Koni Yellows on Stock Springs

[fjames]

Well, they work nicely. I didn't go with custom valving, more thought and research said it wasn't worth it. I have no intention of replacing the stock springs, unless stretch comes up with something mellow, but have RSB on order.

Set the rear at 2 (half turns - 360º) to start, figuring that would give me 1-2-3 on the front to play with. Started with 2/2 and it was nice - like it should have been from the factory. No more pitch weirdness or looking at the sky. Tried 3 front and it was too much - sort of a vague sensation of being out of balance, and on large bumps I got the feeling it was pounding down (not recovering fast enough because of the soft spring.)

After a few hundred miles, including a 30 mile shock torture test, they felt like they'd lost their newness, so tried 3 again in the front, and that's where it is now - 3F/2R. The RSB should balance it out nicely I'm hoping.

They're not remotely like anything you'd call harsh. It's just a properly snubbed, controlled feel to the body motions. It still goes too far down in jounce, so that contributes to the overall feel in that the controlled rebound has more motion to control than it should if the car had proper springs to begin with.

Can't say anything about the handling except maybe the steering is a little more responsive off center. There's nothing obvious about the lateral control like there would be with a anti-roll bar change at both ends. I haven't been on any of my favorite backroads since getting them in - kind of waiting for the RSB.

I'm happy with them completely. They don't transform the car or anything, but I don't want that. I mod to optimize the stock car, not change it into something it's not, and these things fit the bill.

[JeepJockey]

On the other forum some dude was in contact with KONI and they expressed interest in a local car coming by so they could do some testing. The office/shop is in Kentucky and I called and called and called and they never returned my call so I gave up.

[fjames]

I remember that thread. They wanted your car for a couple weeks - no way was I going for that. And like you said, they weren't very responsive.

I was looking at the valving on their race site for the few shocks that showed it in comparison to spring rate. One shim set covered a wide range of spring on both of them. Not much to go on, but I didn't think they'd end up with much different than the current mz3 shock if they made one for us. It might even be worse in a way - if they shortened it, we'd lose jounce travel (stretch has said that the current off the shelf Konis actually increase travel, because of the extra length I assume.)

There's a perfect shock test bump right up the road from me. Two lane hwy, new in the last few years, and right at the apex of a sweeper the road sunk over the culvert that goes perpendicular under it. It's a perfect little ditch for your tire to fall into, and being right at the apex, you get to see how your car responds to the conflicting forces of up and sideways at the same time.

The Konis just breeze over it. The stock shocks launched you for the sky, yawed enough to need correction, and you could feel the bushings shudder. That's all disappeared now. The shudder surprised me, I thought that would be permanent, but it's gone- haven't felt it once.

[fjames]

I had to try out my new Speed Cats, so took a spirited drive on a local twisty. The only important thing shocks do for handling to me is transitions. You got in, out and out & in. In (entry) doesn't matter to me, out is sort of important (depends a lot on the corner), but out then back in is the main thing for me.

You can over shock a car so that the rebound is so high that the weight can't transfer off of the loaded side before you load up the other between turns. The Konis at the settings I have don't have this problem at all. Transitioning out they just snap to, faster than I expected - probably because they're not over-shooting. I found myself giving slower inputs than I should have because I was waiting for that overshoot.

I've never had good shocks on a totally stock suspension before - always had bars and/or springs as well - so it's kind of interesting to isolate them and see what they do. A lot of subtle stuff, it'll take a while to adapt, longer than I thought at first.