Dampers
					The importance of damping becomes clear when you consider what happens to a spring when it is compressed. If you squeeze a spring with your hand it compresses, storing energy as it does so. Let it go and it returns to it's original state releasing that energy which you put in. If a car had only springs and no damping, it would continue to store and release energy uncontrollably, leading to an effect more akin to a space-hopper than a car! Whilst springs store the energy put into them by bumps, acceralating, braking or cornering forces, dampers actually absorb or dissipate some of this energy, leading to much smoother and controlled suspension travel. Many people think that altering damping will alter how much the suspension travels, much like a change in spring selecton. If you only remember one thing from this section, let it be this; Damping does NOT affect how much the suspension travels, but it DOES affect how fast it travels. So, a car with soft springs will always have a lot of travel and a car with hard springs will always have a lesser travel. But, if you couple soft springs with soft damping (when compressed) it will rebound quickly. Use hard damping and it will rebound slowly. The level of damping needs to be matched to the choice of springs i.e. don't match soft springs with hard damping, but to better understand the effects, we will consider some extreme examples; A car with soft springs and hard damping (lots of travel, slow to rebound) makes a turn. On entering the corner, the weight is transfered to one side and the car begins to roll, but the hard damping restricts the speed at which the springs can react. This reduces the initial body roll, especially at the front, thus reducing the amount of grip generated. The effect, understeer. A similar effect can be experienced when exiting the corner: When you start to straighten-up the car settles as the shocks uncompress, the speed at which this occurs is again limited by the hard damping, so the car wants to keep on turning -oversteer. In other words, the car will feel slow to respond, but easy and smooth to drive. At the other extreme (hard springs, soft damping) the suspension will react much faster, but not travel as far, leading to very responsive, even twitchy car with less than optimum levels of grip. Shock Pistons Until now I have just talked about soft or hard damping, which is basically achieved by using hard or soft oil. However, just to make matters more complicated, there is another variable - pistons. Choosing pistons is all about altering when the pack effect occurs. Simplified, this is when the oil flowing through the holes in the shock pistons changes from a smooth flow (called laminer flow) to a turbulent one. At this point the level of damping is suddenly amplified. Manipulating the pack of your shocks is more useful for off-road cars, so I will keep it simple. Making your shocks pack-up quickly prevents the car from bottoming-out when landing from a big jump, whilst packing-up too soon will make the car bounce on smaller jumps. Small holes and thin oil will pack-up quickly (but only when the shocks are forced at speed i.e. in fast corners). Large holes and thick oil will pack up more slowly. For on-road racing pack is generally an unwanted effect, so I will leave it there.
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