There's not a whole lot of point in upgrading the
Midnight Pumpkin, but after 2 years of driving it occasionally I did
decide it would benefit from some CVA oil dampers. This set of
"short" dampers can be adjusted anywhere from 80mm to 94mm in
length. The MP uses the shortest version. I did not realize
that I would need two sets of these for the model. Because you can
see four springs I figured there were 4 shocks, but there are actually
two sets of springs included with different rates.
The original kit included the brackets needed to
convert from the stock pogo stick installation to the CVA shocks.
Luckily I still had them. This picture shows one old front shock
on the left and a new CVA shock on the right. One thing I should
mention concerns the springs. The instructions tell you to use the
softer springs on all 4 corners of the model, but I found that these
were too soft for the front. When backing up the front suspension
compresses and scrapes the body. I switched the front to the hard
shocks and it solved the problem.
I also came back a couple of years later and mildly upgraded the motor
from a silver can to a Torque Tuned. It actually made a
significant difference in the ability to wheelie.
