Going deeper into the details of how shocks work, Shaikh explores the topic of rally car suspensions. The general principles are easily observable watching videos of rally cars in action. We've also been able to test dampers actually used in rally situations and experiment with 'rally style' suspension damping on a previous Miata we competed in SCCA STR class autocross.
It's clear that clear rally cars and off-road suspensions in general are designed to have ample suspension travel, generally fairly soft spring rates, moderate to no sway bars, medium to high damping control of compression movements, and soft to medium damping control of extension movements. In particular looking at the proportion of compression vs. rebound damping, more compression overall (as described in the theoretical example from 1:27) creates an 'anti-jacking down' or 'pumping up' style of suspension tuning so the vehicle has neutral or increasing suspension travel regardless of the kind of obstacles being encountered.
The rally type suspension gives you a really supple feeling of 'dancing' over the worst features of the road while still remaining in control of the car's behaviors. Some OEM vehicles have dampers with rally type behaviors built into them, though generally I've found this true more with European than Japanese models. The new Mazda Miata (2016+) has very symmetric damping you could consider as rally oriented:
Mazda Miata with factory Club package (Bilstein) damping -
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Obviously with lower traction on dirt or snow or ice the cornering speeds are lower so a good rally suspension also is very responsive to driver inputs in inducing chassis rotation to immediately adjust to an incredibly varying road surface.
In the most sophisticated rally dampers, there are subtle behaviors that occur toward the extremes of compression and extension. Reiger Racing is one example of a multi-function rally / off-road damper with multiple check-valve / flow-control / position-sensitive adjustments to tune the damper's behavior depending upon the kind of rally / off-road environment being navigated.
Off-road racing dampers, such as found on trophy trucks, Baja or Paris Dakar vehicles, can have multiple stages of damping and stacked springs as well.
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www.the-perfect-ride.com
www.fatcatmotorsports.com/
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