Dampers

W

wmwolverines

43
Any thoughts on how to properly setup dampers (shocks)? I have a good idea how to tune them for corner entry/exit, which work against each other. I see some 'tuners' here who have drastically different settings than mine and wondering if one of us are doing it wrong or we just drive our cars very differently. <ps I searched and couldn't find anything>
 
I also have been confused on the dampers for a while. It is not clear what the numbers mean. A higher number could be greater resistance (stiffer shock) or a higher number could mean greater movement (softer shock). I am a car guy but know more about engines & drivetrain, some of the suspension tuning parts have me plexed. The hardest part is, I want my shocks with stiff compression but quick rebound, in order to keep the tires on the pavement as much as possible. But this creates a problem I call "acceleration understeer": when a powerful FR car accelerates, the load transfers to the rear wheels... normally this is good except if the shocks are not set up properly, this weight transfer to the rear will cause the front tires to lose grip. When exiting a corner this understeer will often cause me to drift wide and off the track. To combat this, I pulse the gas which gives me accel/steer/accel/steer back&forth which ultimately hurts my drive out of the turn. Gaaaah
 
Higher is certainly stiffer and thus lower is softer...

If you want your tires on the pavement as much as possible you actually want 'softer' dampers and springs but you don't want that either as too soft leads to too much grip and not enough 'slip'. Stiffer dampers/springs speed up the transfer of forces. With stiffer springs, weight transfer is quicker to whatever end you made stiffer.

My understanding is you entirely set your bump (compression) based entirely on how the car behaves over bumps, you want it as stiff as possible but behave well on 'bumps', once I find my car doesn't like some bumps, I 'soften' the bump (compression in GT5 I think) a tick or two... While I set my rebound based upon which end of the vehicle needs grip, in MR & FR vehicles my rebound is very high in the rear relative to the front while in AWD/FF vehicles (I rarely use these), I set my rebound in the front quite stiff relative to the rear.

I don't know if I'm doing this right as most of my cars handle pretty well but feel there is room left for improvement.
 
Lol Im gonna have to completely disagree with that as dampers are stronger when higher setting

Setting EXT at 7 gives me very fast rebound and at 1 makes it very slow.

Setting COMP at 7 gives me very bouncy suspension while lower makes it smoother.
 
That is what I'm getting too, Poppins as far as ext/comp... Bound and rebound aren't directly related as 'dubious' seems to think. They need to be set independently based on two very different things.

Yes, I did a bunch of searches on the topic before creating this discussion, gt5ser.
 
its fairly simple the dampers are based on the spring rates

(when i say this i mean that leaving the dampers the same, and changing the spring rates affects the dampers behaviour as well)

higher = stronger, meaning the shock is able to move in faster more sudden movements.
lower pretty much makes it smoother and not be able to move as fast.
 
Higher=stronger.
This doesn't mean faster. A dampers job is to resist movement of the wheel. That means if you have soft rebound (extension) settings and stiff springs, the wheel can move away from the body of the car much quicker. Likewise, for compression (bound), you want the settings to match the spring rate. Stiffer springs need more dampening to stay planted to the road and not bounce, which will cause a loss of traction. I haven't looked at the grid that was posted before, but I tend to do well thinking of it like this. If the minimum spring rate is say 2.0, and the max spring rate is say 17.0, then there's a 15 point spread. And I you have a 10 way adjustability on the damper, that means for every 1.5 increase or decrease in spring rate you want a 1 increase or decrease in damper compression(bound). It works well for me, with slight adjustments, so I hope that general thought works for you too.
 
Quite simply, I get my shock compression value by dividing my spring rate by 2. Then I add one or two clicks to that value and have my shock extension. To me, this shock strategy works perfectly.

Cheers
 
I wouldnt set it above 8 for EXT or COMP for any car though.

I tend to set race cars to 6/7 and road cars to 5/6 for ext/comp
 
daveyules
Quite simply, I get my shock compression value by dividing my spring rate by 2. Then I add one or two clicks to that value and have my shock extension. To me, this shock strategy works perfectly.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Thank you for a straightforward formula. Many of us w/no RL tuning background could find this helpful. I will put it into practice & see how goes.
 
I also have a very simple starting point. I look at where the spring rate is across its range. Let's say the front spring is set half way across the value bar. I set the compression just below half way and the rebound just above half way. Compression and rebound are usually set one number apart to start with and rebound always set higher.

If I need more front grip, I will widen the spread between compression and rebound on the front. If I need more rear grip, I will widen the compression and rebound on the rear. The thoery is that a wider split between compression and rebound will slow down the reaction on that end of the car and keep the weight down longer mid corner to exit.

Simple and easy to start from.
 
Rebound or extension I tend to set very low, between 1-3. Also, for a good starting point, I tend to start at a 7-8 depending on the location of the engine, and tune from there. Most of my FR cars start at 8 front 7 rear compression(bound) and 3 front 2 rear rebound. Most FFs start about the same as well. The only difference is if the car I'm tuning has a perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Then I keep them even front to rear.
 

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