What brand of street shocks do you have?

[NoHachi]

Quote:In order to absorb energy (shock) you can do it gradually, or try to do it suddenly. A sudden energy transfer will never be felt (in the seat of your pants<G&gt as gently as a slow energy transfer, and in order to transfer the shock of a 1500kg vehicle bouncing on the road, you need a certain length shock absorber in order to do that more gently. Shorten that--at all--and the transfer becomes more rapid and the shock to the vehicle and drive becomes harsher. Or, you can compensate by changing the design, sure. But then what happens when there is a larger shock? Oops, there is no longer the capacity to dampen it and the suspension bottoms out. No matter how the valving in the shock is set up, it is only "absorbing" while the cylinder is compressing and the oil is bleeding through the valve. In a short stroke shock, it stops compressing sooner--because it has reached the end of the cylinder and bottomed out. That's when the suspension goes "boom" and you start breaking things. (Or, the front end alignment is knocked out first as the energy is "absorbed" into the other parts.)

Sorry Red, a lot of what you say makes sense, but a lot also doesn't quite add up. A lot of the problem lies in the way you treat shocks seperate from springs. That doesn't cut it when you are considering spring-mass-damper-systems.

Quote:Oops, there is no longer the capacity to dampen it and the suspension bottoms out. No matter how the valving in the shock is set up, it is only "absorbing" while the cylinder is compressing and the oil is bleeding through the valve. In a short stroke shock, it stops compressing sooner--because it has reached the end of the cylinder and bottomed out.

This is not entirely correct..in fact, this is exactly what happens to lowered cars with long shocks. The working area of the shock is shifted towards the rebound side, with very little bump travel left. Using shorter shocks is our way of compromising such, that we end up again with a reasonable amount of both bump and rebound travel. (by the way, things dont go boom, you hit the bumpstops, springrates are upped drastically and your shocks get a second chance at dampening the movement while the suspensions moves from bump to rebound etc.)

You are correct that we now have (slightly) reduced the total stroke our setup can produce (someone please compare free and collapsed lengths between short and normal shocks, I suspect the difference might be minimal. The XX% reduction in stroke however is usually more then compensated by the increase in wheelrate from stiffer springs and thus reduced roll angles.

All of this does increase the cycle frequency of the suspension making things less comfortable. But that is not the entire story... You can get away with higher wheelrates when using A-quality shocks. These have a smooth transition between low speed and high speed dampening, a lot better then the stock OEM toyota stuff. This can make for a surprisingly comfortable street setup, only suffering from problems in situations you describe, hitting large irregularities in the road. Its up to everyone to decide whether that discomfort balances out the benefits from lower COG, sharper steering respons and improved camber controll.