Ride Quality Question (Bouncy Ride After Coilover Conversion, and Stiff Ride)

[CamaroJoe]

Hey everyone,

Did the Atomic Fab Coilover Conversion and loving it so far. The difference it makes off road (over washboard, etc) is unreal. The only issue I'm having is that the ride is bouncy on seemingly flat concrete streets - I literally bounce up and down in my seat but the road looks flat. The compression and rebound adjustments make it slightly better, but no matter how I adjust the shocks, I can't seem to dial it out. Has anyone else had experience with dialing out coilover bounce?

It's also a very stiff ride, not exactly "plush" over bumps or imperfections. Every other NBS I've driven floats down the road and is very comfortable, but mine seems to be a much stiffer set up - bumps make it up into the body of the truck and I'm thrown around instead of the suspension absorbing them. My truck was like this from the day I got it though, so I'm wondering if there are some bushings somewhere that commonly go bad on these and need replaced?

Set up:
-Viking Dual Adjustable Coilovers in the front
-Z71 Springs & Bilstein 5160's in the rear
-Stock sway bars with extended links
-UCA's with adjustable ball joint for alignment

Thanks y'all.

 

[Dantheman1540]

What settings have you tried? Viking has an adjustment chart that makes it easy. I didn't realize you want considerable more rebound than compression, I originally thought it would be best to set them equal. Anyway here is some copy and paste from their tech sheet and a link, http://vi-king.info/media/wysiwyg/C Series Install Guide.pdf.

I'm currently running the autocross settings because anything less seemed a little bouncy.

Ride Quality/Street:
Front: 1 - 4 compression; 4 - 8 rebound
Rear: 0 - 3 compression; 2 - 5 rebound

In general, for good handling and excellent ride quality, the rebound should be set roughly 2 to 6 clicks higher than the compression. For example, a good starting point for the street is 2 clicks on compression and 6 clicks on rebound on the front and 1 click on compression and 3 clicks on rebound on the rear.

Handling:
Front: 8 - 10 compression; 10 - 14 rebound
Rear: 6 - 8 compression; 8 - 12 rebound

Autocross:
Front: 10 - 14 compression; 14 - 18 rebound
Rear: 6 - 10 compression; 10 - 14 rebound

 

[CamaroJoe]

Thanks Dan. I'm on C-5, R-10 but will try the Autocross setting. Do you change your settings when going off road? I'm thinking we'd want the shocks turned down pretty soft to absorb most bumps. Also, do you have any experience with aftermarket sways? Thinking of picking up a set to make the truck feel more under control.

 

[Dantheman1540]

My truck is a slightly lowered 2wd so the only off-roading it sees is my gravel driveway, grassy yard, and the occasional dirt road which I leave the settings the same for. I would think the type of off-roading would change the required settings, slow crawling would probably feel best with super soft settings where faster stuff would want more compression and rebound but I'm not a pro whatsoever.

I have Hellwig sway bars front and rear and they made a massive difference in handling characteristics! I mean wow they really stiffen up the sway and help considerably when towing. I keep saying I want to try out an autocross event just for fun because this thing handles worlds better than any lowered truck I've had before. I did recently have a rear Hellwig sway bar end link fail on me but I'd consider my application to be harsher than most. I replaced both rear-end links with DJM links.

 

[CamaroJoe]

That sounds fantastic, I'm definitely going to look into sways. I see that you have a manual swap in your Tahoe - do you have a writeup of any kind? I'd love to read about that, a manual NBS Tahoe would be amazing. Cool build you've got there.

 

[Dantheman1540]

I actually bought this Tahoe already swapped, I swapped the same transmission into my 2005 Silverado so I was already familiar with how this trans drives and since it’s essentially all done with OEM parts it’s super reliable.

There’s a few other guys that have recently done Hellwig sway bars and we’re very impressed as well.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

My truck is a slightly lowered 2wd so the only off-roading it sees is my gravel driveway, grassy yard, and the occasional dirt road which I leave the settings the same for. I would think the type of off-roading would change the required settings, slow crawling would probably feel best with super soft settings where faster stuff would want more compression and rebound but I'm not a pro whatsoever.

I have Hellwig sway bars front and rear and they made a massive difference in handling characteristics! I mean wow they really stiffen up the sway and help considerably when towing. I keep saying I want to try out an autocross event just for fun because this thing handles worlds better than any lowered truck I've had before. I did recently have a rear Hellwig sway bar end link fail on me but I'd consider my application to be harsher than most. I replaced both rear-end links with DJM links.

I'm really glad to read that you like your Hellwig sway bars. Both @PNW VietVet and I have the Hellwig sway bars, and our experiences with them are the same as yours. We each have our test cloverleafs, and the Hellwig sway bars have added several MPH to our maximum speed in traversing the cloverleafs. I posted earlier today in another thread that the Hellwig sway bars reduce the roll of the truck so much that my Z55 suspension does not need to activate the Damper Actuator solenoids in the shocks at nearly the level that is required for OEM sway bars.