Penske Racing Shocks have won in Formula 1, Indy, LeMans, and many more. Penske has one line of shocks, the best. We’ve been working hard with Penske Racing Engineers to provide the best quality, double-adjustable shocks with independent compression and rebound adjustments at a VERY attractive price point.
Want the car to ride better EVEN with 2X the spring rates? Want to trim 8 seconds off your lap time like one of our customers? Read on!
- - 55mm Big Piston/shaft setup moves alot of fluid for best control.
- - Highly linear adjusters for precise control
- - Dynoed after they are built to ensure quality and matching.
- - Eibach and Hyperco springs have excellent rate matching and consistency.
The single biggest contributor to faster lap times is good suspension. Period. Even better than stickier tires, proper damping provides grip, chassis control, and confidence. At Blackwatch Racing we’ve been working on dampers i.e. “shocks” for the Lotus since 2006. While there are many names in shocks, there is one that stands apart for Racing: Penske Racing Shocks.
Penske Racing Shocks have won in Formula 1, Indy, Nascar, World Challenge, LeMans, MotoGP, Australian Supercar, and many more. At Blackwatch we’ve spent hundreds of hours on the shock dyno at all hours of the day and night chasing the perfect Lotus shock setup.
The results have been 4 SCCA national championships on 45mm Penske Racing shocks of our own specification.
Additionally, we’ve been using them on our daily-driving Elise test mule that doubles as a track-day, street-tired auto-crosser, quarter-mile machine etc. We routinely drive faster laps in this car on street tires than many 911s, built EVOs, Corvettes etc on race tires.
Over the years, we’ve provided custom built double and triple adjustable BWR Penske’s to customers. One customer told me that he “dropped 8 seconds per lap” at Limerock when he put the BWR Penske’s on his car! That is the promise of quality shocks, improved grip and tire performance over a range of conditions. In other words, the tires remain in optimal contact with the pavement, which delivers to the driver a predictably handling car that is more comfortable to drive at the limit.
Penske has a proven record of success because they use only the best materials, all engineered and maintained to their own specifications. They use the highest grade stainless steel shims, billet aluminum bodies and pistons, linear and precisely matching adjusters, Viton shaft seals for low stiction, Teflon-lined bearings and they even have their own spec fluid. The result is a quality product that is the best that money can buy. Proven performance and strict manufacturing specs do add up though: A complete double-adjustable Penske shocks START at $5500 a set. Triple-adjustables generally begin around $7000.
Until now….
Blackwatch Racing has taken on the challenge of engineering a set of shocks that will fit the very difficult packaging of Lotus Elise/Exige. These cars are tight and extraordinarily hard to fit. Nothing is standard in these vehicles, from the length of the shock, the available droop, compression travel, even spring sizes are different from most vehicle standard fitments. This makes designing a high performance shock an exceedingly difficult task and more costly than more “normal” cars.
We’ve been working diligently with Penske Racing Engineers to provide the best quality, double-adjustable shocks with independent compression and rebound adjustments at a VERY attractive price point. Our goal was to provide our customers with the quality and adjustability of a standard $5500 double adjustable for less money, simpler installation, and fitment for the biggest wheels & tires. While this was certainly a huge engineering challenge, we felt that our customers would be very excited to have this level of technology and car enhancement available to them, all in a package that doesn’t restrict their wheel selection at a better price.
The result of months of research, design, development and testing, these shocks are AMAZING. We started with the best valve setups from our own racecars, which have been tweaked and tested for years. Next, we worked with Penske Racing to produce our shocks using their latest technology, which means you are getting the latest winning racecar engineering on YOUR shocks, something you won’t find just anywhere. Who else can say they took the latest technology developed for winning F1, NASCAR, Indy, and World Challenge teams and put it to use in products designed for you? The end result is a shock that combines millions of dollars’ worth of racing R&D, technology that allowed us to meet OUR goal of providing the car control and precision of the top Penske double adjustable in a bolt-on package that will work in the tightly spaced Lotus Elise and Exige cars. Fitting all of that technology into such a tiny space was no small feat, but our efforts combined with Penske made it all happen!
We designed our new shocks around a shock body with a floating compression piston integrated into the main body vs. a separate canister. This eliminates the separate compression canister and gives more inboard clearance for use of wider wheels. The fitment is even tougher because the shaft and body lengths have to be perfect. However after months of measurement, test fitment, and CAD work, we’ve put together a bolt-in package that fits perfectly in the Lotus Elise and Exige! 20 sweeps of adjustment give our customers lots of tuning range!
Penske doesn’t have a “value line” like other manufacturers on the market. These shocks use the same top quality 45mm Pistons, shims, seals, wipers and adjusters as the rest of the Penske lineup. These aren’t built in China and shipped here. Each set is built to our spec in the US and dyno tested before shipping. A word about springs: One might think that springs are all the same. They are not. Performance springs cannot sag over time. They HAVE to have accurate rates from spring-to-spring. What matters in a spring? How accurate is their initial free length? Are they optimized for weight? How good are the inspection standards? Do you know who made them? When we started this project there were only a couple of suppliers we would even consider: Ultimately we went with the best ,Eibach. They are widely known for their manufacturing quality. We run them exclusively on our Lotuses. They test EVERYTHING. They magnaflux their springs two times during the manufacturing process. They measure free-length to 0.100”. The best news is that we have been able to engineer a fitment of these shocks to use standard 2.25” springs reducing cost and improving the selection of available spring rates. Blackwatch Racing is offering these Penske Racing shocks with Eibach springs, a baseline setup, plus all mounting hardware you need to give your car the performance suspension and ride it was meant to have. Bring your Lotus to life with Blackwatch Racing Penske suspension!
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