap to print and build. The same way and very important, you can use sourced parts from bigbore shocks as O-rings or springs to have a more reliable shock.

And now, how to build it?¿?

All parts but body and spring will be always the same, for all sizes. You can choose between various "pistons" or "bigboreHolders"; I recommend the 2hole piston and the longer holders.

So you can build a shock with 55mm when extended from hole to hole, and also with 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, and 110mm from hole to hole. The longer the shock, the longer the distance it can displace. Please take a look to the drawing for more details about each individual length shock.

As an example, a 80mm from hole to hole shock will need a 3x40mm (3mm piano wire) shaft and a spring of 55mm length, and the most compressed position will have a hole to hole measure of 55mm. So the SHAFT LENGTH must be a HALF the max hole to hole for your shock, and the SPRING about 25mm SHORTER than max hole to hole distance for your shock.

The 3d printed springs are not perfect by now, they have some kind of memory when printed in PLA or PETG so if you "pre-charge" them, that new spring length will become with time the normal length of the spring.

So if you want to build some reliable shocks, you will need a minimum of 3mm piano wire, springs and O-rings instead of the "bottom seal". A pair of sourced shocks, the desired size, can be found sometimes at about 5$ the pair in aluminium or plastic, other times you must pay 12 or 15$ for the pair! If you and your car are not very picky then maybe you can give a try to these 3d printed ones :) The cost per shock is really lower, that would be about 0,60$ including plastic, piano wire, M3 screws and o-rings but also the kW cost. If you find also cheap springs you can have a very functional one for about 1,2$

Will you give them a try?