a Chevy Colorado ZR2 pickup <\/a>have in common? More than you might think.<\/p>\nThe rugged, off-road Colorado hit dealerships this spring sporting the same sophisticated \u201cspool-valve\u201d shock absorbers developed for high-performance racing. Made by Toronto-based auto supplier Multimatic, spool-valve shocks are just the latest evidence of track-to-production-car trickle-down. Or \u201ctrack-to-trail,\u201d as Multimatic likes to say.<\/p>\n
For decades, auto manufacturers have used the race track to raise their public profiles. But racing also has played a significant role in accelerating the development of vehicle technology.<\/p>\n
Examples abound: The fuel injection now found on the most common $20,000 family sedan debuted on exotic Mercedes-Benz Formula One greyhounds in the 1950s before migrating to the German brand\u2019s 300SL road car. Dual-clutch transmissions, disc brakes, carbon-fiber construction and sticky tire compounds were first developed for racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re racing, the amount of information you can gather very quickly about how something performs is worth weeks and weeks of testing,\u201d says Stephanie Brinley, senior auto analyst with IHS Automotive. \u201cA 24-hour endurance race is a great way to gather information \u2014 especially in changing weather and track conditions. Sometimes it\u2019s about finding different solutions that turn out to be a good solutions for street cars as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even for pickups.<\/p>\n
Spool-valve shock technology \u2014 the formal term is Dynamic Suspension Spool Valve \u2014 took a winding dirt road to get to Chevy trucks. Like the Mercedes-to-family sedan fuel-injection odyssey, Multimatic\u2019s spool valves first found favor with an expensive luxury car: the $2 million Aston Martin One-77.<\/p>\n
Traditional shock absorbers have thin, stacked discs covering ports that control the flow of hydraulic oil to \u201cdamp\u201d movement and keep the car from pogo-ing on bumpy roads. In spool-valve shocks, the discs are replaced with nesting cylindrical sleeves held apart by a spring.<\/p>\n
The newer shocks are easier to \u201ctune\u201d for their expected use. And when the oil in the DSSV shock gets hot and thin from repeated pounding on a race track or from off-road punishment, they don\u2019t lose their damping ability like traditional shock absorbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSSV has been known in racing circles for at least 20 years beginning with IndyCar and then Formula One,\u201d says Murray White, Multimatic technical director of vehicle development. \u201cThe first application was in the Aston Martin. Then GM came to us and said (they) would like to do a technology demonstration project with the 2014 Camaro Z28 Camaro. Then they came back to us and said, OK, we have the next application for the spool-valve dampers: a truck. We said, a truck?\u201d<\/p>\n
But the application made sense. The same technology that precisely controls hydraulic flow through a shock absorber tube under extreme race conditions could also tune a pickup to be as smooth on-road as it is durable off. The tiny F1 shocks \u2014 parts miniaturization drives racing costs sky high \u2014 are barely recognizable next to the pickup\u2019s giant struts, but they share a fundamental design.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you stop and think about ride and handling requirements, it\u2019s all about the precise control of the suspension,\u201d says White. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what it is \u2014 a tank, a truck, a race car \u2014 precision control of the way the suspension moves is what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2017 Colorado ZR2, targeted at buyers with a taste for Baja-style adventure, has won raves from media for its versatility in conquering the outback \u2014 and then negotiating asphalt roads with nimble aplomb. The shock has given Chevy a leg up in the off-road pickup wars against formidable adversaries like Toyota\u2019s Tacom TRD Pro and the Ford F-150 Raptor. Multimatic\u2019s success has raised its profile alongside other suppliers like Brembo (brakes) and Michelin (tires), whose extensive work in racing has made them household names in production cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trickle-down effect from racing can be circuitous \u2014 but that\u2019s the magic of it,\u201d says IHS\u2019 Brinley. \u201cIt can be really hard to draw a straight line to it \u2014 but you are learning so much more about vehicle dynamics in racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes the process works in reverse. Sometimes production cars influence racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s more interesting is when street technology transfers to the track, such as the hybrid drivetrain systems that are now used in many race cars but started out as fuel-efficiency designs for street cars,\u201d says Karl Brauer, auto analyst for Cox Automotive.<\/p>\n
Indeed, with fuel consumption regulations in Formula One paralleling government mpg rules for production cars, the hybrid-electric powertrains currently used in F1 cars derive much of their know-how from production engineering.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time in decades, F1\u2019s goals were aligned with the wider automotive industry,\u201d reports the technology site, Alphr.com. \u201cTo produce the best engine, teams would have to push for efficiency \u2014 exactly what we want from our road cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
What might be the next big thing that migrates from track to street?<\/p>\n
Multimatic\u2019s White points to carbon-fiber construction that was once exclusive to race car chassis, but is now being applied in production cars. The Ford GT supercar <\/a>experiments with low-cost carbon fiber. And the Alfa Romeo 4C is the first production sports car under $100,000 to feature a full carbon-fiber chassis.<\/p>\n\u201cCarbon fiber is a very appropriate material to use in some places. People will figure out the most appropriate use of it \u2014 there is a lot of emphasis on light-weighting these days and carbon fiber lends itself to those uses,\u201d says Multimatic\u2019s suspension wizard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What do the Formula One race cars at this weekend\u2019s Monaco Grand Prix and a Chevy Colorado ZR2 pickup have in common? More than you might think. The rugged, off-road Colorado hit dealerships this spring sporting the same sophisticated \u201cspool-valve\u201d shock absorbers developed for high-performance racing. Made by Toronto-based auto supplier Multimatic, spool-valve shocks are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20606,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605\/revisions\/20606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"shocks_white\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/9ddb467e530c282d9c101d355e6531a65fc7e7f3\/c=504-0-3528-2268&r=x404&c=534x401\/local\/-\/media\/2017\/05\/25\/DetroitNews\/B99536795Z.1_20170525230235_000_GOT1GDLH4.1-0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>