Sorry, no suspension engineer.
Happy to learn and consider other options.
If you can provide a system that self adapts to be perfect for all road surfaces and assume for all vehicle loads for £1000, I haven't found it or read about it yet.
For now I'm looking into Bilstein B16 Damptronic2 designed for T6 with DCC.
Installing on a 2015 caravelle T5.1
Connected to a standalone manual control unit.
So will have option for sport, normal and comfort setting but being able to adjust these in the van if I have a full vehicle vs empty when damping/rebound normally needs adjusting.
Cheers
Simon
Hi Simon
The only comment I can make is B16 is a coil over ( actually a sleeve over which is a cheat way to do coil over but result is similar ). It can’t do standard height I think 40 to 70 mm as long as the van isn’t heavy , if it’s a camper or 4 motion it most certainly will,go much lower which will compromise the ride a lot considering the B16 isn’t that much shorter than standard shocks . The springs in the kit won’t carry weight well either as the springs look exactly the same as the original B14 which have proved to be very problematic in heavy vans as well.
What I was suggesting is nothing like this , It isn’t a coil over kit and it isn’t new springs it uses the original ones and it doesn’t work in lowered cars or vans anyway , £1000 for a set of shocks isn’t cheap by any stretch ! It’s our most expensive shock actually , we do have kits that run up to 2500 quid , but they don’t sell well at all as they aren’t good value for money. Our main kit prices run from £1295 to £1500 ,
The dampers I refer to have variable rebound valve that senses fast shaft speeds and softens up when hi speed shaft movements are detected. Simple self controlling and always in the right mode .,.
The DCC in sport mode will be really hard on poor roads and if your van would be lower than 50 mm ( I would say this will be the highest your will get it). , the ride will be suboptimal . You will probably have to leave it in sport to offer high damper forces to control the lack of suspension travel , ?.
What you would like to achieve is what every damper design engineer wants. In reality it isn’t as good as you would think.
The active dampers ( Koni FSD frequency selective dampers ). Are factory fitted to a lot of well known Hi performance vehicles like. Aston Martin, Lamborghini , McLaren SLR to name a few . These are sporty cars. But owners still demand some levels of comfort. That is what FSD dampers. Do , offer hi levels of performance / and comfort .
I would be asking who ever is supplying these parts if they guarantee money back if you aren’t completely happy , this could be an expensive exercise for you.
I am not trying to interfere with this project but I just wanted you to see another side and option with a more sensible price and performance. , I didn’t realise you wanted quite low however like the B16 will do . We could not offer you FSD at 50 60 or even 70 mm which the B16 does .)
We have been fitting. Transporters out with hi quality suspension systems for 6 years in UK ( over 4500 of them ) and we have seen pretty much everything , I have never come across this kit however , . I have never spoken to anyone who uses one either . So my comments are based on my experience in the industry , 30 years of racing cars and building suspension systems for road and race applications. We have plenty of experience with the B14 kits as we have removed loads of them due to poor performance and comfort in transporters and the Audi RS market. (Which we are also well known in ).
One other point. Dampers control the weight of the wheel,tyre and brakes. We call this unsprung weight , they control the spring frequency cause by bumps in the road and try to resist its movement in a controlled way. increases in weight in the van as Load or many passengers isn’t a reason to stiffen the shocks, ideally a stronger spring would do this but it simply isn’t feasible to change spring rates all the time like we do in race applications. If you load the van and it’s sitting a lot lower, the stiffer valving ( Sport mode ) will cause the van to jack down ( caused by hi damper forces ) on to the suspension again making the ride less than perfect as it will bottom out on the bump stops .
Can’t wait to hear how you get on with this and I wish you all the luck with it ,
Ps. If you have more concerns or questions , and I can help please let me know. .
