bump soaking 101

[XLR8]

my ride is pretty hard. (yes more simple boring questions, sorry)
mostly due to it being set up for street use by PO.
i know i need to replace my front shocks for starters as they are stiff as buggery. but i flogged some stock shocks from my sisters super ( ) and the rear still feels really stiff. both front and rear have had the stock torsion pre-load increased and i know this dosent help my predicament.

but will a nice set of them bilistens people are talking about really help a lot?

my friends subaru BRAT (called brumby here) has much softer suspension even though his is 100% stock and increased pre-load.
just cant work out what i need to do short of getting new torsion bars and leaves with a lower spring rate which i dont wanna do.

do bilisten make rebound only shocks? my old nissan vanette had rebound only shocks on the front. so the bound wasnt dampened but the rebound was. is that a good idea if it were possible?
_________________
"But that parts not user serviceable!"

"Mate, everything's user serviceable."

[larryvance66]

Got any pics of your current ride heights? Apic of the spring plate location would help to advise you. Is your front tube greased and clean. Sometimes they get sticky causing a hard ride. The back may be indexed too high also resulting in a harsh ride. Get some pics and we'll see what we can do.
_________________
I got a Volkswagen for my wife....Best trade I ever made!

[XLR8]

ok so the front beam may need a bit more grease but it looked pretty good when i had the leaves out, can always re-grease though.

rear ride height on leaves about a 1/4 inch gap between spring plate and stock lower bump stop, yeah i know not much down travel and i plan to fix that when i get some new CV's to allow spring plate cutting.
but could that be the main source of my problem?

i'll get some pics if you still want them once i figure out how to upload to thesamba gallery (rather than using photobucket like i'm told not to do )
_________________
"But that parts not user serviceable!"

"Mate, everything's user serviceable."

[perrib]

I have been out with JWH Racing and he uses Fox class 11 shocks and they soak up the bumps quite well. Be conservative when you cut the spring plate as the shock becomes the limiter for downward travel and T-1 cvs will bind.

[JWHracing]

[perrib]

Thanks for the clarification. I just knew it was very smooth and stable at speed.

[joemama]

I dont have a baja, just a fiberglass buggy, but my experience has been that much of a rough ride is due to over inflated tires, or tires with very stiff side walls, in fact, the flexing of the tires sidewall becomes part of the suspension. My buggy is pretty light, about 1600 lbs, so this might not apply to a heavier vehicle. I believe that the original stock VW front shocks were just rebound dampening.

[tanner_122]

I saw on mythbusters the faster u drive the smoother the ride
_________________
91 jeep Cherokee "TANK"

[XLR8]

i saw that one too. but how often do you see people rock crawl and mud bog at 40mph
i went out and greased my front beam and put back in the castor spacers and the front beam creaking noise went away also did some articulation tests etc and the ride is only bumpy when going faster than 10mph over speed humps.
i remember in my superbug with stock shocks i hit the speed humps at about 30mph and it'd just soak them up in comparison to my std bug.
even dropping off the curb is a little rough.
_________________
"But that parts not user serviceable!"

"Mate, everything's user serviceable."

[perrib]