SDi’s Auto-Adjusting Overland Suspension Test

[Beowulf]

SDi's Auto-Adjusting Overland Suspension Test - Expedition Portal

We test the new Suspension Direct Incorporated E-CLIK (E-CLICK) shock absorbers, designed to actively and automatically adjust damping for overlanding.

expeditionportal.com

I am very interested in this technology. Let's discuss the concept and any experiences with SDi’s Auto-Adjusting Overland Suspension.

 

[billiebob]

No doubt about it all the new technologies, braking, traction, active suspensions offer enhanced, superior capabilities..... when they are not broken. Some like ABS are pretty much bulletproof but most of the others are prone to expensive maintenance or repair if they fail. A few will actually leave you stranded or in a limp mode. For an urban vehicle that might only be a minor inconvenience but for a guy following a power line over a summit that can be life threatening. My '06 TJR was the last of the bare bones, basic off roaders and I'll never buy anything more complex for exploring.

 

[zgfiredude]

Does anyone really NEED 6K worth of electronic shocks?

 

[SDi Suspensions]

SDi's Auto-Adjusting Overland Suspension Test - Expedition Portal

We test the new Suspension Direct Incorporated E-CLIK (E-CLICK) shock absorbers, designed to actively and automatically adjust damping for overlanding.

expeditionportal.com

I am very interested in this technology. Let's discuss the concept and any experiences with SDi’s Auto-Adjusting Overland Suspension.

View attachment 638001

Thanks for the interest in E-CLIK! If anyone has any questions please post them here in this thread.

 

[SDi Suspensions]

No doubt about it all the new technologies, braking, traction, active suspensions offer enhanced, superior capabilities..... when they are not broken. Some like ABS are pretty much bulletproof but most of the others are prone to expensive maintenance or repair if they fail. A few will actually leave you stranded or in a limp mode. For an urban vehicle that might only be a minor inconvenience but for a guy following a power line over a summit that can be life threatening. My '06 TJR was the last of the bare bones, basic off roaders and I'll never buy anything more complex for exploring.

billiebob, we can certainly appreciate your desire for simple robust systems on an overland vehicle. We have done our best to ensure E-CLIK is as bulletproof as possible. Our electronics (ECU, IMU, Coils) are sourced from the agriculture/heavy equipment industry. Where electronic components must be reliable and robust enough to with-stand severe vibration, dust, and moisture exposure.

In the event of an electronic, or connection failure our shocks default to full stiff. This provides the highest level of stability if the failure occurs during a dynamic driving mode. The shock will still function and will not leave you stranded. Worst case is the ride will be more harsh than usual.

 

[KiwiKurt]

im struggling to understand why these need to be cost wise on par with Fox 3.0 bypass w/ DSC adjusters; double what a set of Fox 2.5 DSC’s are; and almost triple what a Falcon eAdapt system is.

i also dont understand why you’re attempting to use damping to do what the spring is supposed to do. Sure- increasing damping on the compression side when youre loaded past what the coil should support can help the yaw and pitch dynamics, marginally improve your dynamic ride height at the cost of ride comfort, and does nothing for your static ride height. if that damping increase with load also increases the rebound damping at the same rate, then You are now over damped for your rear spring frequency with the front....if it doesnt have a way to adjust rebound damping then i triple-y dont understand why they cost as much as they do.

It almost seems like youre using the damper to try and store the excess energy from the load on the spring, which to my primitive mind seems to be an invitation to shock failure.

what am i missing?

 

[Speedkills]

I don't think there is anything wrong with how they are using damping, if they use spring only to store a big hit then it's just going to be a big rebound, regardless of the spring, they still need to dissipate that energy during the compression and rebound stroke. It does seem like a technology which would benefit from rebound damping adjustment as well, but if they had active spring adjustment then that is going from a semi-active to a full on active shock, which may be amazing, but would sure cost more and have more parts to break.

As for who needs a 6k set of shocks, well need is a strong word, but who would buy a set? Me, if they made them for my G-Wagen or could be bothered to even return my emails saying they never would, but of the two emails I have sent them in the past 6 months I haven't so much as gotten a response from them, which should probably be of concern to any potential Jeep or Raptor buyers too. I'm actually interested in converting my shock mounts to Jeep style, then throwing a set of these on my G and emulating the can-bus data it needs to work, but haven't pulled the trigger as their customer service, or complete lack of it, is worrisome.

 

[Speedkills]

When I wrote the post above it reminded me to go ahead and try reaching SDI again, this time I got a response back in a few hours and ended up chatting with them the next day. Not sure what was going on before, maybe I was in an email blackhole or something but the upshot is that I am going to try to fit their Jeep JK shocks to my G-Wagen. They also showed me a preview of an item they are releasing next month which looks pretty exciting, it's a reservoir only universal system that doesn't need to interface with the vehicles can bus to pull any data, it's entirely standalone and the reservoir can just replace the reservoir on your existing aftermarket shocks, king, fox, whatever. It is a pretty tempting system but I just happen to have a setup where I can easily emulate the Jeep canbus data they need and I think their vehicle specific system is just a little bit better so I am going to go that route.

 

[Speedkills]

Why is the ride so rough with those fancy shocks? We have to run them in firm mode if we are going to run all 17 of these extra lights at night

I'm loving the E-Clik's so far. Only have a week on them but I've tried Koni Raids, KW, and Ohlins so far and these are the best setup by a good bit so far and I haven't even hooked up the automatic adjustment capabilities yet. Just manually setting them for road or trail and the adjustments work much better than the other shocks I have tried. I think part of that is because I can do it while driving to quickly arrive at the correct setting.

 

[Danger Danger]

Why is the ride so rough with those fancy shocks? We have to run them in firm mode if we are going to run all 17 of these extra lights at night

I'm loving the E-Clik's so far. Only have a week on them but I've tried Koni Raids, KW, and Ohlins so far and these are the best setup by a good bit so far and I haven't even hooked up the automatic adjustment capabilities yet. Just manually setting them for road or trail and the adjustments work much better than the other shocks I have tried. I think part of that is because I can do it while driving to quickly arrive at the correct setting.

Are you still running the Eclick's? And how have they performed for you? I'm thinking of running a Clayton Lift or Metal Cloak Lift with the Eclick's or going Accuair. I'm looking for some guidance. Thank You