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Post: How to adjust the shock absorber damping

The damping of the shock absorber is not only related to comfort, but also has a huge impact on the vehicle’s handling. Many off-road players do not know how to adjust the adjustable shock absorber correctly to meet their needs after modifying it. Most adjustable shock absorbers developed for civilian off-road vehicles have the function of adjustable compression damping, and some also support the adjustment of rebound damping.
Before starting the adjustment, it is necessary to ensure the correct installation of the shock absorber in the early stage, and select the correct spring according to different load conditions and the increase range. At the same time, it is also necessary to ensure that the current load state of the vehicle should be as close as possible to that of the off-road crossing. For example, when crossing long distances, there are 2-3 people in the car and the trunk is full of supplies. When debugging the shock absorber, it is also necessary to ensure that the vehicle is in a similar state. In addition, it is also necessary to ensure that the tire pressure is at a normal value. Too high or too low tire pressure will affect the test effect.
The second is the choice of the test site. As long as it is an open and safe non-public road, the test can be carried out. On this basis, the terrain should be as rich as possible, including paved roads, gravel roads, undulating dirt roads, washboard roads, etc. After all, in a real off-road environment, the road conditions are often complicated, and most shock absorbers cannot be adjusted at any time in the car.
If you have no idea about the role and size of the shock absorber damping, you can start the test drive by adjusting it to the minimum. Whether it is the operating knob or the adjustment ring, when the compression and rebound damping are adjusted to the minimum, the shock absorber’s inhibitory effect on the spring is also the lowest. In this state, you can drive the vehicle carefully first, and feel the ups and downs of the body when encountering bumps in the state of minimum damping, as well as the difficulty of control at a slightly faster speed.
The size of the compression damping is the easiest to perceive physically, which is usually referred to as the “soft” and “hard” of the shock absorber. It is manifested in the process of the wheel approaching the vehicle body, including the impact from the road surface, and the posture changes of the vehicle when accelerating, braking and turning. If the compression damping is too small, the suspension travel will be easily used up when encountering large bumps, causing bottoming, and it will not be able to meet the support required for control; if the compression damping is too large, it will feel like driving on four “iron sticks”. Long-term bumpy driving is not only uncomfortable, but also affects the life of some body parts. When adjusting the compression damping, you can first set it to the middle value (for example, if there are 7 adjustable shock absorbers, you can first set it to the 4th stage). The advantage of this is that you can quickly find the damping size that suits you best. According to the above situation, if you feel that the suspension travel is not enough, the shock absorber is easy to bottom out, or the support is insufficient and the roll is serious, you should increase the compression damping appropriately; if you feel that the controllability is completely satisfied, but the body feels too bumpy and the comfort is poor, then reduce the compression damping appropriately and test again at different vehicle speeds.
Rebound damping may not be as obvious as adjusting compression damping in terms of physical perception. It is manifested in the process of the wheel moving away from the body and returning to its original position after the suspension is compressed. When the spring is compressed, it stores a huge amount of energy (especially high-poundage heavy-load springs). This energy needs sufficient rebound damping to suppress it during the release process, otherwise the vehicle will have extra bounces back and forth, which will affect the control and stability of the body posture, or cause the shock absorber to “top” or even damage the components; however, if the rebound damping is too large, the suspension travel will recover too slowly, and it will not be able to cope with the subsequent road impacts. The adjustment of rebound damping can also follow the above method, mainly to feel whether the body has obvious rebound phenomenon when the shock absorber handles bumps, and whether the wheels can return to their positions in time under continuous bumps, and handle each vibration neatly. Of course, the debugging results obtained in this way are only based on general comprehensive scenarios. For specific off-road environments, it is also necessary to combine specific conditions. For example, when driving in the desert, controllability is often the priority, which requires the shock absorber to provide stronger support than usual, so the damping should be further increased.
Some competitive shock absorbers also have high and low speed damping and even multi-channel adjustment functions. They can divide different working conditions more finely and make “appropriate” adjustments for each situation, rather than just compromise. Their adjustment methods are also more complicated, requiring more detailed adjustment of the damping size according to the speed of the shock absorber or the different travel sections.
The significance of adjustability is that the shock absorber can provide a wider range of application for different vehicle conditions and driving habits. Therefore, there is no so-called “unified” best data.

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Aaron Almaraz

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