Damping control
 

I have some BC Racing DS series coilovers. Swift spring upgrade. 6k front, 7k rear.

Question - the car is 95% street car with the occasional track day being planned. Does cranking the damping to it's softest setting actually provide the softest ride feel (read: closest to stock feel?). Or is it not quite that simple?

They come 5 clicks from the stiffest setting.. but I feel like I read there could be some counter intuitive results to just setting them to softest.. like it actually becoming more bouncy?

I'd like to set them up for the smoothest / softest ride for the majority of the time and then dial them in for a track day when that day comes.

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There are different kinds of bouncy, perhaps. Too soft and the spring is bouncy with nothing to control it. Too stiff and the tires are doing all the work. You'll have to experiment to find the best settings for both road and track.

BC isn't known for producing good results on this platform, but start in the middle and experiment, take notes, see what works. Front and rear probably probably wing be the same settings.

+1 experiment, it takes less than two minutes to get out and adjust them, do it when you arrive at work or are about to leave or when you get back from a drive or at a turn out midway down a back country road. Make big changes first, go ten clicks or fifteen, then begin to fine tune and realize that your but Dyno is very imprecise and look for repeatable results, a certain feeling over a speed bump at 15mph every day or something.

I've driven quite a few Megan/BC equipped cars. What typically happens with setting them to full soft is that you have almost no shock control in compression, the shock will bottom out more easily which isn't desirable. You'll generally need at least 3-5 clicks from soft to have sufficient compression damping.
I'm guessing they have a single adjustment knob like most BC/Megans do?
If that's the case, then the adjuster knob adjusts rebound and compression together. Typically those adjusters will add 2x rebound for every 1x compression based on how the shock dynos look.
The rebound will control your bounce. You'll notice this most on large, sharp bumps and bigger dips that exercise your suspension through its stroke. If you feel that the chassis takes more than one up/down cycle to come back to rest after hitting a bump, then you should go a little stiffer on the shock adjuster. Do this until the suspension can settle within one cycle. That'll be the minimum shock stiffness you need to drive the car on the street comfortably. Any more will just become unnecessarily stiff. Any less, you will not have enough shock control and it might become bouncy or bottom the shock too easily.

They're BCs. Don't expect anything from them at all, and you'll be fine.
Sorry, what I should say is, they're BCs. Even if you expect nothing from them, you'll still be disappointed.

Thanks, that made laugh.

There are different customers shopping for coilovers though. For example, ones choosing them by color. Or experts that immediately drop as low as possible, turn full stiff, and say that spine crushing is sporty and how it should be, to "improve handling". I can easily imagine BC at low budget fitting bill for such customers. Blingy paint matching some other parts? Check. Misadjusted, that can be done on most adjustable coilovers, to level of not functioning? Check. And at low price. Perfect. Next step on getting costs down and even more "sporty" car would be hard welded suspension :D

What I've learned - people either hate BC coilovers, love bashing them, or both.

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