>Anyway I took one of the Cofap shocks out of the box to inspect it and
>moved the piston in and out to see how stiff they felt. There was plenty of
>resistance when I pulled the piston out but none at all when I tried to
>push the piston back in. I figured I got a defective shock, but the other
>one behaved the same.

Compression damping is lower than rebound because of the spring - the spring
and shock are engineered to work *together* as a unit in both directions;
which is why if you have bad shocks your handling goes away  (and you really
don't need a metal spring - compressed gas can be a very nice spring, in
that it can automatically provide a rising-rate suspension).

Austin