Koni's are a ripoff. They don't have enough travel for a lowered car. The cost to get them shortened and revalved puts them right up there with a set of custom race shocks. At least HD's can be shortened economically. Koni's aren't actually recommended for lowered cars as is anyways per Lee Grimes.

 

You can have them shortened if you like. Ripoff huh? If that's what you want to believe, ok. Why don't you call Lee back and ask him how I've done on my Koni's (that aren't shortened).

The trick is simple, don't slam the car and the travel is not an issue (BTW, that's GM's fault, not the shock companies). You can lower the car up to about 1.25" without a problem. Beyond that you are into geometry issues anyway.... the control arms, tie-rods angles become funky and the shocks are the least of the issues.

And while HD's can be revalved economically, and it's something we do a LOT of, they are also not adjustable..... And despite being the guy who started the whole Revalved Bilstein thing, when someone is really serious, I put them on Koni's. I run Koni's on my own car. Wouldn't be without the adjustability.

 

I find it amazingly funny how when I disagree it's because I own a competing business. I guess that makes me wrong all the time.

You all are blind...... that's the long and short of it. Might not be smart business to do so, but I'll call a spade a spade. Bilstein, BILSTEIN tells you that HD's are not suitable for lowering springs, ANY lowering spring. But hey, they only speced the valving and what's a shock but a spring damper anyway, they must be as stupid as Sam Strano is.

I don't care if it was you race car or a street car Mitch. For some reason you seem to think (and quite ignorantly) that when you encounter a bump on a race track that it's different than when you encounter the same type type of bump on the street. It's not. Now, if you don't care about your street car handling worth a god-damned, then put the HD's on, I don't really give a rat's ***, I sell HD's as well. I just care about selling the proper parts, but if you want to stick your head in the sand I'm willing to fill in around it and pay my bills. Never mind the whole issue about the "new" HD valving, which hasn't been mentioned. And why should it, after all "HD's are fine" who cares about the actual valving, right?

Have a nice day fella's. I've got nothing more to say on the matter. Clearly there are those in different camps and I've made my points.

 

I beleive Doug Rippie was revalving Bilsteins before you. Not to mention individuals that went through Bilstein. Why is it GM's fault? They made a shock the right length for an f-body. Koni makes one the same length and it causes you to ride the bumpstops when lowered.

 

"From: "Grimes, Lee - KONI" <Lee.Grimes@itt.com>
To: "Sam Strano" <strano@stranoparts.com>
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 04 Aug 2006 19:27:35.0721 (UTC) FILETIME=[0A303190:01C6B7FC]
X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0631-3, 08/04/2006), Inbound message
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean


Hi Sam,


What a can of worms this is. I am sorry that I cannot post something
myself but I am wrapping up the work week before embarking on a week
vacation that starts with a track day tomorrow several hundred miles
from here. Gotta put out the last minute fires.


I feel like I have stepped in at the end of someone else's conversation.
There was a post by JohnTre mentioning my name specifically and saying
that Konis are not for lowered cars. This is not true or at best taking
one small bit of info far out of context. Koni Special (red) and Koni
Sport (yellow) shocks can be used just fine on lowered cars, in fact we
know they are used on lowered cars well more than 50% of the time. In
most cases, our shocks are similar length to stock shocks and depending
on the design and geometry of the specific car, 1.5-2.0+ inches of
lowering is not a problem in general based on shock length.


I can only imagine that John may be thinking of the new Koni FSD product
line which you need to be very careful with on a lowered car to assure
that the car does not hit the bump rubber much or the effect of FSD will
be lost. We are now selling FSD kits matched with Eibach springs for
approved appliations but they musty first be tested for bump rubber
contact. We do not make FSDs at this time for Camaro so this part is
moot to Camaro owners. In fact, the Koni 8241-1139 Sport shock has an
adjustable spring perch on the front specifically so you can lower the
front of your car. I cannot remember the last time that our Shop
shortened a set of Camaro shocks. If we have done it or been asked, it
is very rare. As for the comment that Konis are a ripoff, I don't think
I need to even bother addressing that one with the number of happy
customers and enthusiasts that we have served. If someone has a Koni
problem, we need to know about it.


Please feel free to post my comments to the thread. Again I apologize
for not being able to do it myself right now.


Best regards,
Lee Grimes
Koni North America
Automotive & Motorsports Mgr."

 

Why not recommend Penskes or Motons?
Do they suck? Or do you not deal in them?

Why not recommend AFCO springs? They make all kinds of rates.
Do they suck? Or do you just not offer that line?

Thank God and hallelujah. Wait, was this just in this thread or altogether? A lot of folks are just plain sick of your ****.

I still find it amazing you find braking and accelerating on a road course the same as that on a city street. Sammy, folks just don't threshold brake from 100-25 in order to turn onto their street at the end of a day's work. Likewise, they don't slip through that turn heading for their driveway, accelerating hard the whole way.

We had a truce dip-****. You stay out of threads I'm involved in and I'll stay out of the tripe you pass on as "advice". You pulled your typical classless move and posted in a thread, not by me, but by your rival competition. And now your are "stunned". You don't play "the victim" well at all.

My heads not in the sand. But it's not up your *** either and that seems to bother you. You spend so much effort trying to convince me that you are a shock God, can make a car do unnatural "things" and tell spring rates by visual examination while on the car and at 6 feet away. Well it's just bullshit and more and more people are recognizing it.

You and your entourage are happy. They all seem to have that freshly pumped look on there faces. I'm glad you've learned to ignore the pangs of guilt. You and drug dealers seem to have adjusted well.

I, on the otherhand, have a soul and relish my night's sleep.

Curious why Lee didn't have time to address it himself, but found time to e-mail you about it. Interesting ...

 

Okay, now without myself becoming third party to any conflict I would like to offer something with this statement above.

Regardless of money saved or money spent, you have mentioned that you will have a daily driver and may never possibly see the more serious sides of tracking or AX, then you mention that you'd get coil-overs if money permitted. Why? Do you know what you're going to do with those as well? Don't get me wrong, I certainly appreciate what I currently have on both of my vehicles, however for what you describe they can be a lot of money spent to not only make barely an improvement for the driving you'll be doing, but also introduce some issues with certain adjustments that will probably make you develop more headaches. Not trying to condescend your statement, but just to introduce some insight to avoid lemmingdom.

AFA valvings are concerned, I like adjusting my valvings. I have noticed an improvement some of the "out of the box" valvings that I have come across in the past, by either the old fashioned revalving (major PIA, but sometimes more accurate) however I prefer the external adjustment myself, but once again, be warned. It's not something to just to have bragging rights like being a player on a racing video game. It can take some time to set up properly, and FWIW, you can actually screw things up, but if you have the time and the proper open space for adjusting to the proper valve setup, it can have it's rewards. I can say that with external adjustment, you won't have to visit the shock dyno everytime you change a valve setting.

Now with all that I've said above, it's really not very useful for a road racer that doesn't want to "push very hard" who's purchased a set of lowering springs and purchase something for external adjustible valving, if they know that they aren't going to have the time to properly adjust the valvings, so for that type of person, you're down to some other options based on the same shock from the same manufacturer, but before I go on, Koni's are not a ripoff. Once again, the adjustibility is a feature than the end user needs to be greatly aware of, so they don't get into frustration.

AFA a proper Bilstein revavle vs. an off the shelf HD, my personal experience will prefer a revalve, however with using the older spec HD, the dampening will not be quite so accurate as it was designed for springs around the 292-360# rate, and not the high rates of the LG super springs, but that doesn't mean they'll fall apart. I too have rode in and operated some vehicles with the super springs, and honestly, the HD's aren't too terrible on some of the tracks I've visited, however they could use some valving that might be better than the stock HD. Once again, shocks haven't broke.

Without introducing companies officials names, I have talked to some Bilstein reps who do make note of what the catalogue mentions, and it's printed in the catalogue, however they also mentioned that the shock will not be worn out prematurely either, even from a spring rated like the G2 super springs. To believe or not to believe is the what boggles me also because they market the BTS with those same regular HD shocks that are valved for OE springs, yet they're combined with spring with rates that are not only higher than stock, but also progressive as well, yet Bilstein doesn't have a problem selling those either.

To sum up this long winded statement, it's is really best to have a shock that can effectively dampen the spring rates that you will be using, however it's also true that the stock HD's will not break from combining springs of rates that aren't recommended with the use of the HD's.

Actually one more thing I am definitely postive about here. Do not install sportlines unless you don't mind decreased performance combined with a showcar to get lemmings aroused. Not only do they ride too low to begin with, they too will sag, and have a way too soft spring rate for the ride height right out of the box. With that said, even the fanciest of dampers can't properly dampen that type of spring.