I need a lesson in Shocks

[White95]

Ok so its like 1am right now and I'm trying to figure out some things with my new QA1 Shocks and Struts. I thought shocks were suppose to bounce back out after being pushed in? These new shocks I have to pull and push them. How does the car bounce back if the shock has to be pulled back up???? As you can telling I'm a little confused. Someone please help me out so my head stops hurting....Thanks

[White95]

You know I just had a brian fart. The springs are what pull the car back up....I feel stupid right now. I'm correct in swaying that the springs pull the car back up while the shocks keep the car from slamming down?????

[Vracer111]

Originally posted by White95:
You know I just had a brian fart. The springs are what pull the car back up....I feel stupid right now. I'm correct in swaying that the springs pull the car back up while the shocks keep the car from slamming down?????

Springs are for control of the force being applied to the suspension. Stiffer springs will compress and rebound less.

Shocks (dampers) control the velocity at which the springs react to forces. Stiffer damper compression (jounce) slows down the compression of the spring and stiffer damper rebound slows down the rebound of the spring.

[Dominic]

Let me explain.
Springs hold the car up and react to bumps. However, when you compress or decompress a spring from it's natural relaxed state it will have a force. Shocks when compressed in one direction do not have a force, their sole purpose is to slow the rate of the spring and keep it from oscillating. The idea is the shocks provide oscillation damping for the movement so there isn't any excess, and the springs support all the load.

Factoring in swaybars makes the world more complicated, but that should help out.

This is why if you buy stiffer (stronger) springs, you need stiffer (stronger) shocks to slow them down.