Strano sells a set with 4th gen shocks for up front and 3rd gen in the back. There is an obvious difference between this and the set that is 4th gen front/back. What is it? Besides the $100 price tag.

 

4th gens are adjustable once installed while 3rd gens need to be removed for adjustment. You could go with 3rd gens in back though. I've never needed to adjust mine off full soft (done road racing and drag). But I've only had them a month.....

 

The valving is a bit different as well. Unless you really want to play around with the rear shock valving to squeeze out extra performance, you might be better off getting the Bilstein rears. They are the same basic valving as the koni 4th gen rears when set to full soft and full soft is what most folks end up on. Me included.

Also the 3rd gen rear Bilstein has a bit more low speed rebound to control the cars body motions better. Most folks prefer that model.

 

I really do not sell the Koni/Bilstein combination anymore because of the 4/3 Koni setup. First, you need to realize that a Koni/Bilstein combo is now $660 due to the Koni price increase on 4/1/05, not the old $610 price. Then you have to consider that you have two shipping costs (one pair of Koni's and one pair of Bilstein's), which adds to the bottom line.

The cost of the 4/3 Koni setup is $705 vs. $660 for the Koni/Bilsteins. But the Koni's have but one shipping cost which helps offset some of that difference. And in the end, the difference is small enough that I don't believe it warrants giving up the adjustable rear shock.

The 3rd gen Bilstein's work great. But the 3rd gen Koni's for the back are also mono-tubes, and the newest versions have the same 46mm piston as the Bilstein's, PLUS the rebound adjuster. The reason I did not use the older 3rd gen rear Koni's is because they were a much smaller 36mm piston. That has changed now.