UPDATED: Replacing Rear Shocks: Reducing the rear end bounce.

[Anton]

This is the reason I plan on taking video with my kids phone on the center screen shooting out the back window. You can visually see the horizon. As the front pretty much pogo's I think the video (1080p 30 frames) will show reality better than 4k@60 which smoothes out everything. I'll try both but it'd have to be downscaled to be playable anyway.

Definetely look for a setting to disable motion smoothing.

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[JohnFoxeSheets]

Mark and Anton have pretty nice streets from what I can tell. I've got a war zone. It's good to have an idea of "this could work well for me because I only have occasional expansion joints" vs "this wouldn't work for me because my streets are like a washboard with moon craters".

Wait Erik, I thought you live in Chandler, not San Francisco!

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

Mark and I have the same dash cam setup, front and back, so video from test runs can be automatic. (I’m eagerly looking forward to testing once there’s a consensus choice.) And yes, I also have the Steeda bars front and back…

 

[azerik]

Wait Erik, I thought you live in Chandler, not San Francisco!

I do. As U2 put it. "Where the streets have 3 names"

 

[HuntingPudel]

As Eric said, you won’t get a Caddy ride in this car. It’s never going to happen. We are just trying to control the springs a bit and keep it from bouncing.

LOL yeah. The MME doesn’t weigh enough. My Coupe de Ville was 5300 pounds. That was the small Cadillac in 1969. It also had the little 472 engine. ??

 

[azerik]

The MME doesn’t weigh enough. My Coupe de Ville was 5300 pounds.

Yee of little faith. Body in the trunk, body in the frunk, 3 bags of concrete mix, shovels and duct tape. It'll have that 69 Cadillac weight, ride and panache

 

[21st Century Pony]

Yee of little faith. Body in the trunk, body in the frunk, 3 bags of concrete mix, shovels and duct tape. It'll have that 69 Cadillac weight, ride and panache

"...and drive it like you stole it"

 

[azerik]

I know this might look like it’s stale but it’s not.
I took my kid to San Diego for a couple days for her spring break. Thankfully I wasn’t dumb enough to try to use my MME for the trip as even my RX450H didn’t handle these California roads well.
I did get the Viking shocks in on Wednesday and got them on the car. I took it out for some test shakedown runs and then had to get back to packing. I put about 45 min of tuning at it and am quite happy with the initial runs.

Right out of the gate I ran 6c/8r. (6 clicks from 0. C=compression R=rebound)
The expansion joints are much much more tame. Just the ‘womp’ as the back end goes over them. It’s only the noise vs the back bucking. This setting didn’t make a huge dent in the concrete whoop section I have getting in the freeway, and truthfully nothing might. I can compare it to my RX when I get more time to get a near side by side run.
I jumped around on the rebound and to fully smooth out that terrible whoop section it cost ride quality as the rebound had been dialed up to 13 or 14 (out of 18). This caused the tire to not rebound fast enough so it was noisy over expansion joints with the factory AS3’s and it’d be a bit sketchy over some of these super terrible overpass joints. I need to work on the compression side as it’ll be a balancing act. It takes about 15 minutes for me to do this run, make an adjustment and do it again. So I’ve only got about 4 runs in so far.

I spoke to Mark about these results, we have some ideas and will continue testing. Things are looking up for the back end of the MME.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I know this might look like it’s stale but it’s not.
I took my kid to San Diego for a couple days for her spring break. Thankfully I wasn’t dumb enough to try to use my MME for the trip as even my RX450H didn’t handle these California roads well.
I did get the Viking shocks in on Wednesday and got them on the car. I took it out for some test shakedown runs and then had to get back to packing. I put about 45 min of tuning at it and am quite happy with the initial runs.

Right out of the gate I ran 6c/8r. (6 clicks from 0. C=compression R=rebound)
The expansion joints are much much more tame. Just the ‘womp’ as the back end goes over them. It’s only the noise vs the back bucking. This setting didn’t make a huge dent in the concrete whoop section I have getting in the freeway, and truthfully nothing might. I can compare it to my RX when I get more time to get a near side by side run.
I jumped around on the rebound and to fully smooth out that terrible whoop section it cost ride quality as the rebound had been dialed up to 13 or 14 (out of 18). This caused the tire to not rebound fast enough so it was noisy over expansion joints with the factory AS3’s and it’d be a bit sketchy over some of these super terrible overpass joints. I need to work on the compression side as it’ll be a balancing act. It takes about 15 minutes for me to do this run, make an adjustment and do it again. So I’ve only got about 4 runs in so far.

I spoke to Mark about these results, we have some ideas and will continue testing. Things are looking up for the back end of the MME.

The freeway data you shared almost looks like you had the car in resonance. Especially if it only gets bad at a specific speed. You don’t want to tune shocks in resonance because it will make the ride bad everywhere else. Tune them to feel good on a random/occasional bump.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

The freeway data you shared almost looks like you had the car in resonance. Especially if it only gets bad at a specific speed. You don’t want to tune shocks in resonance because it will make the ride bad everywhere else. Tune them to feel good on a random/occasional bump.

Resonance: beware the Tacoma Narrows Bridge!

 

[CAL465]

It seems like the Vikings might do the trick especially if you can dial in to your liking. I have the read the thread again. I can’t recall if the Viking requires any modifications for the MME.

 

[markboris]

It seems like the Vikings might do the trick especially if you can dial in to your liking. I have the read the thread again. I can’t recall if the Viking requires any modifications for the Mach-E.

All shocks do but it's very minor. I did list the few parts needed for the Koni's and Bilstein's but didn't for the Viking's as wanted to test them first. I built the Viking's up with the parts needed, sent them to Erik who is testing them out now. When he figures out a setting he likes, I am going to put another set I have on Anton's car. Then will send them out to a few other members to try. They need to be tested by several people with different road conditions before we can recommend them. The reason I am not listing exact parts to modify them to fit the Mach-E (2 washers, 2 spacers) is I may be able to get Viking to set them up the way we need it so no parts are necessary. Again, all of this is a work in progress.

 

[sci_goat]

How are the results of the upgraded dampers versus installing KW Coilovers? Interested mostly in reducing bounce and resonance. Would it be possible two install both? And if so, what would be the outcome on handling and feel?

 

[mkhuffman]

How are the results of the upgraded dampers versus installing KW Coilovers? Interested mostly in reducing bounce and resonance. Would it be possible two install both? And if so, what would be the outcome on handling and feel?

The KW coilovers are also adjustable, and the KW shocks are matched to the new springs that come with the set. So replacing the shocks would be unnecessary, and probably cause unintended results.

 

[HuntingPudel]

How are the results of the upgraded dampers versus installing KW Coilovers? Interested mostly in reducing bounce and resonance. Would it be possible two install both? And if so, what would be the outcome on handling and feel?

Th reason they are called "Coil-Overs" is that it's a shortened version of "Coil-Over Shock Absorbers." You cannot install another shock absorber when you have a coil-over kit installed, only the one intended for the setup. That's not a bad thing normally, since coil-over systems generally have pretty well thought-out shock systems and reasonable adjustability. Mark and the others are researching this as an option for people who don't necessarily think they need the cpring rate change or expense of a coil-over setup but are not satisfied with the "bounce" in the suspension of their car. ??

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