redformulaws6

iTrader: (9)

i was debating with my buddy about how crappy his car rides with kyb's and eibach sportlines! he is ripping on me because i ordered your koni setup and sorings can you please explain to him why its worth it! this is what he said!

Koni's website responds to a customer asking if his ride quality will be a little bit "uncomfortable and bouncy" and Koni explains what the springs/shocks actually do......

".....when you buy performance shocks and springs why would you expect the ride to be 100% comfortable? You want it to perform its best and sacrifice a little bit to get it that way. The stance itself, will have you saying "sexy" everytime you see your car. The handling capabilities will make your money feel well spent. On smooth roads, it's so tight, smooth, and reacts when you want it to. On rougher roads, you'll still like it, even though it's a little bouncy over stock. There have been several studies indicating that our suspension setup will improve track times. Most performance companies look to improve performance first, or else they wouldn't be called a performance company."

Hmmmmmm, I must have the ultimate performance suspension setup then!!! lol

hpjunky98

iTrader: (3)

The ride is much like a BMW... It sacrifices a bit of ride quality for superior handling. Sportlines have too little spring rate for the drop they offer, and KYBs are far below Konis on their ability to control higher rate springs. Install what you bought, take your friend for a ride. He'll shut up on the first corner.

Cap'n Pete

iTrader: (2)

My car with recently installed Strano springs and bars, and Koni SA's, rides great . Over harsh bumps, you definitely "feel" them a little more on the initial hit. And that's where it stops. The car is LESS "bouncy" IMO than stock (where the crappy DeCarbon shocks can't get the bouncing motion under control very quickly or easily).

I find the car's handling much more precise and composed. I can't really say it's "rougher", because the shocks HANDLE the bumps so much better.

Nothing I've ever read or heard would suggest that a KYB shock could out-perform a Koni. And nothing I've heard/read about Sportline springs suggests they're anything more than a lowering spring (they're NOT a handling spring ..... that's more up the Pro Kit's alley).

ThumperNC24

iTrader: (1)

you can tell by the principal.

Goal: You want to stay off the bump stops because at that point the suspension isnt doing anything.

So, if you just look at it, it makes sense that this would be the case:

lower (shorter) spring NEEDs a stiffer rate.

The suspension has less room to travel, so the rate must be higher to keep the travel lower.

The pro kit is actually stiffer than that sportlines. The sportlines lower the car a ton (2"+) without the spring rate to compensate for the lack of travel. This results in the car being on the bump stops all the time and riding like crap.

Front Spring Rates:
LT1 Pro Kit: 600#
LS1 Pro Kit: 400#
Strano: 550#
Sportline: 360#
LT1 OEM: 310#
LS1 OEM: 292#

50# increase for 2"+ less travel is no where near enough. The rear is only a 23# increase over stock!

Brewski

iTrader: (1)

I can't comment much on Koni shocks but having driven a T/A with sportline springs and then switched to strano springs I have to consider it a bit of a matter of form over function vs. function over form...

The people I've seen steadfast in the sportline setup are craving the ultra slammed look. "but the stance is killer etc..." To me if I'm hitting the bump stops or listening to the exhaust scrape then the suspension is failing to do it's job.

The difference I felt between sportlines with KYB AGX and Strano springs with the same shocks is night and day. The car can be driven deep into a corner without worrying about running out of travel. As an added benifit I don't have to cringe and slow down any time I see a bump in the road to avoid having the car slam into the bump stops or drag the exhaust.

Take it easy
Brewski

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

All of the above statements do a good job addressing the differences. You can't convince everyone, and some folks just don't know, and don't want to know enough about suspensions to actually be able to process the information.

The best thing to do is to compare his car to yours when the parts are on.... that pretty much tells the story.

I had a similar situation about 2 weeks ago, where a man was more than skeptical about how my stuff works.... then he rode in my car. He wasn't skeptical when he left, and he left with some parts too. The proof is in the pudding, and in the world of parts, you most often get exactly what you pay for.

I'm not sure how anyone can think that a car that's slammed, which takes travel away, and without nearly enough increase in spring rate to counter that drop can ride well. What happens is you sit that much closer to the stops and not having enough rate you pretty much end up using them as defacto springs. And the shocks have very little movement to try and damp and slow movements, which is why you need shocks that have enough damping force to do the job. KYB's do, but you need to turn them way up, which also drags compression damping way up and that needlessly hurts ride and tire compliance.

In the end... he'd trying to justify his choice.

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

Just wanted to quote this paragraph, because it says a lot

leadfoot4

iTrader: (1)

In essence, that was the "rage" last year in NASCAR Cup racing...You'd see the car lift the front of the corners, to transfer weight to the rear, to get "forward bite". As the cars braked, and shifted the weight froward, the front end went into "full bind". However, a race track, no matter how rough, is still smoother than the average street. And, the front end geomety of the NASCAR cars was optimized for this set up.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

That was only done for aerodynamics and downforce to keep the valance down on the track and air from under the car. That was done only on downforce tracks, Mile and half type places and bigger, it was not done on racetracks were mechanical grip was king like road courses and places like Martinsville, Phoenix, etc.

On those shorter tracks you saw things move around quite a bit because that's how they got the best mechanical grip....

93zder

Where and how do coilovers compare here?

I have a set of LG coilovers waiting to go on with 600#front & 200# rear which sound stiff, but with shocks tuned specifically for these springs, i expect the ride/handling to be better than my current Sportline/Bilstein HD combo. Am i wrong?

BTW - my car is only street driven.

Shockwave179

iTrader: (7)

The coilovers will be way better than a sportline/bilstein combo, in fact pretty much anything is better than sportlines lol

dailydriver

I think (one of) the only real controversies with the LG/Bilstein/Hyperco coilover setup (in daily street driving at least) was the rear UPPER mounting point.
People were questioning whether or not the upper rear shock mount point was strong enough to bear ALL of the sprung weight of the back of the car without fatiguing/stress cracking.

93zder

I spoke to LG about that issue and he said there is no concern - therefore meaning they are strong enough i guess. If the car were to be raced then a rear strut bar would be recommended to eliminate flex.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

So let me get this straight... GM engineers are so bad that many think that all cars need SFC's to just survive. Meanwhile it's just fine to put the weight of most of the car on a part that was not designed to, or reinforced to carry the load of all the sprung weight put impacts. Ok.

You take a look at the area where the rear shock mounts to the body and tell me if you want the 750+ pounds per rear corner pushing down on it every day, plus the impacts going back up the spring to the body.

We aren't talking about a caged race car that ties the mounts to the roll cage, we're talking about street cars here.

As for "coil-over's" and the magic they are supposed to entail. They don't. The shocks that are specifically matched are off the shelf Bilstein race shock valvings. I even had a man get so pissed one day that he had the shocks dyno'ed and sent me the valvings to discuss reworking them. They were dead linear valving front and rear with not tremendous amount of rate. Let's not forget we're talking about the same folks that say HD's are fine for lowering springs.... those are the shocks you have, and while the springs suck I can promise you the shocks do not handle even those well, let alone stiffer.

I'll not for a minute debate the ride/handling will be better than the messed up crap you have now in the Sportline/HD setup, because you couldn't do much worse.

93zder

Ok, i understand my current setup sucks. But i was under the impression the shocks/springs on the coilovers would have been custom set up/tuned for each other? There are numbers actually etched on each shock (eg. 80/180) - does this represent the shock valving?

thanks for your input

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

You know what would be nice to have would be a shock dyno thread to compare different shocks. Though that would be tough to get going. It would be nice to see how the results turn out of different types of shocks. Multiple tests over time, aka seeing how well the valving holds up a few years later