Quote:
Originally Posted by Lancelot
I take it that you mean adjustable preload, not just height? Ohlins do that IIRC, do you know of other brands?
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Um, no. If you increased the preload you are increasing the starting force, it's a poor substitute for the proper spring rate, but will allow small changes to adjust how high the chassis rides and starting force. Adjusting preload is not adjusting damping.
These are adjustable coil over shocks that can adjust the damping:
https://www.tirerack.com/suspension/...171101140644:s
They have adjusters that can be turned to increase rebound/compression, etc. The more fancy the shocks, the more adjustments you can have. Typically, most adjusters adjust the low-speed effects, which means low shaft-speed. Low-speed shock performance deals with weight shift, chassis movement, chassis stability, etc. When you throw the car into a turn and it leans, it's a low-speed event for the shock shaft. When you hit a pothole at 30mph, it's a relatively fast shock shaft event, where the damping piston has to blow off and bypass a lot of oil very quickly. This can be important to be able to adjust for the proper roadholding for high end racing, but for most people, it's not necessary. This is either pre-set, can be re-valved, or can be adjusted, but it takes fairly complex damping circuits to allow true adjustment of high-speed damping via external adjusters. Low-speed is much more common and the perfect way to offset the effects of your stiffer swaybars. In general, a more aggressive coil-over will have higher damping rates because they assume stiffer springs and sway-bars, hence the terms "stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3 suspension". These usually assume stages of upgrading everything, including swaybars, bushings, links, springs, etc. This is one way to make sure you at least roughly match the shocks to the sways, but if you want to have a better chance of nailing it, get adjustable coil-overs.
A lot of this is suspension 101, not that everyone should be this in-tune with suspension, but if you go down this path, you should do some research on basic suspension theory. I do a lot of work with mountain bike shocks and forks, rebuilding, taking apart, servicing, in addition to custom-dampers. Some of these back in the 90s were just complete jokes, some of them though, from custom manufacturers or even the big manufacturers these days, are more high end than you'll find on 99.9% of performance road cars, with twin tube high and low damping circuits and adjustable high and low speed damping. The damping has to match the spring rates, to which the sways contribute.