What do you do if the ride is too bouncy, which way to turn the shock. Soft or Stiffer?

Can you damage the shock if it is too soft or no turn at all and stiff all around, full turn?

Shock: Koni Yellow and GC OTS 380/280

Thanks

 

Shocks are not firm enough. Soft shock = more oscillation of the spring. stiffer shock control the oscillation better. Start at maybe 1 turn from full soft and go up until you have a non bouncy ride and still enough travel.

 

Stiffer springs! but after the 350lb mark in the rear you'll go from bouncy to rough. I prefer the rough stuff though...as far as I can tell with my set up, shocks can only do so much to alter the behavior of the springs.

Koni/GC 430f 375r ...much better than my old Skunk2 Pro-S setup. I have a progress rear anti-roll bar and I love the handling characteristics.

 

stiffen the shocks! When you adjust a koni, it increases rebound damping. Which mean its slows the rebound of the spring. OTS Konis can handle up to 600 lb springs, so you have mroe than enough shock to handle those GC's. Crank them up a bit!

 

Drill a hole in your dampers and let the oil out, you'll see just how much they do affect spring behaviour...

If the suspension is 'bouncy' (as opposed to harsh), then stiffening the spring rate with no change to damper rate will make it worse. To lessen a bouncy ride the damper rate needs to be increased (which will also increase harshness, most of the harshness with a stiff set up comes from the dampers).

Dampers work harder the stiffer the valving is (higher internal pressures), so increasing damper stiffness wil tend to some degree increase wear and tear, and may make it somewhat more prone to damage. The stiffer the damper the better quality it needs to be in order to last (Konis should last a good long time).

Konis shouldn't ever be adjusted all the way to full stiff because (I'm told) the rebound valve can become almost fully closed, making the damper rebound rate extemely stiff (way too stiff for the great majority of applications). Instead, for a stiff setting, adjust to full stiff, then back of until you feel the valve aduster move just a bit.

 

The rear I manage to fix the problem, cutting the bumpstop in half and that half I even cut to have more travel plus I move the perch up from the stock settings with 1 full turn from soft.

Now the front whatever I do it bottoms out, small bump or small hole in the road it bottoms out!

Already set the Koni to full stiff and nothing, do I have a bad front damper? it does not leak or anything the spring rate I have in the front is 380 OTS. I even cut the half bumpstop in half to have more travel.

When I stiff the front damper it stiffens and vice versa so I don't think that the front damper is damage or maybe the 380F is still too soft?

Is Koni known to have a shock that bottoms out?

Also I am upgrading my wheels from 15 to 16's, will I have more suspension travel?

 

Koni makes some of the best shocks on the market. My Koni Sports are just about 7 years old now with almost 170K miles on them and they're still working great.

I did not have a problem with bottoming out when I had 380/450 f/r rates on my Integra with GC's. Maybe you just have the ride height too low?

 

hehe pat, mine are even older than yours and still going strong!
i have to wonder dude, how low is your car if you are bottoming out?

 

Koni yellows ('Sports') are not particularly stiff in bump (which is non adjustable in stock form), but are very stiff in rebound near the full stiff setting. If the damper is adjusted very stiff (rebound) then the damper can sometimes 'pump down', meaning that the spring compresses relatively easily in bump but the stiff rebound resistance causes it to extend back out more slowly. Over a series of bumps the damper can move closer and closer (with each bump loading) to being nearly fully compressed, and then the next bump causes it to bottom out. When this happens the spring is not stiff enough for the damper rebound rate, or the damper rebound is too stiff for the spring.

This would be worse with lower ride height, softer spring rate, softer damper bump rate, stiffer damper rebound rate, rougher roads. You might try less rebound stiffness, raise the ride height, stiffer springs (though I think your existing rates are quite high enough already for a road car, unless you are really dumped...). The Konis can be revalved with stiffer bump valving, and can even have bump rate adjusters retro-fitted (how much do you want to spend?)...

I suspect the rebound is too stiff (especially if you have the valve turned all the way hard up against full stiff, instead of backed off just a tad), and, the ride height too low.

Konis are not really intended for substantially lowered cars (i.e. cosmetically lowered beyond what is likely to be best for handling), as they are stock length dampers. I've heard they do make a short series damper for very low set ups(???).

No.

 

im running 350/250 full soft since i got it(15k miles) and it has never bottomed out from a pot hole, but i have once when i was going on the freeway at 80mph 4 people in the teg and went over a dip and it was enough to make the bottom of my car scrape. i cut my bumpstop to what the instruction says, no problems! oh yeah running oem top hats, maybe run GC top hats, it will give you a little more room. love this setup

 

no they're not dude, you still had the red car when I first installed my Konis w/ H&R Sports back in Feb. 2002.

I think you had... Arospeed coilovers back then?

 

No top hats available for my car, called GC.

I noticed that the when I first installed it the car is quite low and have that bottoming out when I hit a big hole but when I raise the car that bottoming out disappear.

I just came back from work and rode the car on the freeway and it actually feels much better now than before.

I was in the impression that Koni Yellow Sports can handle slammed setups. I just raise the car to the height not in stock form but little lower than stock and I like the way it looks now and ride.

Its just a matter of tweaking the dampers to the GC springs. After all this is DD car 120miles a day!

Thanks for all the input!

 

Ok. what if I am still not satify with my GC springs.

Can I use the 8" from the front and use it in the rear? The rear uses 9"

pros, cons of using shorter springs in the rear.

And then get a stiffer springs in the front.

 

So long as the spring will fit in the damper then it should be fine so long as you can adjust ride height and have suitably rated new front springs. You will be more at risk of a bouncy ride with stiffer springs (i.e. bouncy not harsh, a lot of people seem to confuse these two characteristics).

 

Making the rear springs stiffer will make the ride feel much more harsh.

 

I think we're on path for a terminology issue here.

Bouncy = under damped
Harsh = over damped
Stiff / Firm = more sprung
Soft = less sprung

Stiffer springs with the same shock will be both less harsh (more bouncy) and more firm.

The key issue here is that people frequently use poor word choice when describing suspension feel.

My Integra has been (incorrectly) described as "harsh" by many non-car friends and coworkers, when they really mean "firm" or "stiff". Yet other autocrossers have described my car as "bouncy" after driving it. As I set my Konis slightly under damped (nearly full soft), it is definitely bouncy and takes 2 oscillations after a bump to settle.

 

Yes.

None. Unless you run out of spring travel before suspension travel, but that generally doesn't happen with lowered cars on stiffer springs.

 

Are those the industry-accepted meanings for those terms?

When I say "harsh" I just mean generally uncomfortable for street driving. Certain freeways around my area have really bad dips/transitions between the asphalt and concrete surface at overpass bridges. When I had 450 lb/in rear springs my "derriere" would tend to bounce out of the seat when I drove over it at the normal highway speed, no matter how the Konis were set (near full soft or full stiff, either way).

Now that I have stock ITR springs in the rear on the same Koni shocks, the ride feels much more compliant/soft/comfortable/whatever. I generally don't get very technical when it comes to describing ride quality of a daily-driven car on public streets.

 

More or less, depending.

I didn't intend to "call you out" or anything. But when 2 consecutive posts make use of radically different terminology to describe the same feeling, it can quickly become confusing to readers.

And I understand the "butt leaving the seat" feeling. There's a couple of places on the freeway where I hit my head on the ceiling, thanks to my 400 lbs/in rear springs. Turning the shocks up to full stiff makes the ride harsh, in addition to the lack of suspension compliance provided from the springs (you leave the seat still, but the impact feels more jarring on the car when the suspension compresses and doesn't decompress quickly enough, almost like feeling the tire skip on the pavement after the bump).

Eh, I just try to clarify things.

 

Well, that's a bit extreme...but in the context of what the OP is talking about, the Koni's (with rebound adjustment only) can only do so much. That's why he's bottoming out, because the soft spring is making for a "bouncy" ride. I know what you're saying, and I know shocks are crucial, but his shock bump valving isn't going to change so it's either raise the car or stiffen the springs.

If you want a 0 finger gap on a DC or EG/EK/EM then go for at least 400lb/in springs up front. You won't be bottoming out on every little dip, and train crossings shouldn't be a problem either. Oh, and you'll lose the BOAT behaviour, which is what I think you actually mean by when you say your ride is "bouncy." Be sure to keep your rear spring rates relatively stiff after you upgrade if you care about handling performance.

Again FYI: I've been through quite a decent range of spring rates on my DC, and the best medium I've reached for balancing performance and ride quality (inc. NOT bottoming out) is 430f 375r. It is a *tad* bit harsh due to the rear spring rate, but I like my Koni's at full stiff. Softening the Koni rebound really takes the edge off of the stiff rear springs.

Oh, and my son, now 7mo. old, never had a problem with my suspension set up, hehe. He slept right through every drive, so if it's comfortable enough for a newborn, then it can't be that bad!

 

The Konis can be revalved for stiffer bump damping, and this can even be adjustable if you can / want to pay the extra.

The softer the spring relative to the damper stiffness the less 'bouncy' the ride will tend to be. 'Bounce' is caused by the compressed spring storing more energy than the damper can allow to be released in a controlled manner (read 'more slowly'), so the inadequately controlled energy 'pushes' the chassis upward too far too fast on rebound. It's probably more that the damper rebound is not stiff enough that would cause a 'bouncy' ride, more than the bump stiffness.

I do think it's likely that the car is just too low for the spring rate.

 

Stiffness and harshness are quite similar but not exactly the same. Most of the harshness we feel with 'stiff' suspension set ups comes from higher damper rates, not so much from the springs themselves (unless they're very stiff, probably too stiff for a road car).

The reason of course is that 'shock absorbers' do the exact opposite of absorbing shocks, i.e. they transfer transient forces from the wheel to the chassis far more effectively than the springs do. It's the springs that absorb shocks, dampers control the springs and the sprung / unsprung masses, and make the ride harsh.

 

im running FF on my ek3 hatch

really stiff/bouncy

even with dampening soft all round
i put on hard all around
now that was stiff

 

Stiff spring + soft damper setting = bouncy ride.

Stiff spring + stiff damper setting = stiff / harsh ride (but not bouncy).