2DoorBandit

Can some one explain to me in a stupid simple way what adjustable damping.....i HAve come to belive that it makes your ride stiffer or softer so it basicly like adjust yout spring rates or am i wrong

PIC Performance

Springs and dampers are two different things. The springs are the coil part, while the damper is also known as the shock body, which the spring is usually coiled around.
Adjusting the damping means you are changing the way the damper behaves in either rebound or compression (or both). Increasing the damping in either dimension (rebound or compression) means that you are increasing how resistant the damper will be movement in that dimension.
eg. Increasing rebound damping means that the spring will require more force to push the piston back up in the shock body, meaning that the entire assembly will return to its regular length more slowly. Decreasing the rebound damping means it takes less force to return the entire assembly to its regular length so it will extend more quickly.
Compression damping works the same way, in the opposite direction (compression of the damper). Increasing compression damping means it will require more force to compress the damper, and decreasing compression damping means it will require less force.
How this translates into ride quality (stiffness, or bounciness) depends on a variety of other factors, as well as how rebound and compression are adjusted in relation to one another. Generally of course, more damping will mean a stiffer ride.
Springs play a large role in ride quality as well. But as far as I know, there is no adjustable spring out there, short of cutting the coils or something silly like that.

L8apex

Also, spring rate determines how much rebound damping you need. A higher spring rate needs higher rebound to control the spring extending after a bump or during a dip; basically anytime the wheel moves downwards. On single adjustable dampers, rebound is usually the one that is adjusted more than compression.

Compression damping in a nutshell controls how fast the wheel travels upwards and is determined mostly by the vehicle's sprung weight vs. it's unsprung weight. Since these two hardly change (once a setup has been chosen), compression damping does not need to be altered too much. However, get a set of lightweight wheels and shave a couple hundred pounds from the chassis, then you will need (along with slightly different spring rates) different compression damping via revalving the shocks, or adjusting compression damping on double-adjustable dampers.