Getting shock dynos for your shocks
 

I just read this article regarding a buyer's guide to shocks.

http://www.farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets18.html

In summary, you should get the shock dynos for every individual shock you buy because no shock is 100% identical.

I am not saying that this guy is 100% correct, but it is something to think about. How many of you actually dyno your shocks after purchasing them?

When buying shocks/coilovers, do shock companies individually dyno each shock before selling them? Do they provide you with the dyno sheet for each shock?

That is the most ideal.

This is not something the end user can do. A shock dyno is a very specialized piece of equipment. There are a number of shops in the US which can do this for you, but not all of them serve end users (many are race-only/pro focused).

This is rarely if ever done. The vast majority of sellers never dyno individual shocks, and wouldn't even if you offered to pay. There were several studies done by semi-pros on another forum (I can't remember where) who did their own dyno of some off the shelf coilovers. The Taiwanese ones were the most inconsistent (to be expected). Generally the more expensive the setup, the most consistent the dyno plots.

Even respected brands like Koni will come back inconsistent some times. You can always pay to have yours tested, but if they show up mismatched you need to decide how important it is to you to have them match. The best case is simply to send them to a rebuilder with an in-house dyno, so they rebuild/revalve them on the spot to whatever spec you want. Most consumers don't have the right education to ask for this, and as such it's a very boutique business.

Generally the best long-term strategy for coilovers is to buy one which can be serviced locally to you. This becomes a function of the local shops and the types of struts they can service. Konis in general are easy to service, and they have many authorized service shops across the US. Bilstein and KYB are also fairly common. The higher end struts often have only 1 or 2 shops nationally which are authorized service centers, and these shops may also cater to non-end-user business (e.g. you wait if it's racing season).

I have had a very good personal experience with Feal, but today they don't serve the FT86 platform. I had a mediocre experience with Vorschlag, who also offer a similar service. Generally it's only feasible if you have the knowledge and funds to support it, but that's true for most coilover setups anyways. There will always be a very large crowd who will be happy with the BC/Tein/D2 off the shelf parts, which drives most of the aftermarket business.

Can we assume that oem shocks are fairly inconsistent as well?

I would ask @Racecomp Engineering. I know they had preproduction dampers on a dyno and could tell you if they saw variance.

Years ago I recall a vendor who sold matched sets of Koni dampers, but I haven't seen that in a while. Nowadays I think I only see it with the really high end stuff.

Performance shock at Sears Point provides this service.....along with top quality rebuild-revalve for most quality shocks....I recently had this done for my race car....NO REGRETS....much improved handling-control afterwards....I increased my front spring rate from 600lbs to 800lbs and needed to revalve the shock to keep up....much more controlled over bumps with less roll and faster turn in vs before....

If you are buying new shocks as a kit....I wouldn't bother dyno testing them...the whole point is to make sure the shock is working within its normal range....mine were only slightly "tired"...but they found 40psi different internal gas pressure and a slightly bent shaft.....well worth the time-effort

They should have a full kit of Ohlins coil overs for sale by now....pricey but the best

When you say kit, do you mean coilovers? What if someone wants to get koni plus springs?

http://performanceshock.com/

Give them a call......great people and surely they can find a kit that works well for your application

This is ideal, whenever I'm at the track and have conversations with suspension gurus, they usually laugh even at what we consider to be high end shocks. The dyno tests are important but really, what you are looking for is an overall amount of matching you get from a particular manufacturer. The Gurus I've spoken to basically lay it out from what the've seen come across their dynes as Bilsteins and Konis are "acceptable", KW as a step up, and then kits like BC, out of China as totally off the wall not matching at all. They've actually tested some of the super cheapo ones and found that their "adjustment" knobs did not yield changes in the dyno at all.

These Guru's also have said in a given test, the adjustments are not linear either. For instance you might think that a shock with 6 settings would have 6 even increments, this is not usually the case. The first click might be a 50% change and then over the other 5 settings 10% each.

For street driving and even non-pro level racing and for the purposes of this forum, you are likely not to notice an un-matched set of shocks. Our rule of thumb in terms of shocks/struts over the years of seeing what works and which ones last the longest etc...

Shocks/Struts-
KYB GR2/ExcelG- Near stock replacement with slight upgrade in terms of stiffness
KYB AGX- Entry Level adjustable shocks, good value for the money.
Tokico- Mid-level adjustable shocks, good feel and usually come as complete kits rather than inserts like the Konis
Bilsteins- Top Level non-adjustable setup, great support and durable units.
Konis- Top Level adjustable setup, Lifetime Warranty, durable units. Overall these would be the last stop before needing coilovers. Very European car feel.

Coilovers-
BC/Stance/Etc- Great if you need a particular "look" or "drop" or need to have a hella flush. We would rate these down near the GR2 level or possibly worse in terms of safety and drivability.
KW- Entry level coilovers, these would be good for track days and even entry level racing. These are what we would suggest for 95% of the users out there short of track whores and racers :)
AST/Moton- Racing and serious tracker shocks, these are usually well beyond the pocketbook of your average weekend track junkie, but are probably the best setup you'll get for subies.

Hopefully this helps out. If you want a good shock dyno guy, shoot us an e-mail and I can hook you up with our guy out on Long Island who is one of the foremost gurus in the suspension world.

-Mike Paisan

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your first paragraph pretty much summarizes what the article is talking about, and it makes you think twice before you swap out your OEM suspension.

i figured it would be unreasonable to have suspension vendors to dyno each shock before they sell them. i suppose if you're trying to squeeze the most out of your shocks, then it's best to dyno them.

this article made me think twice about getting aftermarket coilovers with tons of adjustments, because a lot of those adjustments don't even do jack, non-linear, and not isolated (changing rebound will affect compression). it seems like if you need those kind of adjustments, then you're looking at purchasing ohlins, penskes, JRZ, etc. (complete overkill for your average weekend track driver).

i will wait until there's more information on some non-adjustable but proven dyno shocks, such as konis or bilsteins.

Funny part is I never even read that article! :)

-Mike Paisan

http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/91072632.jpg http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/14...8/original.jpg http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/133406601.jpg http://www.whiteline.com.au/images/logos/perf1.jpg
11+ Years Maintaining, Modifying and Educating TriState Subaru Enthusiasts.
Call directly as We carry almost every manufacturer now, so before you buy parts call us.
Like us on Facebook! | E-mail: sales@azpinstalls.com | 725 Fairfield Ave | Kenilworth, NJ 07033 | 908.248.AZP1 (2971) | T-1 Certified Amsoil Direct Jobber |AIM: AZP Installs
"Race Tested, Enthusiast Approved!"

And FWIW, I've been bugging Eibach to release shock dynos with their Multi Pro kits, I doubt it'll happen on the individual level but I believe they will at least release some dynos so we can have some data from them.

Back in the older Honda days one of the guys named Jon (or John?) worked for Koni and would dyno peoples shocks for free. Helped Koni to get competitor data and helped people determine if they had fairly matched dampers, good dampers, crap dampers, etc.

A lot of the time the cheap dampers will dyno OK for the first few cycles, then heat up and go to crap.

Those look pretty well matched to me. I KNEW there was a dyno on here, I recall that graph from months ago.

100%, we've seen this time and time again on the el-cheapo dampers in the $1000 price range coilovers...

-Mike Paisan

http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/91072632.jpg http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/14...8/original.jpg http://www.pbase.com/paisan/image/133406601.jpg http://www.whiteline.com.au/images/logos/perf1.jpg
11+ Years Maintaining, Modifying and Educating TriState Subaru Enthusiasts.
Call directly as We carry almost every manufacturer now, so before you buy parts call us.
Like us on Facebook! | E-mail: sales@azpinstalls.com | 725 Fairfield Ave | Kenilworth, NJ 07033 | 908.248.AZP1 (2971) | T-1 Certified Amsoil Direct Jobber |AIM: AZP Installs
"Race Tested, Enthusiast Approved!"