Laying the shocks down has several effects. The most easily noticed is that you can achieve much more vertical travel out of the suspension than the true travel of the shock. This is because you change the motion ratio, which also makes the suspension action digressive, meaning the more the suspension is compressed the softer it becomes. This is not ideal for high speed jumping action, but for slow crawling, where you ussually want the keep the suspension ride height low, it can work just fine. You will have to run a higher spring rate and thicker shock valving to compensate for the increased leverage on the stock.
I am running Revo shocks with stock pistons, 10 weight Associated oil, and light .7 yellow Jato springs. With no preload I get the ride height shown. I removed the stock blue bumpstops. I'm considering adding a couple shock O-rings to soften hard blows. I run the light weight oil because the stock valving for the Revo shocks is ridiculously stiff because they are run in a heavy truck with cantilevers, so they need much less valving in a lighter vehicle.
The front driveshaft U-joints are very close to binding at full droop.
Yet the drag link contacts the frame upon full compression.
Plenty of flex for a scaler.
The Revo shocks, sans bumpstops, have the same travel as the stock SCX shocks do with 1/2 of their original bumpstops.
For my application I really like the layed down shocks. I have much more droop travel for when I'm making breakovers, or belly-hung, and I have lost nothing in overall stability, and I didn't have to increase the ride height.
There are multiple holes to mount the upper shock ends in and I've found that you can control the ratio of front-rear flex by changing the angle of the shock. The steeper the angle, the softer the effective wheel rate and the more flex at that end. I've also found that laying the front shocks further than the rears seems to help keep the front suspension from "pushing away" during steep climps.
I did have to use 8mm wide hex's to keep the tires out of the larger-diameter-than-stock shocks, but this seems to only have aided in stability, plus it allowed me to run zero ackerman high steer knuckles (not shown in pics, I broke the camera right after modding the truck)
I say make up some brackets and try it. What do you have to lose?
