Do coilover kits come pre-adjusted?

[Papadirty]

I've never thought of this before, but when I order a coilover kit with say 36 way adjustable, are they pre adjusted? Or do I have to adjust them myself? If so are they hard to adjust?

[szh]

The question is: pre-adjusted for what car?

I would guess, most likely, the mftr will ship them with some default setting (on the assumption that a particular set will fit a range of possible cars) and you need to dial it in based on the specific car model, weight, performance, etc., you are expecting to install on.

Just my guess here, though.

Z

[Dittoz7]

Click..click..click

[alms24sebring]

I just turned mine all the way to the loosest setting until I reached the end. Then I counted to 16 clicks (32 way) and I know I was in the middle (0), and +/- from there. Trial and error from there.

[Red coupe]

Your 240 is different then my 240.

The right setting is not the same from yours to mine.
There is not even a right setting for your car... different tracks and conditions mean different settings.

All of that aside, it will also depend on the manufacturer... but I would bet you a fiver that the shock comes set to what ever random setting it ends up in after manufacturing and that no/few manufacturers take the time to adjust to (or even have) a recommended setting.

More adjustment = more opportunities to be wrong... why are you buying adjustable stuff if you aren't/can't adjust it?

[flohtingPoint]

On your default 7/5 8/6, I'd put the dampers to full soft so you have a decent ride comfort. The springs wont blow the dampers at those rates on 0. You wont be fighting your springs going to kmart anyway so anything above 0 is just causing excess stress.

[Red coupe]

On your default 7/5 8/6, I'd put the dampers to full soft so you have a decent ride comfort. The springs wont blow the dampers at those rates on 0. You wont be fighting your springs going to kmart anyway so anything above 0 is just causing excess stress.

Shock settings are not suspension stiffness settings man... you know better then this.

Under damped does not mean a comfy ride, it means under controlled springs and more bouncing then necessarily. While an over damped system will help transfer more force to the body, your spring is what is pushing the body up... The spring rate is going to determine how hard the body is pushed up for a given bump, under damping will just let the spring oscillations continue... and that sucks for ride quality.
You are not adjusting suspension stiffness, you are adjusting shock stiffness... The shocks have a job to do and that is control the spring. Too little is too little, too much is too much.

It is hard to say exactly where the critically damped point is in your shock settings, since the same shock may be used with different rates or the manufacturer may simply not valve or match their shocks and springs that precisely... So it is possible that the most comfortable setting is the lowest, or highest... or anywhere in between...
But one would have to assume that any trustworthy supplier is going to offer a shock that spans from over to under damped to ensure that the proper setting is at least available...
And I can tell you positively that KTS from SPL with 8/6 springs looses quite a bit of ride quality on their lowest setting.

[flohtingPoint]

On your default 7/5 8/6, I'd put the dampers to full soft so you have a decent ride comfort. The springs wont blow the dampers at those rates on 0. You wont be fighting your springs going to kmart anyway so anything above 0 is just causing excess stress.

Shock settings are not suspension stiffness settings man... you know better then this.

Under damped does not mean a comfy ride, it means under controlled springs and more bouncing then necessarily. While an over damped system will help transfer more force to the body, your spring is what is pushing the body up... The spring rate is going to determine how hard the body is pushed up for a given bump, under damping will just let the spring oscillations continue... and that sucks for ride quality.
You are not adjusting suspension stiffness, you are adjusting shock stiffness... The shocks have a job to do and that is control the spring. Too little is too little, too much is too much.

You're right, I do know better, you do not though. They are very much part of suspension stiffness. Your dampers control the rate (not to be confused with spring rate) at which your spring bounds and rebounds (usually the latter on cheaper systems is the adjustable part). HIGH settings cause your car to get shocked by impacts (say potholes or speed bumps for a road car, rumble strips across chicanes for a track car) because it's slowing down the rate of compression, causing more of the energy to get transferred to your chassis. You can tell when someone's shocks are blown on stock vehicles when you see a wheel bouncing around on the road but you cant feel it very much.

Like I said, for going to Kmart, damper settings of 0 are more than sufficient.

FYI, look up the E-Stock spec revalved shocks for Miata's if you'd like schooling on just how stiff dampers can make a car.

[Red coupe]

Under damping is simply not more comfortable, otherwise we would just ditch the shock all together.... Keeping a car from bouncing down the road is pretty important to keeping it comfortable.

As for not feeling blown shocks, or it not effecting ride quality...I mean how do you even argue with something so ridiculous?

I don't see how you can sit there and argue that tuning a car to bounce down the road increases ride comfort.

[flohtingPoint]

Under damping is simply not more comfortable, otherwise we would just ditch the shock all together.... Keeping a car from bouncing down the road is pretty important to keeping it comfortable.

As for not feeling blown shocks, or it not effecting ride quality...I mean how do you even argue with something so ridiculous?

I don't see how you can sit there and argue that tuning a car to bounce down the road increases ride comfort.

It's not going to bounce around uncontrollably unless you're driving down a dried up riverbed or driving across the worlds longest cattle guard. They have these things called paved roads. I drove around on ALL of my cars on 0 on the street (racing in the rain I'd set my rear dampers to 0 too) and they were fine. 7/5 springs are fine on 0 because they take more force to compress and even at 0 it's more restrictive than stock dampers for most applications. You're wrong about this and now you're done.

[Dittoz7]

[Red coupe]

I drove around on ALL of my cars on 0 on the street and they were fine. 7/5 springs are fine on 0 because they take more force to compress and even at 0 it's more restrictive than stock dampers for most applications.

You can tell when someone's shocks are blown on stock vehicles when you see a wheel bouncing around on the road but you cant feel it very much.

You can't even feel blown shocks and your using butt dyno to tune?

7/5 springs are good on 0 because its more restrictive then stock.... What does that have to do with anything?! Of course it is more restrictive then stock, the spring rate is more then 3 times higher...

You're wrong about this and now you're done.

But your right about one thing... I am done. How do you argue with a tree stump? Do as your car as you wish... Buy some blown shocks for the ultimate word in comfort, sell your secrets to Mercedes and have a good rest of the thread

[Razi]

Maybe on coilovers you've used 0 was a comfortable setting, but on my coilovers, the car bounced up and down like I was in a boat.
Turning it up about 4 or 5 clicks made it better.

[flohtingPoint]

How do you argue with a tree stump? Do as your car as you wish... Buy some blown shocks for the ultimate word in comfort, sell your secrets to Mercedes and have a good rest of the thread

This tree stump has years of racing under his belt while you have... ... ... some crap you googled. What you cease to understand because you dont have any real world application of, well, anything, is that 0 does not mean "blown shock" setting. 0 is just default, that's all. It's not totally bypassing the damper, it's just the least restrictive valving (still valved though). There have been countless times where I've used a 0 setting in instances where balance is KEY, this goes well beyond grocery getter status.

Maybe on coilovers you've used 0 was a comfortable setting, but on my coilovers, the car bounced up and down like I was in a boat.
Turning it up about 4 or 5 clicks made it better.

Good chance that your dampers are crappy, are going, or both.

[Papadirty]

So the only thing that needs adjustment is the knob in the middle? Set it to zero then trial and error it til it a decent ride?

[Dittoz7]

That and the ride height.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

is that 0 does not mean "blown shock" setting. 0 is just default, that's all. It's not totally bypassing the damper, it's just the least restrictive valving (still valved though). There have been countless times where I've used a 0 setting in instances where balance is KEY, this goes well beyond grocery getter status.

Maybe on coilovers you've used 0 was a comfortable setting, but on my coilovers, the car bounced up and down like I was in a boat.
Turning it up about 4 or 5 clicks made it better.

Good chance that your dampers are crappy, are going, or both.

Agreed.
Typically (like Jim mentioned), with a damper setting of 0 on coilovers (or aftermarket adjustable struts), it's dampening coefficient is AS strong or stronger than a factory damper.
On its hardest setting, its basically trying to keep anything and everything from moving at all, thus transferring more energy into the body of the car. Instead of the spring soaking up some of the road shock, the damper is so hard, its not letting it.

...instead of getting a nice damped oscillation sine-wave, you end up with 1 bigass spike.