What causes severe bouncing after installing coilover suspension?
2 Answers
Preload is too tight, damping is too high, and the shock absorbers lack flexibility, resulting in noticeable bouncing. Modified coilovers are generally stiffer than the original ones, leading to poor shock absorption when driving on uneven roads and causing significant up-and-down bouncing. You can adjust the tire pressure. Here are some relevant details: Adjusting the spring seat: The higher the spring seat, the stiffer the spring behaves, and vice versa. Adjusting the spring seat also changes the vehicle height proportionally (definitely not 1:1). Only when the damping coefficient matches the spring can the highest performance be achieved. Damping: More damping is not always better. Excessive damping can cause insufficient spring travel, resulting in severe bouncing of the entire vehicle. Adjusting the shock body height does not affect spring stiffness.
When I first installed the coilover suspension, I was really shaken up—the whole car felt like it was dancing. Later, I figured out a few reasons: the spring preload was tightened too much, making every tiny pebble on the road transmit directly to the seat; the damping was also set wrong, with too fast rebound causing the car to keep bouncing up and down; and worst of all, the ride height was dropped too low, leaving no room for the shocks to work. Now, before every weekend mountain run, I bring a wrench to adjust the damping, starting from the softest setting and slowly finding the right level. I also raised the ride height to leave enough compression travel, so speed bumps aren’t as terrifying anymore. The shop mechanic said this setup needs to be fine-tuned three to five times to get it just right.
