From my research, I think it is about 2.5 inches. Because of the separate height ajdustment, you have that full travel no matter how high or low you set the ride height.
With dampers like these, it is probably a bad idea to set them at full soft or full hard. If you take a look at the shock dynos posted earlier in this thread, you'll see that full soft gives you virtually no slow speed rebound damping at all. That means you'll be riding on the springs and experiencing that "pogo" effect you see on a '83 buick with blown shocks going over a speed bump. BC sets the damper at 8 from soft at the factory, and based on the dyno plot I wouldn't go much lower than 5. A good way to tune this is to do some slow speed driving over bumps (5-15 mph) and dial out the pogo effect until it is gone. This is a good base street setting.
The hard settings are similar, but it is more of a track issue. Full stiff on the shock dyno shows a ton of rebound damping, such that it is possible the shock will over-control the spring and not allow it to return to neutral fast enough. This can be a problem on a race course, where the time from turn to turn is not enough to allow the suspension to return to neutral. instead, the suspension "jacks down" until it is fully compressed and riding on the bump stops. I probably would not go much higher than 25 from full soft for this reason.
Assuming I can get my car back on the road this weekend, I will test these settings out in more detail, including at the track. I am going to start with these settings:
(Turns from full soft)
Street: F 13 R 8
Track: F 25 R 20
I would be interested to know from Tristan how high the STi and M3 dedicated track cars are going with the BR dampers.
. The best comparison I can make to the street ride is an NSX that I rode in with JRZ's. The ride is fantastic. All of the small undulations and bumps are just soaked up by that big monotube piston, resulting in a glass smooth ride. I aimed for some big bumps and manhole covers to get an idea of the hard bump characteristics and was impressed. Most coilovers give you a jolt that will knock the fillings out of your teeth, but these BCR's are different. I would describe the hit as firm but smooth. There was ever so slight pogo sticking after the bump, meaning that I am still slightly underdamped at setting 10. 12 would probably be about perfect.
They really are linear. Really. I strongly suspect cranking the dampers up to 20 or 25 is going to create a very competent track suspension. I should be heading to the track later in July, so I will report back.
