So i put a brand new set of Koni adjustable shocks on the rear of my 92 RS today, and it raised the rear of the car about an inch...how can I drop it back down?

is this normal?



forgot to mention I have the set at 2 which is in the middle...

 

You didn't lower the rear below the standard shock travel and un-seat a spring did you? Past that, have you driven it settle the suspension back down?

What I'm getting at is that shocks should have no effect on ride height, as they do not support anything.

 

the shocks will in no way affect the ride height, its its higher, the springs must have come unseated.

 

I know it dosent...which is why it has me stunned!!! and I did check the springs, but maybe I wasnt paying close attention...

 

I removed Monroes from the rear of my car (they were essentially destroyed) and install the KONI Yellows. The rear of the car did sit noticibly higher. After driving the car, the suspension settled and it dropped back.

 

Wrong. They are gas charged monotube shocks. They will raise the ride height over the twin tube shocks he had.

 

Shocks affect height in different ways, I had regular oil shocks on my car, put some KYB's and it jacked it up a good inch and a half. Turning your rear springs affect your ride height, it's an easy adjustment, I dropped my back end quite a large amount from when I bought it, just by turning the springs.

 

i had something similar happen on another car.
i took off the original monroe shocks and put KYB gas shocks all around.
the car raised up a good 2" from just changing shocks.

then again, it may not be a bad thing because it was super low before.
im talking the fender was in line with the whitewall line on the tire.
after, the fender was just high enough for me to stick my hand in and touch the top of the tire...

get lowering springs
that will fix it if you want.
but keep in mind that where it is at is probably the "correct" height now.

 

...I will say it again, if shocks raise the car, even after driving it around to let everything settle back down, then you have a spring issue and/or you did something incorrect and created a bind somewhere. Comon on guys, even gas charged shocks can be colapsed by hand, do you really think they'll raise the weight of the car? Get real. If they had that much pressure in them the car would ride like it had no suspension.

 

 

Shagwell and racing geek, You guys are posting bad info. A good gas charged monotube shock DOES have enough pressure to raise a car as much as an inch based on the application, spring rate, and sprung weight of the vehicle when replace from a crappy twin tube Monroe or such. Your little KYB gas charged shocks are enough to lift a volkswagon bug or ghia, but not a larger full size car.
I speak with experience, trust me, you are not correct in your info.

 

but isn't that unsafe to have the vehicle lifted with shocks? It doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to put that much pressure on a piece of sheet metal like that...

maybe that's why the back of my car is almost an inch higher even though I also swapped in Pro-kit springs... I just assumed my springs were really worn out and sagging.

 

id drive the car for a day and then look at it if it doesnt go down then id start to try and troubleshoot.

 

I took out my old Tokico "blues" about 6 years ago that had been in there for about 8 years. They were gas charged, but worn and one was blown with hardly any gas charge left or damper force. Both the front and rear of the car with the exact same spring rates raise back up about 1/2- 3/4" (I can give many more examples- but this is my example with a 3rd gen). Did only the rf sag with the old struts? no because the swaybar helps level the entire front. You can remove a front shock onne side of a car and the other side shock will still help damper that side if the swaybar is large enough and attached properly.

Gas charge and weak sheet metal? Not hardly. The 200 psi range of the gas charge exerting force in the rebound (recoil) side of the shock merely is acting like a small spring. That gas charge helps with oil contol in the shock and anti foaming, etc. The force of that gas chargedoes not come close to the force of the road articulation hammering that shock closed against those mounts. Tha gas charce adds compression force. It would be the same to just add valve shims to stifffen a twin tube take apart shock and up the compression rate- that would and does equal a gas charge in force against any sheet metal.

Shock types and dmaper rates get very complicated to each individual application. Shock rates will vary alone JUST OFF A TIRE CHOICE. Good quality shocks and good quality tires are more important to a cars handling and performance than anything else you can buy. Spend as much money as you can here. If you do not know shock valving and importance, then I suggest everyone read up on it. Shock manufacturers will give generic over-the-counter packages for the consumer. Koni Yellows are the best valved shock of that type, but in my opinion are slightlytoo highly valved in the front compression from what I really wanted, but the rebound range was great and they works very well for the money.

 

I have a little frre time this morning, lets do a little example of how adjustable shocks can help you tune your car.

You have rebound adjustment- this controls body roll. It is best to look at rebound as "pulling the car from leaning", and compression as "pushing the car from leaning" It is better to use rebound to control leaning because it is the "before" side of directional force and the compression is the after". With this said, you want to let the outside tire articulate for mechanical grip. To raise the compression on the outside to try and control bodyroll would render the car glancing off of road bumps due to excessive stiffness. That glancing off of bumps and dips in a corner would result in loos of mechanical grip.

So what does compression do? It helps control outside dive rate of body movement and slows the wheel lift rate over bumps. Too much compression force will unsettle the body of the car, too much rebound will cause a tire to skip over the asphalt and loose traction on a bump or dip.

Tayloring your corner balance- is best done with compression rate changes. Lets take a left hand corner for example. The weight is transfered to the right of the car so the left side shock rebounds comes into play to control roll and the right side (outside) compression comes into play controling dive and yaw ratio of corner dynamics (time it takes to compress and settle the car into, then steadystate, and finally exit of the corner CALCULATED WITH the time that tansition takes).Alot of factors come into play here, but lets keep this simple for now. HERE'S THE KICKER- (take compression valving of 1-10 adjustment range and lets say both the outside shocks were on 5 compression- AND lets say the car pushed on the nose (understeered) on initial turn-in into the corner
Cause: too much dynamic force transfered left to right onto the front tire and the car plowwed. Simply click the rear shocks up one or two clicks and try it again.
What did this do? lateral force onto outside wheels on turn-in will be exerted to the wheel with the greater resistence from colapsing. You have increased the dynamic laoding of the rear outside tire to take momentarily more weigh than it was prior on entrance and that rear tire will want to come around more and cause the car to rotate on entrance rather than push.

Now if the car still pushes on steady state, throw a 25lb spring rubber in the rear coils to up the rate slightly, turn the shock compression back to 5 and try it again.

Shock valving is a major tuning tool.

 

in my case, i figure each shock took about 50lbs to compress. 50 x 4 = 200lbs.
100lbs off the rear of a camaro will definately raise it up a bit...

and as for that causing damage to the mounting points... how much force do you think the damping action puts on the mounts?
more than 50lbs i would guess

 

My KYB monotube shocks could not be collapsed by hand unless I was pushing against them with great force against the ground. Two of them did raise my car up slightly. Plus I don't think people realize how often this can happen with they replace worn out shocks on a car with 20 year old springs.

 

i got gas-a-just shocks and that was my experience...
if i really pushed hard i could compress them.
i figure about 50 lbs minimum.


the original shocks were not gas charged and the factory had no idea that gas charged shocks would one day be an option.

 

I'm still saying that anything over 1/2 difference is a suspension and/or spring problem. Yes, I agree that gas shocks often take 50+ lbs of force to compress, but they don't take that much to hold them after compressing. - If so, that little plastic cord they ship with is some baadd stuff.