damping ratio adjustment range

Hello,

What is the typical damping ratio adjustment range for aftermarket dampers? What limits the adjustment range? Some dampers have 20 clicks of adjustment, so I assume there must be a decent range. For my setup I am thinking 0.2-0.6, so I'm looking to see if that is realistic. Thanks

Some dampers may have 20 (or more) "clicks" of adjustment, but when you put them on a shock dyno, they may actually only have 4~5 different curves that are usually quite close together. I have seen one brand name shock that had a 16 position adjuster have no change in operation through the sweep of positions, and when the shock was disassembled, it was found that the adjuster didn't connect to anything internal in the shock, it was just bolted to the outside.

Ask the suppliers of the shocks for dyno charts showing the full sweep of adjustments in the models that you are looking at, if they cannot supply them, look elsewhere.

Thanks for the reply, any idea how wide the range for damping ratio can go?

It depends on the design of the individual damper. I have seen some with quite narrow ranges, and others with large ranges. Units with external bypasses especially can have a quite large range if desired as they can have larger orifices for the control valving.

As Steven said, there's a fair bit of BS in the business, even from those you would expect to be better than that, I haven't seen anything as blatant as the example he gave, but their interpretation of "adjustment range" can vary greatly, as it's generally just introducing a bias to the overall damping.

A "wide" range may actually be useful to dial in a combination you're unsure of, might not be quite right, but when you're close, you can get them re-valved around that for finer tuning. Depending on how far into it you want to go, many dampers can be rebuilt, and re-valved, by the vehicle owner/team if they know what they're doing

As a general rule, good quality spring and damper combinations from reputable suppliers or, even better, reputable people who specialise in your vehicle should be able to sell you something very close to what you need - but you NEED to be honest with the vehicle description, the usage and track/road conditions and your budget - quality costs!