REVIEW: Koni SA (4/4)
07-13-2009, 10:51 AM
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REVIEW: Koni SA (4/4) I installed the Koni SA (4/4) from Sam Strano this past weekend. First of all, a big thanks to Sam for a great price on these and taking the time to return my call and walk me through the install/setup process. I've read a million threads and install guides on here and Sam definitely gives you some tips that really help out when it comes time to install these.
Anyways the parts for install were the Koni 4/4 SAs and a UMI STB.
First of all the INSTALL:
I started Friday afternoon around 6ish getting the car on jackstands and started pulling the front apart. NOTE: My plan of attack was to pull the fronts and soak them in liquid wrench/rust remover etc. and install the rears while I was waiting on these. This has to be a must as the passenger side is going to be corroded like all hell. My 7ish on Friday I already had the passenger shock and spring assembly out of the car. Yes, it was rusted, and yes I let it sit overnight in liquid wrench before tackling it with the spring compressor and getting the nut off.
Took a nice break to go get something to eat and got back on it around 8:30ish I'd guess. I was in no hurry the whole time. I expected to stop and cleanup parts along the way that I can't normally reach on my normal washes so I wasn't trying to blaze through the install.
Had to remove both bolts off the master cylinder and pull it above the cowl to get to the torq bolt on the drivers side. There was no way in hell I was getting to this bolt without pulling the master cylinder. Otherwise no problem here.
I had no issues getting the spindles to drop. A few good hits on the spindle arm with the BFH and they came down without a problem. Now on to the spring compressor. Once you learn the quirks of it it is actually easy (and safe) to use. I used the same compressor the TheBlueKnight used in his install video. Got the driver side compressed ( I wanted to make sure I had the spring fully compressed off the mount so I took my time) and put the breaker bar and POP the nut came loose without issue. I didn't have any corrosion on the drivers side. 97K mile Texas car.
Now putting the spring on the Koni, well this was a bitch as I didn't get it aligned correctly the first time and had to recompress the spring to slightly twist the lower mount so it would align in the a-arm. Otherwise this was easy. Put assembly studs up through the tower, push lower part of shock into place and get the bolts and nuts through the a-arm and into the shock. Get the jack under the spindle, raise to meet upper a-arm, re-attach end links, put bolts and nuts back in and good to go.
Passenger side, well the nut on this one was a bitch. Compressed the spring, got out the impact wrench and yanked on the nut. It spun a little before stopping and proceeding to spin the shaft. OK, cut dust boot off of the stocker and get the vice grip in on the shaft and at it again. I get a little further before the shaft starts spinning again. GREAT! So after thinking about this for a while and fearing having to cut the shock (as I don't have any cutting tools), my dad got out the leverage extender, slipped it over the vice grip and yanked that sucker down TIGHT. BINGO, no more slip and the nut is off. Re-assemble just as the drivers side.
The rears were easy, no point in even mentioning those.
We called it a night before starting on the passenger side and before fixing my alignment issue I mentioned above. All and all shock install starting at 8AM saturday morning we had this done a little after lunch time. Also took plenty of time to clean up in the wheel well behind the mount and to clean the mounts. This is a good day job to take your time and clean along the way.
I also pulled the UMI TA and retightened the rod end mounts as it was making an awful clunking noise. Silent and SOLID now!
IMPRESSIONS
Well as soon as I moved the car in the driveway I could already tell that the car felt different. I have my rears a 1/4 turn off of full soft for now and I left the fronts at Sam's recommendation for starting. I haven't really played with the adjusters yet but will in the coming days/weeks.
Note that this is a stock suspension car w/ Konis and a UMI TA and STB. The STB may do nothing but it weighs almost nothing, looks great in red powdercoat under the hood of my red TA, and this was the perfect time to install it anyways.
Now for those interested in how Konis ride....this is NOT your grandma's buick for smoothness or your neighbors Lexus either. These are a serious performance shock and although they are performance oriented they ride great for a sports car. I think if you want a soft ride you bought the wrong car to begin with. These are very taught (probably not as much if you soften the fronts up) but extremely compliant.
Dampening wise I would compare these to a Lexus IS/BMW 3 series in how quickly they dampen and respond, in fact I believe the Konis react and are more composed than the shocks on those cars. If you hit some nasty bumps you might call it harsh but it handles the bumps great; the bumps do not yank you and the car around it just handles them. No more feeling like the car is going to fall apart. These are the REAL deal.
The steering feels much more crisp on turn in and the composure these have over bumps mid corner is amazing. I cannot believe a simple shock change could have such a DRASTIC impact on how the car rides, drives, and feels.
Performance wise I won't claim to having pushed these really hard but did take some freeway ramps at good clips. Curves at highway speeds are a breeze; one finger on the steering wheel affair.
If anyone is familiar w/ the Dallas area, coming off of 35 North coming into downtown, taking the 30 east and then coming onto the 75 north sweeping ramp. This thing has some expansion joints in it before and my car always scared the crap out of me with swaying, grabbing the expansion joint , and then how unsettled it felt.
I was coming home w/ my fiance in the car, both of our bags of crap from the weekend, along with some more crap in the rear of the car. So basically this would have been really shitty with the stock shocks. A-hole in a PTCruiser decides to go slow and then speed up as I try to go around him going into this ramp. FINE. I've got Konis BITCH
Get around him and coming into this sweeper pretty quick. Well lets just say, HOLY ****, the turn in, composure, and especially composure over expansion joints (composure? what expansion joints? It handles and responds that well to mid corner bumps and jounces) is amazing. For those of you that have taken this turn I ended up blowing through this turn at about 80mph ( I didn't really feel safe taking this at 50 before) obviously leaving the PT Cruiser not even in sight. The entire way the car was composed and just begged to be pushed harder. Simply amazing.
If anyone has any specific questions I'd be glad to answer to the best of my ability but to sum this up, these are WORTH EVERY PENNY!
I've had my car since new and after 97K miles it was time. Even when new the stockers didn't ride bad but had no where near the damping ability these do.
This is all on stock springs. I have some Stranos on order and I'll post a review as I get those on in the future too. I would almost consider springs not necessary as the difference over stock shocks is that drastic. The Konis are the real deal, and it is true, you get what you pay for.
Cliff Notes: Konis are worth every penny. Shock installs can be a bitch. Move on to the next thread.
Anyways the parts for install were the Koni 4/4 SAs and a UMI STB.
First of all the INSTALL:
I started Friday afternoon around 6ish getting the car on jackstands and started pulling the front apart. NOTE: My plan of attack was to pull the fronts and soak them in liquid wrench/rust remover etc. and install the rears while I was waiting on these. This has to be a must as the passenger side is going to be corroded like all hell. My 7ish on Friday I already had the passenger shock and spring assembly out of the car. Yes, it was rusted, and yes I let it sit overnight in liquid wrench before tackling it with the spring compressor and getting the nut off.
Took a nice break to go get something to eat and got back on it around 8:30ish I'd guess. I was in no hurry the whole time. I expected to stop and cleanup parts along the way that I can't normally reach on my normal washes so I wasn't trying to blaze through the install.
Had to remove both bolts off the master cylinder and pull it above the cowl to get to the torq bolt on the drivers side. There was no way in hell I was getting to this bolt without pulling the master cylinder. Otherwise no problem here.
I had no issues getting the spindles to drop. A few good hits on the spindle arm with the BFH and they came down without a problem. Now on to the spring compressor. Once you learn the quirks of it it is actually easy (and safe) to use. I used the same compressor the TheBlueKnight used in his install video. Got the driver side compressed ( I wanted to make sure I had the spring fully compressed off the mount so I took my time) and put the breaker bar and POP the nut came loose without issue. I didn't have any corrosion on the drivers side. 97K mile Texas car.
Now putting the spring on the Koni, well this was a bitch as I didn't get it aligned correctly the first time and had to recompress the spring to slightly twist the lower mount so it would align in the a-arm. Otherwise this was easy. Put assembly studs up through the tower, push lower part of shock into place and get the bolts and nuts through the a-arm and into the shock. Get the jack under the spindle, raise to meet upper a-arm, re-attach end links, put bolts and nuts back in and good to go.
Passenger side, well the nut on this one was a bitch. Compressed the spring, got out the impact wrench and yanked on the nut. It spun a little before stopping and proceeding to spin the shaft. OK, cut dust boot off of the stocker and get the vice grip in on the shaft and at it again. I get a little further before the shaft starts spinning again. GREAT! So after thinking about this for a while and fearing having to cut the shock (as I don't have any cutting tools), my dad got out the leverage extender, slipped it over the vice grip and yanked that sucker down TIGHT. BINGO, no more slip and the nut is off. Re-assemble just as the drivers side.
The rears were easy, no point in even mentioning those.
We called it a night before starting on the passenger side and before fixing my alignment issue I mentioned above. All and all shock install starting at 8AM saturday morning we had this done a little after lunch time. Also took plenty of time to clean up in the wheel well behind the mount and to clean the mounts. This is a good day job to take your time and clean along the way.
I also pulled the UMI TA and retightened the rod end mounts as it was making an awful clunking noise. Silent and SOLID now!
IMPRESSIONS
Well as soon as I moved the car in the driveway I could already tell that the car felt different. I have my rears a 1/4 turn off of full soft for now and I left the fronts at Sam's recommendation for starting. I haven't really played with the adjusters yet but will in the coming days/weeks.
Note that this is a stock suspension car w/ Konis and a UMI TA and STB. The STB may do nothing but it weighs almost nothing, looks great in red powdercoat under the hood of my red TA, and this was the perfect time to install it anyways.
Now for those interested in how Konis ride....this is NOT your grandma's buick for smoothness or your neighbors Lexus either. These are a serious performance shock and although they are performance oriented they ride great for a sports car. I think if you want a soft ride you bought the wrong car to begin with. These are very taught (probably not as much if you soften the fronts up) but extremely compliant.
Dampening wise I would compare these to a Lexus IS/BMW 3 series in how quickly they dampen and respond, in fact I believe the Konis react and are more composed than the shocks on those cars. If you hit some nasty bumps you might call it harsh but it handles the bumps great; the bumps do not yank you and the car around it just handles them. No more feeling like the car is going to fall apart. These are the REAL deal.
The steering feels much more crisp on turn in and the composure these have over bumps mid corner is amazing. I cannot believe a simple shock change could have such a DRASTIC impact on how the car rides, drives, and feels.
Performance wise I won't claim to having pushed these really hard but did take some freeway ramps at good clips. Curves at highway speeds are a breeze; one finger on the steering wheel affair.
If anyone is familiar w/ the Dallas area, coming off of 35 North coming into downtown, taking the 30 east and then coming onto the 75 north sweeping ramp. This thing has some expansion joints in it before and my car always scared the crap out of me with swaying, grabbing the expansion joint , and then how unsettled it felt.
I was coming home w/ my fiance in the car, both of our bags of crap from the weekend, along with some more crap in the rear of the car. So basically this would have been really shitty with the stock shocks. A-hole in a PTCruiser decides to go slow and then speed up as I try to go around him going into this ramp. FINE. I've got Konis BITCH
Get around him and coming into this sweeper pretty quick. Well lets just say, HOLY ****, the turn in, composure, and especially composure over expansion joints (composure? what expansion joints? It handles and responds that well to mid corner bumps and jounces) is amazing. For those of you that have taken this turn I ended up blowing through this turn at about 80mph ( I didn't really feel safe taking this at 50 before) obviously leaving the PT Cruiser not even in sight. The entire way the car was composed and just begged to be pushed harder. Simply amazing.If anyone has any specific questions I'd be glad to answer to the best of my ability but to sum this up, these are WORTH EVERY PENNY!
I've had my car since new and after 97K miles it was time. Even when new the stockers didn't ride bad but had no where near the damping ability these do.
This is all on stock springs. I have some Stranos on order and I'll post a review as I get those on in the future too. I would almost consider springs not necessary as the difference over stock shocks is that drastic. The Konis are the real deal, and it is true, you get what you pay for.
Cliff Notes: Konis are worth every penny. Shock installs can be a bitch. Move on to the next thread.
07-13-2009, 02:49 PM
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Awesome! Nice write up!
I installed my Strano springs on stock shocks a few weeks ago and the ride is bouncy but it definitely feels more centered when cornering.
Im in the process of getting Koni 4/4's and I cant wait to get them on! Even more so by reading your post.
I installed my Strano springs on stock shocks a few weeks ago and the ride is bouncy but it definitely feels more centered when cornering.
Im in the process of getting Koni 4/4's and I cant wait to get them on! Even more so by reading your post.
07-13-2009, 09:50 PM
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07-13-2009, 11:19 PM
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Yeah, I will be looking to do the hollow bars in the future as well. After getting the roll out of the car it should make for a nice handling car. And Thanks for the idea on that spring compressor, it worked out great and I felt safe using it with the hooks around the coils. Are you going to make a swaybar install video for us as well when the time comes? Of course we'll need insightful commentary and a few jokes thrown in there too!
. I'll also show clips of my wife beating me to death for buying more parts for my car before paying it off. 
