Schmidty Racing Vs. Shock Therapy Dual Rate Spring Comparison - Part 2

[@158burton1]

Excited for part 3. Please include your thoughts on performance and feel between the two brands, as well as wear differences. Thanks!

[@jonteresasepicadventures7341]

Been almost a year. Any update?

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Sorry for the delay. We've had some significant life changes. We're getting back in the swing now. So far, we're still fans of Schmidty Racing.

[@gaymondavis9581]

suggestion for you make stainless steel sleeve for your shock body and new spring dividers huge improvement

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Know anyone that makes the steel sleeves? We’ve been looking for a while, but coming up empty.

[@neptunepoolsserviceandrepa2529]

Hoping you could give an update on the schmidty spring kit. Since you are thw inly one i know if that has had the other brand, how is the ride compared to st? How about the shock body wear?

[@682supersport]

Any updates on the schmidty vs the shock therapy? I’m looking to get a set and your videos are helping with my decision.

[@geoffwe]

It seems Schmidty uses their own thicker walled dividers which reduces wear and they also use Eibach springs which are top notch.

[@bobfisher9452]

Is there any difference in ride quantity between ST & Schmidy springs ?

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

We’ll get to that question when we can get back out with both machines. We haven’t switched drivers yet.

[@GTGoooooo]

So I never saw a follow up. Do you like the Smitty’s better than the shock therapy how about the ride were they equal or did you prefer one over the other do you still Smitty’s are the way to go?

[@Rocket39Smoke14]

Did Shock Therapy mention to you to set the upper and lower spring ends 180 degrees from each other? This theory probably applies to all dual spring set-ups. Pretty sure it has something to do with keeping the spring divider from cocking off to one side.

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

We do speak to this in part 1. Schmidty prescribes different alignment and we think it’s actually working better, even on the ST springs. Check out part 1 for this discussion.

[@duner2]

How many miles on the Shock Therapy springs? You mentioned 200 on the Schmidty set up

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Probably around 1800 miles. The fact that the dividers aren’t crooked and there’s no visible rubbing on the shock bodies on the Schmidty set up is a good indicator that they’ll do less harm than the Shock Therapy springs.

[@duner2]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad totally disagree. At 200 miles everything is tight. At 1800 things have loosened up and wore out. You are definitely not apples to apples here.

[@duner2]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad now that said if Schmidty after 1800 miles still has no wear that’s saying something since every other Shock company does have wear

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

@@duner2 while I agree that miles will definitely have an impact on wear, which is why I mentioned that the ST machine has nearly 2000 miles on it in the video, ST were misaligned and wearing the first ride on all three machines we’ve had them on. Also keep in mind that ST has a lifetime warranty on their springs indicating that they don’t wear out like you’ve suggested. A 2000 mile apples to apples comparison would great, and we’ll likely get there as we have footage from ST at 2K that we can compare when the Schmidty kit hits that mark. That might be a year from now, and that would be too long to wait for part 2. Part 3 will be out before we hit 2K. So, having invested in ST on three machines, seeing the resulting damage myself, seeing how much better aligned the Schmidty kit is, and hearing Schmidty’s claims about wear, our opinion stands that given the knowledge we have right now, we’d go with Schmidty if we needed to place an order today.

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

@@duner2 agree. We do expect that there will be some wear with the Schmidty kit; they all rub some. We just expect it to be a lot less. Time will tell, and we’ll do that video as well.

[@HarleyGriffith]

That wear on the shock body just breaks my heart! Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that it wouldn't happen at all if the inner diameter of the spring were just a little bigger. Obviously they'll move some, but good grief charlie brown!!

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

It's really from deflection of the springs.

[@jima7185]

2015 XP 1000 with Shock Therapy Springs, in 15 short miles the rear crossovers are almost destroyed. I have tried clocking the springs with no luck. The rear springs came with the ST dividers, and I think the inside diameter is too large. and the diameter of the crossovers are too small. I think that the ends of the springs are not ground down enough to create a larger flat surface so the divider will sit flatter, I am thinking of grinding them down, so they are flatter. ST says they do allot of testing before they release a product, well, they failed with these springs.!

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Try clocking them such that that ends are overlapped by .75 to 1". That seemed to help ours a bit. That's what Schmidty calls for on their springs. I wouldn't grind them down unless you don't care about the warranty.

[@jima7185]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad Ok, will try that. Called ST they suggested rotating the lower spring 180 degrees will try that also. In giving up if I have to I will put the stock springs back on the rear. I have no money to purchase another brand of springs.

[@patd4u2]

Wow! that's crazy wear! not good, Did Shock Therapy include the dividers? I have ST on my Ultimate with the Fox shocks and the kit included a much better spring divider, The stock ones are thin walled and deform while the ST divider is much thicker wall material and doesn't deform, looking at your divider at around the 9 minute 30 second mark it looks like the stock thin walled divider that is deforming as it moves up and down the shock and that is causing your wear. My ST rear upper springs are as long as the lower springs which I thought was strange, Checked on their website and that's the way the kit for the Fox Dynamic are, still strange. I use my pressure washer and point it between the divider and shock to get as much of the desert sand/pebbles out between the divider and shock to try and and keep wear to a minimal.

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

There were dividers included and we did use them. Don't recall if it was just the rear or just the front; it wasn't both. We spray the dividers out between rides, but you can see that hasn't helped much. Just got the spring bags today, so going to see how they fit.

[@scottsizemore1821]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad I installed shock therapy on my pro xp ultimate with fox shocks about a month ago. Like pat said I noticed upgraded shock dividers. They are a lot thicker, rigid, and the tolerance seems tighter on the shock body than the stock dividers. There is less play for the dividers to cock sideways or get in a bind where they might dig into the shock body as much. I only had about 250 miles on my machine so the stock dividers are not wore much. They are very flimsy and seem to egg shape easy compared to the ones st sent with the kit. Before I took off my shocks I looked at every shock divider and noticed the stock dividers are all cocked one way or another and dig into the shock body stock. Not sure if the walkers evens gets a different divider but you may want to check and make sure you got the right one. I also already bought eibach shock covers to put on the the shocks before I took it out hoping that would help. They fit well with the new springs. Time will tell.

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Shock Therapy has us reuse the stock spring dividers on the front and rear for the Pro XP Walkers. I do believe they sent new dividers for the rears of our XP1K and possibly the RS1. We picked just installed the Eibach spring covers, but we’ve since read that they may collect mud and inhibit cooling. As you said, time will tell.

[@scottsizemore1821]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad Maybe you should order better ones from ST or SRS. I would think it would have to be better. I also read about the heat on the shocks with the shock covers. I emailed shock therapy and asked them about it before I bought the covers. They said the only time it would be an issue is if you were racing your sxs all day long, or riding really hard all day long. I go riding most of the day stop and go some times, and they told me that would be fine. Just no non stop really hard riding all day. The shock covers are long enough to cover the whole shock so I would think it would be hard for mud or dirt to get in there and damage anything as long as you take them off and clean the shocks and covers after every ride.

[@timbonnevie8063]

I had originally wanted to order a set of shock therapy dual rates, but the more I read and watch, the more I don’t want to, there seems to be a lot of people that have the same wear your experiencing and to me that wear seems quite excessive. I always hear that they all wear, that maybe true but I have approx 1200 miles on my 2022 X3 and there is no sign of wear at all, I know that the stock spring are junk, but they definitely are not rubbing.

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

Upgraded springs are definitely a huge improvement. We wouldn’t go without them, but finding the right kit is key. Glad to hear your X3 is experiencing zero rubbing. All the stock Polaris shocks I’ve seen rub.

[@timbonnevie8063]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad you may or may not get a better spring kit with the ST springs, but looks like in the long run a person may be in for a new set of shocks once they wear through the shock bodies. 🤷‍♂️

[@DirtyRoosterOffroad]

@@timbonnevie8063 it may be that the can ams just have a much better stock suspension. Polaris with Walkers is terrible, so upgraded springs are a must. The shock bodies can be replaced during rebuild and Polaris recommends rebuild at around 2500 miles.

[@timbonnevie8063]

@@DirtyRoosterOffroad that’s possible, there is a guy not far from me that has a x3 XDS model that he has done the whole package from shock therapy and he now has the shock body wear. 🤷‍♂️

[@bobbyb608]

@@timbonnevie8063 you’re exactly right. ST are hands down the best springs you can buy. But you WILL get body wear. Mine are starting to wear despite always being clocked correctly. It’s just nature of the beast