OK, I have fitted Gaz-shocks adjustable front dampers yesterday.
I expected them to be stiff to start with, and then soften up with time. They have 40 adjustment clicks, so I initially set them to 25 (stiffer side of middle of adjustment seemed a good idea for a heavier car).
After removing the original Sachs shocks (I'm sure they were original), I was amazed at how much stiffer the movement of the sachs were compared to the Gaz, but put that down to dirt and age and rust on the piston, and that the Gaz were just smaller.
Driving arround to work today, everything felt good. A quick bounce test revealed that it bobbed once and settled down on the return stroke.
However going over two speed bumps, I was quite surprised by the noise I got from the front end, quite a loud bang/thump going over the top of each bump as the front suspension re-extended, sounded like the springs had rebounded right to the end of the shock travel before the wheel had even touched down..
It sounded like the shocks completley topped out on expansion without slowing down the movement of the spring/wisbone at all.
If the movement is going to soften as the shocks wear in, I can see that I'm going to need all of the 40 clicks of adjustment that the Gaz ones have just to keep the springs under control.
These are the standard original springs, because they didn't look to have sagged, and I made sure that they knew I was fitting the shocks to standard length springs, not shortened ones.