I'm not very familiar with adjustable shocks and I'm curious how they work. I understand you can make em softer and stiffer, but do they affect the cars height at all? Thanks.

 

Not so much height, unless you are replacing worn out old ones, but they can stiffen or soften compresion and rebound which can change the way the car handles.

 

To elaborate a bit more on what 25THRSS said, when you adjust your shocks you're changing the valving either on the piston itself or between chambers inside the shock body. By having adjustable shocks you can control a cars handling characteristics for different situations. This is of great use for serious drag racers and autox/road racers. Adjusting a shock will allow you to control a cars dynamic weight distribution and transfer.

Say your car pushes going into a turn. You can either increase front compression or increase rear rebound(altho not all shocks are adjustble for rebound and compression) so that weight transfer to the front wheels is slowed allowing the car to turn in easier under braking. You could do both adjustments to compensate for a very bad understeer condition but its recommended to only do one change at a time and then re-evaluate.

Shock control the motion of the car. The springs determine static ride height and weight distribution for the most part. It's kind of like the human body. Our bones(springs) hold us up but it's our muscles(shocks/struts) that do all the work once we're moving.

What is it you plan on doing with the car?

 

i personaly think that the adjustable shocks/struts arent worht the money for an everyday driver. i myself are going with a bilsten strut...cant do bilsten shocks because the back of the car is lifted, old school style

 

The car is just a summer cruiser and I want the back end a little higher, I installed new springs and didn't get much so I was wondering if shocks would do it.

 

it might, shocks can cause a little sag

 

try using a 4th gen spring isolator if you want the back end a little higher. That'll raise it up a bit.

 

i used 4thgen ws6 springs for the rear with some air shocks. its got a NASTY ride hight now, i jacked it way up. and you can always adjust it later

 

I went to Advance auto parts yesterday and they recommended these rubber blocks, they seem like **** but they were only $3 so I might try em. Also I heard our cars shock mounts aren't strong enough for air shocks.

 

well the shock mount thing is a lie. the shocks come with mounts and they fit through a hole in the body. all shocks you buy come with the same setup: a bolt and 2 rubber bushings. and as for those spring booster blocks...they suck. they have a habbit of popping out after a while. becarful with those

 

Thats cool, can you tell me what kind of air shocks you have, where you bought em, and how much they costed?? thanks a lot.

 

the only ones i could find where the gabrial ones. i hate gabrial shocks and struts but i had no choice on the matter. you can get them at like autozone or lappens or whatever local store you have. they ran me 40 bucks i think... maybe 50? its kinda funny because the woman thought they came 1 per box and gave me 2 boxes....boy did she mess up. id give you the other set but i sold them a while back

 

Well I think I'll try out those gabriel air shocks. Thanks for all the info guys.