Adjustable Shock Tuning

Last Friday I rolled up to the shop and Sage had just returned from King, sporting a pair of their latest innovative secrets - Anti-Cavitation Valve (ACV) reservoirs with 23 clicks of hi-speed compression dampening adjustment. This raises the bar once again... and Sage is pretty excited to get these on his truck and dial in the shock tune and [now] the reservoir tune.

What is an ACV?

In order to discuss "anti-cavitation", let's identify what it means when a shock "cavitates". Cavitation can occur on high shaft speed, high piston pressure compression events.  What happens is the shaft moves so fast that the pressure overwhelms the gas charge in the reservoir. So instead of filling the reservoir with the volume difference when the shock collapses, it basically shoves the oil straight into the res and creates a vacuum in the shock body. Inside these new reservoirs are ports and a shim stack that controls oil flow. This won't allow the shock to cavitate. The byproduct of this is an increase in hi-speed compression dampening.

23 Clicks of Compression Dampening Adjustment
When you control the flow of oil into the reservoir, you can slow it down enough to start tuning the hi speed compression dampening. King has a really sweet setup where they built a clicker port into their ACV so that the reservoir has adjustable flow, delivering adjustable hi-speed compression dampening.

This development is really cool in a few ways, Sage has the same lead-time as King does for testing and development, so as King figures this out, Sage will be eyeing the goal line for the HD and diesel market. These should be on Sage's truck next week.

Last Saturday we drove around to every hydraulic shop (that were closed) to get fittings for Carli Suspension reservoir mounting locations.

This certainly takes things to a whole new level. Carli / King shocks, Carli Total Control Pistons, ACV and Adjustability. The makings for serious bolt-on suspension performance.