Cool Ride vs. Shockwave

[Johnny Blaze]

What is the difference in terms of performance, ride quality, etc...

[Travis B]

Darren would be the best one to answer this......

Here is my two cents The shockwaves re easier to package because they take care of you bag and shock.....where as the cool ride, youhave to bolt a bracket on the control arm to mount the shock either way the car will ride very well!

[Steve1968LS2]

Well the Shockwave system was designed towards handling. From what I know the Cool Ride is more of a "show" system that's main goal is to be able to "lay frame".. The Shockwave system did well in our handling testing on the Second gen Camaro we have.

That story will be in the April issue.

If money was not the issue I would go with the Shockwave stuff (If I wanted air spring suspension)..

[darren@ridetech]

The Shockwave has a shock inside the air spring, like a coil over. Where with the CoolRide the shock is external, typically mounted behind the lower arm. Essentially they are the same, they even use the same bellow. However the Shockwave uses a billet aluminum adjustable shock whereas the CoolRide is packaged with a standard steel body. But that can be upgraded to billet adjustables.

On most front suspensions that originally have the shock inside the coil I recommend using the Shockwave. This makes the install much easier and on some applications (such as a 1st gen with factory calipers) the external shock can reduce the turning radius.

Now if your factory suspension has a coil with external shock like the front of a C10 Truck or the back of a Chevelle it is tyically much easier to stick with CoolRide. CoolRide is also nice when someone is concerned with maximum drop. Since the shock is external there is more vertical space and a longer shock can be used to acheive more travel. But even with the Shockwave 5-6" is still a common amount of travel, which is plenty.