ZBROZ Racing's DRR EXIT/ARS FX Suspension

In 1999, Z-Broz started working with suspension guru Mike Hallock and found great success . Hallock's ATV roots are extensive, but originally stemmed in the early 80's as the owner of his own Tecate 4 and Kawasaki Mojave 250. He like so many of us wanted better suspension, so he proceeded to design and build a full long travel suspension for it. Throughout the years, Hallock worked for various companies including Fox Shox as a shock assembler. Within a year from leaving Fox, he was back to business building custom ATV shocks. Hallock was machining Penske car shock parts by day, designing/machining his own stuff by night and by 1995, Custom Axis ATV shocks was born. Mike Hallock is best known for his success and contributes in the wins in Mickey Thompson Desert, GNCC XC, and GNC MX. In 2007, Mike started the development of the EXIT shocks......

Head of fabrication, Glenn Floyd has always had a passion for 3 and 4 wheelers, and after years of welding experience, Glenn joined forces with Z-Broz racing and started building the Ars-Fx Swing Arm (a somewhat abbreviated version of "Ars Effectus". Two Latin words that capture the meaning of what/who they stood for, "Art" in "Motion) and has since added several other components including the ARS FX A-arms to Z-Broz line-up including suspension for Side by Sides, ATV's and Snowmobiles.

What a lot people don't know is Z-Broz Racing was the first innovators of the reverse gull wing- high clearance A-arms and is the only Company in the industry that builds their own full suspension line up .

Youth racing has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years, so when Z-Broz discovered just how demanding the Youth ranks were, they decided to produce their first mini ATV suspension. DRR is superior in comparison to recent years and today's mini ATV line up, but for the aggressive racer that needs the upper edge and better handling, a much improved suspension system is needed. Sometime back in 2007 we had approached a couple of the guys at Z-Broz and was telling them just how cool it would be if they could come up with a mini suspension setup that handled like the "big boy" shocks did on the full sized ATV's. While the demand for better suspension in the mini ATV market is in big demand, Mike Hallock was not so sure he was ready to dig deep into the project as Glenn Floyd was. Hallock stated that there were several areas that needed to be addressed, as the geometry on these minis just seemed all wrong and mounting points are wrong. There would be several areas that would need to be addressed. So when the project was given the green light in 2007, Z-Broz spent and extensive two years doing R&D and after one full year of rider testing, Z-Broz introduces there latest additions to their ATV line-up:

Hallock states "The hardest thing for me to walk away from were all kids riding the heck out of these things, many of whom were getting hurt in the process. I don't know how many parents have come up to me over the years, showing me there kids mini ATV that their son or daughter was riding, asking me if there was anything I could do to help. A lot of these kids have less fear than the big kids do! We want to build components that everyone would have confidence in. My feeling was if we are going to do this, we are going to do it right and try NOT limit ourselves to the stock hardware."

A lot of changes would take place. The rear shock is so short that it bottoms out 4 inches too soon .The swing-arm was the first thing to go. Not nearly enough travel and with the existing shock location, there was no way I could build a shock that would work like it needed to. Since they were going to build a swing arm to change the suspension geometry, they also added some length to it to make the quad more stable at speed.

Z-Broz built and tested two test suspensions, A-arms, Swing-arm, and Shocks.
The thing we learned right off the bat was mini's are just that, mini. Half of what a full size quad is. The quad is almost half the size of a full sized quad, with half the weight. The rider is half the weight of a standard adult which means the suspension travel is about half. The wheelbase is shorter and engine puts out way less power.

Set the suspension up too stiff and the kids are just hanging on for dear life as they bounce around the track. Set it up too soft and they pull over after the first big jump, tears in their eyes, complaining about wrist and ankles. The challenge is you have between 8-10 inches of suspension travel to work with. We could build more travel into it but with that small a chassis, limited by the small engine, there were areas you had to stay within. Too much up travel, you smack the ground. Too much droop up front and you get too much scrub. Scrub is when the tires move in their outward a-arm arc, as the suspension moves thru its travel. More scrub means more drag on momentum. A mini quad, with a mini motor, going thru whoops, moguls, etc., you want to keep all the momentum you can. Too much droop will also give you too much chassis roll in the corners. Too much droop in back causes a couple of issues, which are more sensitive than a full size quad since the mini swing arms are quite a bit shorter. Too much droop and your wheelbase gets too short going through rough, as well as too much transfer under braking. Worst of all, more droop equals even more of a chain tension issue than you had in stock form.

The goal of the DRR suspension was to give the chassis a better overall balance instead of just more travel. The prototype setup we built was exceptionally better than stock. However, once we started racing it we felt that the width needed to be wider and the wheelbase needed to be longer. We also became more aware of the consumers desire for fully adjustable shocks, having both compression and rebound adjustment. This would require longer shocks. The other thing that I noticed was that if I altered the motion ratios of both front and rear suspensions, I could get them to work even better.

On the second setup, we settled on a +3 width for the a-arms and a +2 longer swing arm, both yielding 9 inches of travel. The longer a-arms would give us a fair amount of travel with minimal scrub. The same in the rear, more travel with concern on excessive droop angles. Next was to come up with a chain roller system that actually worked thru the suspension travel. To reduce even more bump steer, we opted for a 4-1 offset wheel on the X2 setup and putting the front end width at about 45 inches wide.. There is a lot to properly setting up your suspension, but if done correctly the ending result is quit amazing. Z-Broz states you need to tweak the shocks a bit on a first set of A-arms and/or swing arm. They were however pretty excited when they worked better right out of the box..

WORCS youth test rider Brandon Lugan has put in a lot of hours on the suspension all year long since the project began and stated how much faster his lap times are as well as his rider skills have greatly improved after running the X2 setup. Lugan stated that many of the tracks he races at are a lot of the same terrain as the full sized ATV's, making it even more imperative to have the best suspension on his DRR.

Brandon states "I really like the reverse gull wing as I now have a higher ground clearance. I ride a lot of desert and rock so ground clearance is very important to me. The courses we ride on, the adults get the luxury of running 20-22 inch tires where us minis get 14-18 inch tires, so the ground clearance is a MUCH needed bonus."

"I have been racing since I was 5 years old and have tried a variety of suspension on my minis, the EXIT/ARS FX setup is by far the best setup I have ever had, it is amazing how well it makes my quad handle now. The stem support takes away from the flex in the steering stem, especially where I run a +1 stem. It has 3 reliable mounting points.

One other thing that was a huge benefit of the suspension is that I have not had one single frame break since we made the switch and have not lost one single chain. At home tracks I clear 55 foot doubles and 60 foot table tops and sometimes I don't get so lucky and I might short a few of them. The suspension has saved me every time." The ARS FX A-arms built from 4130 Chromalloy for strength and comes complete with new lower ball joints, tie rods, pivot bushings, seals, and Pins.

The Exit series X1 and X2 shocks are available in both piggyback and remote reservoir configurations. All come standard with HTC springs, in dual and triple rate spring combinations. Crossover adjustment, and pre load adjustment are also standard features. All X1 shocks come with an external compression adjuster, which allows the rider to fine tune the shock with the simple turn of a knob. All aluminum parts are anodized for a durable long lasting finish.

Z-Broz racing has once again put out an outstanding product, if you would like to find out more information on the full EXIT/ARS FX line-up and new upcoming products, please visit their website at www.zbrozracing.com.