Dampers - Is There A Happy Medium?

[Mike Molloy]

Currently fitted non-adjustable M1 Bilsteins, which are a bit stiff for my liking.

Ideally I'd like something with adjustable damping that could be tightened up for trackdays and backed off for on-road comfort.

Is there anything of reasonable quality that fits the bill without getting into $$$ Nitron territory?

Have heard some bad things about AVO.

LEDA seem to have gone bust.

Err, any suggestions?

 

Ta.

[simonbell]

I use Protech and have been happy with them, had a great day on track yesterday where the car felt really good.

 

My long term plan is freestyle with nitrons but in the meantime the protechs are doing the job and having driven Caterhams with std dampers I'd say they are a vast improvement over the Bilstiens. They let you fine tune the settings to your style rather than being a compromise to suit the masses.

 

Simon Bell - Caterham 7 Duratec R

I`ve seen the future.....and it`s powered by duratec Check out the website here

[Peter Carmichael]

M1s at the front and something else at the back. Most of the seat-of-the-pants, compressed-vertebrae feeling comes from the rear suspension.

[Peter Carmichael]

I should add that I had a disastrous revalving of my Nitrons (my fault), which has too little digression in the rebound circuit. This means that for maximum grip on smooth tracks I have them so stiff that a decent sized compression on the road leaves the suspension packed down solid.

 

I only mention this because ...

 

... even great dampers can be valved incorrectly

... I believe that a decent compromise setup should be achievable without the need to change settings between road and track.

[Simon.Rogers1]

The handling of the car is more important than power. 😶‍🌫️

 

Spend the money. Get the best.

 

Ohlins

[Petrolhead]

Protec seem to have a good repuitation and excellent value.

 

A pal with a westie had a problem with one of his rears. Protec turned it around after a rebuild for £25 in 3 days, thats door to door

 

-----_{My site}-----

[millsn]

No issues with my avos

[stevefoster]

I've got AVO's. I do prefer the M1 and progressive springs on the rear for the road though... So I run AVO's on the front and M1's / progs on the rear.

My feeling is that the Freestyle spring / damper set up is too stiff for the road. I was running them at 0 clicks and still not fully happy...

 

Add lightness, says the man with a VX :-)

My 2002/2003 racing pics

here

General pics (mostly of 7's and cars).

here

 

[markc]

I thought Leda had been saved here

 

I hope so as I have a leaking Leda 😬 and need to get it serviced

 

MarkC

 

 

[Jaseb]

I've just bought a set of Protech and spent and happy half hour talking to the owner of the company, chap called Rod Avon who started Avo in Jersey and had some technical input into Gaz and has now started up on his own. Having never heard of the company it was quite nice to find out that they have some heritage

 

Shocks look good too, inside and out, I had a wonder round his unit in Melksham nosing at the components and how they go together, they seem to have a good little set up. I hope the dampers perform as good as they look!