Shock recommendation

[Jeremy]

I have the double adjustables for the front only. The rears are quickly becoming a want for the rear, though.

From what I have found shocks will do wonders for your ride quality. I have played with these a bit and found that going stiffer on compression actually improved ride quality. I ran them softer from my baseline and things got worse.

When I think back, impact harshness was terrible with the cheap shocks and not much better with the Edelbrocks. The Hotchkiss Bilsteins were much better, but the Varishocks have improved the ride so much. I will continue to tune until I get the ride I am looking for but so far so good. I enjoy driving it so much now that I look for excuses to drive it. I even purposely drove in the rain three times yesterday because it is that much fun and the car had only seen rain on trips in the past.

[DarkoNova]

Awesome info, thanks.

I'll have to try and work them into my budget, heh.

Matt

[Jeremy]

I set them on 5 C and 8 R today. The ride is now as good as my 06 Taurus or 05 Crown Vic around town. On the curves there is no comparison. Real large bumps still give a hint of bounce but joints in pavement, even if they aren't level pass without notice. Even the factory suspension didn't like joints in the pavement. I actually find myself trying to hit reasonable bumps to see just how well they are soaked up.

I got adjusting the shocks down to an art now as I don't get the slightest bit dirty. It takes less than 30 seconds to do both sides.

The car is now starting to understeer a bit which is what I would've expected adding so much more roll resistance to the front. Up until now it has been real tail happy. I am very pleased with this as the car is much more predictable.

It is raining pretty good hear and the roads are real wet. I was turning a corner and the rear got loose (not expected as I was starting in 2nd) and the car was very balanced and predictable. Before if the rear lost traction it wanted to snap around .

I plan to talk to VBP and pass on my results to them. Shock tuning turns this setup into a different animal and really does away with the gremlins others have reported. I really believe they should team up with Varishock and sell these as a part of the kit or at least an upgrade.

[jeffandre]

Now I wish I waited, oh well, I will use my new Bilsteins for a while. I look forward to any updates you have as I was leaning towards the Varishocks but wussed out at the last minute...

We need some video of your car carving corners or cones. You really should look into getting it on a track someday!

[Jeremy]

Just to update my findings in case it will help anyone with a VBP setup.

I had run as high as 7 C 12 R and the front was very tight, but it was no where near matched to the rear. The front did not want to roll and the back did. From the driver's seat I could feel both ends fighting each other. Over dips it felt like there was no suspension movement and the corner hitting the dip would drop harshly.

This got me thinking and I backed off the rebound to 10. I then started paying attention to dips. On the front side of dip, the nose would drop and follow the dip and really want to hit hard on the back side coming out of the dip. I would then drive my wife's Taurus through the same dip and the nose would stay level. I started thinking that the suspension may not be able to drop fast enough with the shocks so tight on rebound. I then remembered my research on transverse springs that they don't store energy like coil springs. I figured that this meant they may need less rebound damping.

Since the shocks are easily adjustable, I tried 7 C and 7 R. You could actually feel the difference going into dips. The nose stayed more level and things were much softer. I tried 8 C and 6 C and the suspension followed the road even better. In turns now, the front and rear feel a lot more balanced. They seem to roll? the same or a lot closer now. I can actually drive the car harder this way with a lot more confidence.

There is no more bouncy feeling left. I think it feels a lot like a factory engineered car in its ride and handling. I'll see how I like my current settings after a longer time, but if they hold, I can see why the system never worked well with off the shelf shocks as I understand they generally run soft compression and high rebound.

[Jeremy]

The shock settings are holding true in that the setup likes more compression control than rebound. I moved the spring to the middle setting and am running 13 C and 8 R and it rides incredibly well.

I got a chance to drive a c6 convertible today to see how close I was coming in the ride and handling. I drove both on a 20-25 minute drive on a mix of city and highway driving.

The owner recommended the competition setting and that is where the car was set for the drive. The ride was very nice but I felt the rear was a little more skittish. The vette seemed a little choppy over one section of road that my car was smoother on. Big dips that hit both front wheels the same, the vette was a little more composed than my car. The steering on the vette was a little heavier than mine and both tracked equally well. Both tended to follow some road ruts/crown slightly.

Turn in was very similar between both cars, although the vettes may have been a hair quicker. I think I can improve in this area with a more agressive alignment.

Brake performance is nearly the same, although the vette feel is much better than mine, particularly in the initial application of the brakes.

Wind buffeting in the vette was much worse than my car with the T Tops out. Much over 70 was annoying to me in the vette and I can cruise 85-90 in mine and the wind doesn't beat me up nearly as bad.

Around town it is easy to feel the difference in torque. My car required much less thottle input to get up to 45-60 in traffic. Part throttle response was better. Full throttle, however was a different story. The vette really comes to life. It was an automatic and the gear splits were perfect. It picked up speed quickly. I was suprised at how much weight it transfered as the front end really picked up adding to the sensation of speed. In a 1/4 mile run I would probably say the vette would get me at the end of the track. Around town it was more fun to drive my car with the great torque.

I know I got a little off track comparing all aspects of the vette and my old TA. I meant to just compare the suspensions, but I thought others might enjoy the comparison. The VBP system seems to get a lot of criticism but I was amazed how close it comes to the c6 in terms of ride and handling on real world streets/driving. On a track it may not be as close, but I don't think I'll see any track time. On normal roads with other traffic present it equals it well.

It was also gratifying seeing my work come close to vette performance for a lot less money (more if you count my time).

[Jeremy]

I thought I would share my latest finding on the VBP setup. I removed the jounce bumpers and it was such an amazing difference that I had to start all over on my shock tuning.

The ride is getting very soft and the handling is amazing. I am also amazed at the lack of rattles now with nothing more than removing the bumpers and re tuning the shocks. I even stepped back up to the middle spring rate and it is still softer than it has ever been.

I covered everything a lot more in depth over at Nastyz28.com. With the jounce bumpers removed I would be curious to see how an off the shelf shock would work now.