Shock Adjustment

[Bluwatr1]

Can someone explain, when tuning a shock lets say tight on entry, more compression is the adjustment . The term "more" would that mean open the shock adjuster to allow more movement, or closing it to make it stiffer to not allow as much movement ? Thanks

[RCJ]

closing to make stiffer.Your shock could be 150 lbs at 6inch of velocity ,adding more compression could make it 175 at same velocity

[Bluwatr1]

So if I understand you correctly closing will add, opening will subtract on the adjustments .

[7uptruckracer]

Correct but be careful the old way of adjusting stuff doesn't really apply anymore because of how we turn the cars

[Kromulous]

More compression means more dampening, in my mind, or closing the valve off and making it take more force to move it.

[Bluwatr1]

You lost me on the old adjustments not working due to the way we turn the cars

[stevensracing_6]

Second that ^

[7uptruckracer]

Alot of guys use to add compression on the RF when the cars tight. We don't really do that anymore because we want the RF down as quick as possible and to the travel number we want and we also use camber gain alot to turn the cars so you are working against that we run as much rebound as we can stand to get the car to turn the car into the corner and carry center of turn momentum

[Bluwatr1]

Ok I understand now!!! We do run a lot of rebound on RF as well I used that as an example tight on entry, more compression !

[Matt49]

To most people, more compression means more compression dampening. So if I was trying to free entry, I would go with less compression so that it gets over on the RF faster.

[let-r-eat]

I put the toilet paper roll between my left and right pointer fingers. The toilet paper roll weighs 25 grams. Equally loaded on both fingers at 12.5 grams each. The right hand leaves the scene and now the toilet paper is held up with just the left index finger. It is now holding 25 grams.

You are not putting more weight on the right front tire by getting on it quicker. PERIOD.

[Renegade Cust Susp]

I put the toilet paper roll between my left and right pointer fingers. The toilet paper roll weighs 25 grams. Equally loaded on both fingers at 12.5 grams each. The right hand leaves the scene and now the toilet paper is held up with just the left index finger. It is now holding 25 grams.

You are not putting more weight on the right front tire by getting on it quicker. PERIOD.

your right a shock change will not change the amount of weight/force on a tire...

[Bluwatr1]

I understand your not putting more weight/ load on the RF by quicker movement. It's more about camber gain and getting the car to a said MC location I was trying to understand the "more" / "less" adjustments that are said when adjusting the shocks

[Kromulous]

Ok so whats it change? if your changing the dampening in a shock something is going on.

To me it changes the duration time, dwell etc, of the weight on that corner. Its not more physical weight / force, but the length of time you add or hold the weight can be affected.

[Bluwatr1]

I agree with the "dwell" -timing of the shock on the adjustments. Now as far as what it does, changes maybe this would be the start to a great discussion !

[let-r-eat]

The point I was making is that the lower the rf goes the more weight that is held by the lf *all other things equal*. The hardest thing to learn about a shock is that the "reaction for every action" is still present.

Remove the compression and the frequency of the spring is still there doing work in both directions. Shocks are for keeping the contact patch in contact with the racing surface. You can't ignore their basic purpose. If you do then you are compromising car attitude with grip. Which is ok if the cars attitude is creating more grip. I think it is often overlooked the basic purpose of the shock.

You get rid of that compression dampening on that right front and when that tire hits an imperfection it can't react fast enough because it doesn't have enough dampening and you still lose grip. Shocks are about keeping the tire in contact with the racing surface and combating forces.

Everything is about the keeping that tire as highly connected to the track as possible.

Decrease dampening and stack the shock up in either direction and it's a lose/lose.

[Matt49]

The point I was making is that the lower the rf goes the more weight that is held by the lf *all other things equal*. The hardest thing to learn about a shock is that the "reaction for every action" is still present.

Remove the compression and the frequency of the spring is still there doing work in both directions. Shocks are for keeping the contact patch in contact with the racing surface. You can't ignore their basic purpose. If you do then you are compromising car attitude with grip. Which is ok if the cars attitude is creating more grip. I think it is often overlooked the basic purpose of the shock.

You get rid of that compression dampening on that right front and when that tire hits an imperfection it can't react fast enough because it doesn't have enough dampening and you still lose grip. Shocks are about keeping the tire in contact with the racing surface and combating forces.

Everything is about the keeping that tire as highly connected to the track as possible.

Decrease dampening and stack the shock up in either direction and it's a lose/lose.

Good post...

[Mr.Kennedy777]

To add dynamic wedge during braking you would increase RF compression dampening force, decrease LF compression dampening force, decrease LR rebound dampening force, or increase RR rebound dampening force. Also, cars can come off of the bars during braking, so your rear compression dampening forces also come into play as well, so increasing LR compression dampening force while decreasing RR compression dampening force will also add wedge. If we look at acceleration, a similar thing happens. If we want to add wedge using shocks to tighten acceleration, we could increase LF rebound dampening force, decrease RF rebound dampening force, increase LR compression dampening force, decrease RR compression dampening force, and like braking MAY cause the compression of the rear shocks due to the car settling off the bars, during acceleration, the rebound of the rear shocks comes into play by controlling the chassis movement that occurs via bar angles. So decreasing LR rebound dampening force, and increasing RR rebound dampening force also will help add dynamic wedge while on the throttle. Contrary to what many people think, a shock that has a higher rebound speed, or lower rebound dampening can actually keep that corner connected better. A perfect example would be running a hard tie down left front. Under the right conditions this will unload the tire and even cause a premature, or temporary lift, if the shock doesn't have time to return the tire to the track surface. You only need enough rebound dampening to control the spring you are running on that corner of the car, or less. There are some trade offs, I mean, a hard tie down right front can work well to keep the cars platform and keep the LF tire down. It's very important while hiking the LR way up to keep the RF down as far as possible for as long as possible in order to make the best use of the LF and the RR as well. So there is a good trade off, and does it offer more grip? Depends, if you are running a conventional RF spring and hard tie down shock, versus when you run a bump device where the hard tie down shock is actually controlling that much stiffer final rate, the grip is enhanced in the latter situation more so than the first. So it's not the most ideal to run a soft spring with a high rebound shock, when you could actually be running a spring rate that that hard tie down shock is controlling properly, or a shock that is only stiff enough on the rebound side to control that softer conventional spring.

[let-r-eat]

I will start off by saying that MR Kennedy said a mouthful with those last two sentences.

[Bluwatr1]

Can using the shock dyno sheet enable you to "Time" shock movement at various points on the track? For instance middle off adding or Lessing rebound on the LR to promote traction while shock is in motion?