Lesson 3: Dampers

Springs say how far, dampers say how fast

Hit the brakes and weight moves forward. The front springs compress until they push back hard enough to hold the extra load. How far the nose drops is the spring's job, which you set with Natural Frequency in Lesson 2.

A spring has one problem: it stores energy and gives it all back. On its own it would let the car bounce up and down long after every bump, like a pogo stick. The damper fixes that. It resists movement in proportion to how fast the suspension moves, and turns that energy into heat. So the damper doesn't change where the car ends up. It changes how quickly it gets there, and whether it overshoots on the way.

That gives you the most important idea in this lesson: dampers only work while the suspension is moving. They shape the transitions: the stab of the brakes, the flick into a corner, the squeeze onto the throttle, the hop over a curb. Once the car is settled in the middle of a long, steady corner, the dampers are doing almost nothing. Mid-corner balance belongs to springs, anti-roll bars and alignment.

What GT7's percentage means

GT7 doesn't show damper clicks or force numbers. It shows a ratio. The official manual defines it as "the proportion of damping force when no-oscillation is set at 100%". Engineers call that no-oscillation point critical damping: the least damping that lets the suspension return to rest without overshooting even once.

So 30% means "30% of the damping that would stop the bounce completely". Higher numbers make the suspension compress, or rebound, more slowly. Lower numbers let it move faster and overshoot more. Real road and race cars live well below 100%, because a little overshoot is the price of a suspension quick enough to keep the tires on the road.

Because the setting is a fraction of critical damping, and critical damping grows with spring stiffness, the ratio follows your springs. GT7 doesn't spell this out, but it follows from the manual's definition: raise Natural Frequency and, at the same percentage, the dampers push back harder to match. That's why you can change springs without re-tuning every damper from scratch. The manual's own anchors for Natural Frequency are about 1.1–1.5 Hz for road cars on comfort or sports tires and about 3–5 Hz for race cars on racing tires.

Compression and expansion through a corner

Compression (bump) is the damper resisting the wheel moving up into the body. Expansion (rebound) is the damper resisting the wheel moving back down, as the spring pushes out again. Every weight shift makes one end compress and the other end extend, so each phase of the corner leans on a different pair of sliders.

Braking and entry: front compression

When you hit the brakes, the front dampers are in compression. Lower Damping Ratio (Compression) Front and the weight arrives on the front tires sooner. You feel the nose bite earlier on turn-in, with less entry understeer. This is the fix GT7's own tuning guide gives for a car that won't point in.

Raise it and the nose dives more slowly and less dramatically. The front feels calmer and less divey over a long braking zone, but the front tires load up later, so the car can push on entry if you go too far.

Braking and entry: rear expansion

At the same moment, the rear is rising as weight leaves it. That's the rear dampers in expansion. Lower Damping Ratio (Expansion) Rear and the rear unloads faster. The tail gets lighter sooner, so the car rotates more on entry: helpful when it feels lazy, risky when it already wants to oversteer under braking.

Raise it and the rear rises slowly, holding load on the rear tires a moment longer. You feel a planted, stable rear on the brakes, with a tendency toward understeer on entry.

Turn-in

As you steer, the body rolls: outside dampers compress and inside dampers extend, at both ends. More damping overall makes the car take its set quicker, so turn-in feels sharper and more immediate. Less damping makes it lean in progressively, which feels lazy but forgiving. Treat this as a feel adjustment; balance itself comes from the front-versus-rear changes above.

Exit: rear compression and front expansion

On throttle, the rear squats and the front lifts. Lower Damping Ratio (Compression) Rear and the rear settles onto its tires faster, which can help traction as you power out. Go too low and the tail squats and wallows. Raise it and the rear feels firmer and crisper, but over bumpy exits the rear tires can skip and step out into power oversteer.

At the front, Raise Damping Ratio (Expansion) Front and the nose rises more slowly on throttle, keeping some load on the front tires as you unwind the steering. That can tame exit understeer. Lower it and the nose pops up quickly, the front goes light, and the car pushes wide on exit. Treat these two exit settings as rules of thumb and confirm them with a test, because GT7's guide only says "damper changes" for exit understeer on rear-drive cars.

Order of work and starting values

GT7's tuning guide gives a clear order: set compression first, then expansion. Compression decides how the car takes a load: how fast it dives, squats and rolls. Expansion then controls how the stored spring energy is released. Get the loading right, tune the release around it, then drive again and re-check the overall balance.

Start with front and rear at the same values, just like Natural Frequency, and keep expansion above compression. The spring is what pushes the wheel back out, so expansion has more energy to control; too little and the car pogoes after every crest. Too much compression, on the other hand, sends every bump straight into the body.

Every car has its own slider range, so if a number doesn't fit, place it at the same spot within your car's range. GT7's guide recommends softer damping in the wet, along with softer springs and bars, and softer, more compliant settings on gravel. Damper changes can also shift your PP, so check it before a PP-limited event; if it shows "!", press Triangle in Car Settings to recalculate.

Too stiff or too soft?

• Too stiff: the car feels nervous and skittish over curbs and bumps, the steering kicks, and the tires skip instead of gripping. The car may feel fast for one lap and then bite you on the first curb you clip.
• Too soft: the car feels floaty and slow to respond. It wallows through esses, takes a moment to settle after each direction change, and bobs after crests.

Symptom to fix

Use this table when you can name the phase. If the problem is in the steady middle of a long corner, the dampers are rarely the answer: go to springs, anti-roll bars or camber instead.