Softest damper setting vs hardest: any appreciable difference?

[The Rutland Badger]

Firstly, apologies if this is covered in a thread I haven't found - I have searched the damper threads but couldn't locate the answer to this specific question.

Basically, has anyone had their Sachs dampers unpinned and compared the car's ride on the softest setting against the hardest? If so, could any real difference be felt on the road?

With my dampers off to Cornering Force for a refurb in a couple of weeks, I am debating whether to get them unpinned.

Any inputs would be much appreciated!

 

[marrow]

Hi - from memory there is quite a big difference between very soft and very firm. Factory setting (22 from soft) seems the best compromise. I guess this answers your question - is it worth unpinning? For road use probably not.

 

[Trophy 299]

I've been informed by the people who I use to my Sachs reburbished and they are an Ohlins dealer who work on Twingo rally cars and Mercedes race trucks that unpinning them is a very bad thing to do and leads to excess wear.

I haven't and won't be and for road use its pointless IMHO your much better off getting some better springs and or some top adjustable Koni rears either the standard or Mark Fish uprated ones.

 

[rubens172]

I'm glad this came up - I'm dropping mine off at Cornering Force on Tuesday.

Can anyone explain why unpinning would lead to 'excess wear'? Surely the damper is designed to be adjustable in its original state, before Renault pinned them.

I'm going to speak to Cornering Force and see what they think is best. If there is no disadvantage I'll get mine unpinned, as I like to go on a trackday at least once a year.

 

[Luke335]

Well my unpinned dampers lasted to 5 years and 90k so I wouldn't be too stressed about that. There is quite a difference, However, if your planning on keeping the original rears it will just unbalance the car front to back. I run mine a bit stiffer as I have revalved Koni's on the rear now. I also think softening the fronts totally ruins the turn-in of the car but does soften things a bit.

 

[eljeffo64]

I didn't find softening the dampers improved anything, ride wise; however, for the track (in the dry) a bit harder is better. There's no disadvantage to unpinning (other than cost) - in fact when mine were dyno'd they ended up two clicks different left to right, so unpinning allowed them to be set up with the same damping rate each side. For the road mine are still set close to the pinned original setting.