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Cup and Standard rear shocks. What actually is the difference?

S

Skeeter

Car  Ph2 Clio 172
What is the actual difference between the Cup and non Cup rear shocks?

Its clearly not enough for places like K Tec to even differentiate between the two, but apparently they are different?

What difference is there? And is it worth ditching 10k miles old non Cup rears to replace them with second hand Cup shocks now I have Cup front shocks?
 
Iirc Cup are 5% stiffer or something but could be wrong. Need new rears on mine and contemplating Cup ones. I'll let Fred loose on mine see what he says.
 
I would say its worth it. I put brand new cup shocks all round on my ph1 172 and for the cost I dont think there is a better setup out there for the clios.
 
I don't think there's any difference between Cup and non-Cup shocks on a 172.
According to Wests Renault they're the same part number.
 
.Stevo.C. said:
I would say its worth it. I put brand new cup shocks all round on my ph1 172 and for the cost I dont think there is a better setup out there for the clios.
Click to expand...

I've got new fronts and practically new rears. They were done seperately hence why I've ended up with a mix of cups and non cups as Ktec had them down as the same for the rears.

Stumpy said:
I don't think there's any difference between Cup and non-Cup shocks on a 172.
According to Wests Renault they're the same part number.
Click to expand...

In another thread Wests said that was a mistake and produced 2 seperate part numbers.

There appears to be a difference, but its prooving difficult to find out exactly what. And if its worth swapping my nearly Knew non cups for older cups.
 
Skeeter said:
In another thread Wests said that was a mistake and produced 2 seperate part numbers.

There appears to be a difference, but its prooving difficult to find out exactly what. And if its worth swapping my nearly Knew non cups for older cups.
Click to expand...

Oh, if that's the case, I wonder if I've got the right one's on my Cup???
 
Stumpy said:
Oh, if that's the case, I wonder if I've got the right one's on my Cup???
Click to expand...

This is my point. K Tec and West and likely a number of other places have probubly sold non cup shocks to cup customers and nobody has gone "OMG MY REAR END IS SO MUCH SOFTER"! So it makes me think there can't be that much difference.

Italian_Job said:
just check the holes spacing, mystery solved! :)
Click to expand...

This is about the rear shocks.
 
Try a standard 172 reg, then a proper 172 cup, surely that's the way to find out??
 
Stumpy said:
I don't think there's any difference between Cup and non-Cup shocks on a 172.
According to Wests Renault they're the same part number.
Click to expand...

they're wrong (well the computer system is) you need to look back on the old system and the 172 cup rear shock crosses over to the same as the 182 CUP rear shock
 
.Stevo.C. said:
Drive it.
Click to expand...

I don't have access to a 172 cup. My mate does have a 182 with cup suspension and it was noticeably stiffer than my 172, but since putting cup front shocks and sportlines on mines a lot firmer.

I thinks its becoming clear that the difference in rear shocks is a lot less than the fronts. I've got sportlines, cup front shocks, standard rears and a whiteline arb. Is there any point in swapping the rears for cups?
 
I have just fitted non cup shocks to the back of my 182 with cup packs till I get some coilovers sorted (right rear burst on me yesterday) and tbh i can't tell much difference and if you have softer side wall tyres you be the one to try and tell the 5-10% on the normal roads as it will marginal lol
 
Hmm you may tell if you try a cup shock setup but even so this setup isn't amazingly rigid and it's also rears so I still think you will struggle to tell.

But now you have thought about it the placebo effect will make you think it's soft :S
 
Unless you got new cup ones, swapping yours for some used shocks would still leave you with doubts I would have thought. I tend to agree that you would be hard to tell the differerence of a few % damping force.

Since you have sportlines on, you could hardly say that the springs are "matched" to any particular damper (one argument that some people bang on about).

Just a suggestion... perhaps consider getting adjustable rate rears as then you will be able to see what difference tuning the rear damping does for your handling. Individual preference is quite important as handling is so subjective... Or just leave it all alone and enjoy!
 
Last edited:
Well, one of my rear shocks is failing after just 14 months and 7,000 miles!

So I'm looking to buy a set of cup rears. Can anyone confirm the part number of CUP rear shocks and also the colour of the sticker on them? Also, somewhere that I can buy them from where they don't think all rears are the same would be good too.

Many thanks!
 
Part number: 8200342846 (changed to 8200681125) for the Cup/Cup-packed ones. Around 80 quid from the dealer.
 
Silly question but could you have 1 cup rear shock and 1 non cup rear ?
i need a drivers side non cup but all i can find on ebay is cup ones??
 
That would be like having one slightly worn and one new shock.Not a good idea, you risk exaggerated transient roll oversteer in one direction only
 
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