Ultimately it all boils down to what your butt tells you. We could sit here and tell you what we like, what we don't, and what we think you should run, but what good would that do you? Our rides are beaters, we've logged more miles on Boggers and Claws than on Uniroyals and Michelins, and our perception of what is comfortable is, shall we say, skewed. That's why when it came time to evaluate the characteristics of every shock absorber we could get our greasy hands on, we knew we'd need to call in the big guns.
The MissionOur goal was to test every shock we could on a variety of vehicles, using shock ride and drive engineers as our evaluators. We wanted expert opinions on how these things performed in a variety of off-road conditions, so when you go to buy your next set of shocks you're armed to the teeth with information. We're not calling winners or losers, just showing you how each one did in a variety of terrains, so you can pick the one that best suits your tastes.
What We DidWe picked three vehicles that we felt represented the readership of 4-Wheel & Off-Road and that would provide a broad base of testing inputs. Then we drew up our testing parameters, made up our judging criteria, and invited the major shock manufacturers to participate. In addition to providing shocks for evaluation, each manufacturer was also invited to send one of its ride test engineers to serve as a judge. We're talking professionals who can extract more information in a couple of feet than we could in a couple of miles. After all, this is what they do for a living. Check out the sidebar, "The Drivers" to see who showed.
The whole thing came together on the lakebed at Johnson Valley and lasted for three days. We ran the vehicles through a slalom course, over a section of whoops-filled dirt road, and down a high-speed dirt track complete with twists and curves. This gave us just about every type of suspension input we could need (except highway, but we're 4-Wheel & Off-Road, not Motor Trend). Check out the Web at www.4wheeloffroad.com for a behind-the-scenes look at all the action.
Testing ParametersIn a nutshell, here's what we were looking for and where.
Slalom The slalom is used because it's a good indicator of the level of control, recovery, and precision a driver is able to eke out of a ride system. Changing shocks drastically affects how the vehicle steers, the amount it leans, and how cleanly and quickly the cones can be navigated. All of this info boils down to body lean (tight and level or afraid of rolling), steering feel (responsive or wallowy), control (understeer, oversteer, or balanced), brake dive (vehicle should stay level, not nosedive), comfort (get thrown around cabin or is it controlled) and confidence (secure feeling or twitchy and nervous).
Whoops We're not just talking the big stuff that gets a vehicle bucking like a bull after a Texan. We even took into consideration the little stuff and ran all of the courses at varying speeds from brain-scrambling to snail-slow. We were looking for comfort (kidney cruncher or marshmallow), confidence (afraid of losing control or Ivan Stewart-time), and bottoming of suspension (slapping bumpstops and pulling mounts off while topping out or bump sucker).
High-speed dirt road The drivers ran a section of road with smooth flats, rutted corners, twists, a small hillclimb, and some off-camber bumps and holes. They were searching for comfort (both seat-of-the-pants and feeling at ease behind the wheel), confidence (afraid the rear would swap ends with the front or that we'd roll in a rut), steering feel (how quickly the vehicle responded to steering inputs and to what degree), and body lean (during cornering and when encountering off-camber ruts).
All of these factors combine to give an overall view of how the different shocks behaved in a variety of terrain. Pick which ones performed well in the type of driving you do most and you shouldn't be disappointed.