Check out these coilovers:
http://www.prodrive-usa.com/product_detail.asp?yid=219&c id=10&pid=76&s=1

They are stiff until they hit a bump, and then they go soft just long enough to absorb the bump, and then go right back to stiff again. Keep in mind I am not a shock connoisseur. But this looks to be very high tech. Price is expected to be "less than $3,000" (US).

This technology is not new, although its the first time i've seen it commercially available for race/rally shocks.

There are various ways of doing it, and there are a number of passive ways to achieve the same thing. They are either using magneto rheological fluid, or just a simple needle valve adjusted by a servo motor. If its the latter method you probably don't get much damping changing with fast inputs. The first method always used to be fraut with problems sealing the damper, as the fluid used to destroy seals very quickly.

With informed use of standard damper valving you can achieve the same result (as regards hitting bumps and dropping damping) a lot lighter and cheaper than this system, although it wouldn't be able to adjust the damping from driver inputs.

$3000 will be for each damper bare in mind, so its pretty expensive.

Kind regards,

Darren

Having reviewed the brochure on them now, i see that they are not using MR fluid, so they are most likely to be using a servo control of the needle and jet bleed adjuster, so i doubt very much that the reaction time and effect is quite as glossy as the literature would have you believe.

Kind regards,
Darren

I guess I don't get it. Since the shock has no way of knowing how big a bump it's about to hit, how soft can it go? If it's a large bump, or a deep enough pothole, to bottom the suspension, that's the worst time you'd want your shock going soft. So I guess they go "half soft?" But then that means you'd have to have an idea of what the typical bump is that you'd expect to hit and set it initially for that.

I don't know... $12,000, no thanks. I'll stick to KISS, which is all I can afford anyway...

I'm sure the best way to achieve what they claim to do would be:

stiff in roll, then if you hit a bump it would go soft to absorb the bump, but as the suspension nears its full bounce travel it would get progressively stiffer to keep it from bottoming out. This way small and medium bumps would ride smoother, and large bumps would ride smooth until the very end. Kind of like a progressive rate spring, only its the shocks job instead.

Seems like it would be much easier to get a progressive rate spring and match a more conventional shock to your type of driving and the road expectations.