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Jan Zuijdijk
Jan Zuijdijk has been active in motorsports as suspension engineer and designer of damping systems for over 45 years, specializing in gas hydraulic damping and vehicle dynamics as ...view moreJan Zuijdijk has been active in motorsports as suspension engineer and designer of damping systems for over 45 years, specializing in gas hydraulic damping and vehicle dynamics as applied to race cars in a diversified field.
His career started at Koni in Holland in 1960 in Research and development and was soon a regular suspension engineer on the Formula One and international racing series providing set up service to the teams.
Jan Zuijdijk together with the late Henk Richten, service manager at Koni Holland, designed and pioneered a new revolutionair damper design of which the damping forces could be adjusted without taking the damper of the car.
After the new design damper was tested on the Ferrari prototype sports cars at the Nurburgring, the Formula One teams of Lotus, Tyrrell, Brabham, Surtees and other teams started using the new damper designed by Zuijdijk and Richten.
Zuijdijk worked within the research department on a Koni Gas hydraulic Self Leveling Suspension system for the Porsche 911 and Ferrari 365 2+2 especial tuning the ride and handling of the system.
The Leveling system using suspension movement to activate the pump action providing lift to carry the variable weight of the car.
In 1972, Jan Zuijdijk moved to the United States of America working with the Koni importer in the function of Chief Engineer and became directly involved with the American Racing series of which there are many and diverse series, soon the Zuijdijk prepared Koni dampers dominated the Indy car series.
In 1978, Zuijdijk accepted the function of Director of Engineering and Racing services, responsible for product development for the North American and Canadian market, organizing racing service throughout the country at Koni America in Culpeper V.A.
In 1988, Zuijdijk resigned from Koni and continued to work as consultant to racing teams in the USA .
In 1989, He worked with the Patrick racing team, designing suspension components for the Indy car team, working closely with Emerson Fittipaldi on the car setup, winning most races and the championship.
In 1991 Zuijdijk returned to Europe, starting the JRZ Suspension Engineering business, to develop suspension products designed for the demands of modern race car suspensions and vehicle dynamics.
The objective was to take the experience with the different damper designs and combine the features In a successful design
Zuijdijk designed a hybrid system using a combination of hydraulic damping and gas force to provide extra lift for the suspension of race and road cars which is very successful in many applications all over the world.
In 1994, Zuijdijk worked on a chassis development project with General Motors winning most of the races in that season with driver Ron Fellows and Will Moody engineering.
The JRZ damper system is now a race proven design having won major races all over the world and is a major player in the high performance suspension industry worldwide.
Zuijdijk is still active in damper development, consulting, seminars and in race car engineering.
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