Shock positions are possibly the easiest thing to change on a car to change it's handling characteristics, but you do actually know what effect these changes will have on your car before you try? This article is designed to give you an insight into how you can get the most out of setting up your car.

The basic rule for shock positions is that the greater the shock leans in towards the car, the more grip will be generated. This works like this because it has the effect of softening the suspension, but the changes aren't quite as drastic as changing the stiffness of springs.

Shock positions should be used to fine tune the handling of the car, so basically, if your car has a touch of understeer you can dial this out by "laying" the front shocks down a bit more to give the front end a bit more grip, and vice versa if you have slight oversteer.

As well as changing the balance of the car by altering either the front or back shock positions, you can change the way which the car responds by changing both the front and rear shocks. Generally speaking, because when the shocks are more laid down they have the effect of softening the suspension, the car tends to be slower in the corners and have more body roll although this obviously depends on other settings you have on the car also. When the shocks are stood up fully you would get the opposite effect of this, which very quick direction changes and good cornering speed, however, if the grip is not there between your tyres and the track then the car may slide about more, and it's finding the good balance which is the real art to setting up a car.