How Do Coilovers Improve Ride Quality?

There are several options for improving your ride’s performance. Normally, when it comes to performance, what car enthusiasts have in mind are performance products like exhausts and air intakes. Popular brands like K&N, Magnaflow, Borla, Flowmaster and AFE have made a name for themselves in this industry. However, there are other methods of improving performance. That is through performance suspensions.

Coilover is certainly one of the first auto parts you would think of when looking for a new performance suspension system for your vehicle. Even if it’s not, it should be. And if you are new to the term, a Coilover is a type of automobile suspension system that allows for easy adjustment of your car’s riding height, damping, camber, and much more.

When it comes to riding performance or quality, each brand boasts a distinct set of properties. This is to say; some manufacturers provide various options for each vehicle to meet vehicle owners’ different preferences.

The primary role of Coilover in a vehicle is to improve your ride’s quality. But not everyone has an idea of how exactly they work to achieve this and its benefits. If you one of them, then you are in the right place. We have curated this article is here to help you understand how coilovers improve ride quality.

Several components form a Coilover, which impacts a vehicle’s general ride quality. They are as follows:

Coilover Springs

The ultimate function of Coilover springs is to avoid the chassis from bottoming out. Besides, they offer support to every wheel on your vehicle and reduce body roll and swings when cornering especially at more incredible speeds. Moreover, springs help to limit diving during acceleration and squatting when accelerating. More importantly, they are usually used to modify a vehicle’s ride height, which directly improves handling and comfort.

Dampers

Often, the spring and dampers are assembled as a unit before installation. Therefore, dampers have a primary objective of stopping the springs from oscillating. A mono-tube Coilover exists as one piston and rod assembly fitted in a damping case where compression and rebounding occurs.

As for twin-tubes, they tend to be more complicated than mono-tubes. They feature an inner cylinder which moves upwards and downwards. Other than that, they have another cylinder on the outer side which acts as a hydraulic reserve. With this design, the suspension stroke increases to provide improved ride quality and handling performance.

Adjustable Coilover

The adjustable Coilover plays a critical role in the adjustment of a vehicle’s suspension in the following ways:

Roll stiffnessAdjustable Coilover provides the springs with greater pressure which in turn increases roll stiffness. Similarly, reduced spring rate or pressure causes an increase in roll stiffness.

Riding Height

It is through an adjustable Coilover that a vehicle’s ride height can be lowered or raised. This is with the help of threaded bottom brackets or spring seats. The vehicle’s bottom mount exists as a threaded sleeve that has double adjuster nuts. These nuts are often used to preload the coils and therefore raise or lower the ride height to meet your desires.

Compression and Rebound

You can adjust the stiffness of compression and rebound of a vehicle’s suspension unit if uses adjustable dampers. Compression happens when the piston within the damper gets moved inwards, thereby raising the fluid’s pressure in the chamber. By adjusting compression, the movement of the car’s unsprung weight changes. This, in turn, quickly modifies the speed at which the weight shifts down towards the wheel.

Rebound on the other side is the outcome of the piston moving back after getting compressed. This compresses the fluid again. So, adjusting the rebound regulates the vehicle’s sprung weight, which changes how fast weight gets shifted away from the wheel.

Caster and camber

There are some coilovers which come with adjustable top mounts. Depending on the vehicle suspension’s design, these top mounts allow for easy adjustment of the caster and or chamber units. By doing so, the overall ride quality can be achieved to suit the driver’s needs.

Coilover Polyurethane bushings

The polyurethane bushings are the famous modifications in the suspension unit. However, this kind of bushings tends to be relatively stiffer than the normal rubber used for the bushing. As a result, they affect the ride quality directly.

Bottom Line

Even though we tend to have different opinions regarding ride quality, everyone desires to have a comfortable and painless ride. Getting the right Coilover design can be the best way to improve nearly any vehicle’s performance and handling. To this end, we believe that you have understood how coilovers are essential for improving ride quality.