Can someone put these two in layman's terms? What do they each do?


I have koni yellows and from what i understand, they are only rebound adjustable. The other day, i sat in my friends miata with koni/gc 350/300 springs and they rode wonderfully compared to my integra with koni/gc 350/250. Both set to 1/4 stiff. THe difference was that the miata was able to absorb bumps much smoother than my car. The miata when hitting a bump felt like there was extra cushion in the seats. Felt like a Lexus almost. Meanwhile in my integra, it is noticeably more bumpy in that it felt like i was hitting a wall every time i ran went over a bump. Why are these two cars behaving different with an identical suspension setup?

I have almost 100k miles over 7 years on my koni/gc setup..is that why? No leaks or anything, still solid minus paint chip and rust. I would think it would soften up with the miles accumulated.

Go easy on me, Im just trying to understand suspensions a little better. I hope what i get from this i can apply it and make a good decision on my next suspension.

 

Let's start with the basic "you can't compare two different cars with the same spring rates, as suspension design and thus motion ratio will differ, as will vehicle weight". For all we know (well, someone else might) the Miata might have a significantly lower motion ratio, which would make the wheel rate of the springs significantly lower (softer suspension rides smoother, obviously).

Additionally, the shocks could be valved radically different for the two cars, so you can't compare shock settings between them either. Koni designs the shock specific to the car.

I'll leave the discussion of compression vs rebound to those who know a bit more than I.

 

No way can you compare a miata, with afaik, a near perfect 50/50 weight ratio, with a front heavy integra.

The only thing I know is compression =bound and rebound is the opposite of bound.

Its the shocks ability/speed at which they bound and rebound. A stiffer bound makes the suspension stiffer feeling I think, since it makes it harder to compress. Rebound does the same thing, but in the opposite direction.

Im probably butchering the explanation but I have a hard time putting pictures in my head into words

Oh resistance. Thats what I was thinking. Higher bound/rebound settings make it resist compression amd expansion more. Think about a car with blown shocks. They are bouncy because they dont resist movement.

 

A miata actually has similar motion ratios to the double wishbone Honda models. Still the matter of weight and weight dsitribution to take into account, but the comparison is better than looking at a car with a completely different suspension setup.

As it happens, I actually have both a DC2 and a Miata version of the load transfer app on my website: DC2 MX5

If you look there, you'll see a 350/350 spring on the Miata gives higher wheel frequencies than the 350/250 setup on the DC2. This should mean that the Miata would have a worse ride, however there is no accounting for the damping.

The Koni's are indeed only rebound adjustable, and rebound actually offers very little in regards to ride stiffness, that is primarily down to the bump damping which is fixed.

Rebound is mostly used to tune the transitional load transfer on turn in and corner exit. Adjusting the rear makes the most difference to turn in (stiffer = more oversteer) and the front makes the most difference to corner exit (stiffer = more understeer).

If I was to hazard a guess at why his rides better than yours:

Unsprung weight = He has less
Sidewall stiffness / tyre pressure = His are softer.
Damper valving = Miata Koni's have less compression damping.

I'd say it was the tyres/wheels personally.