cjb

What´s a Honda?

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

I wouldn't say the Koni/Strano makes the ride comfort duplicate to a BMW at all, but it's the handling that reminded me of the 3 series I drove at the test ride event and also my friend's car at the local BMWCCA autox that I co-drove.

You got 19 inch wheels on rubber bands.... that's where most of your poor ride quality is coming from. Going to 17's isn't going to transform your car into a BMW as far as ride quality is concerned, but most people's reviews of the strano/koni setup come from 17 inch wheel setups. 19 inch wheels will probably make your opinion be a tad bit different from the rest I'd think..

cjb

Hey man, don´t give up. Play with the settings and see what you like. I went Stranoized just a week ago. I haven´t had the time to play around with the setting that much but I can tell you this; I´m driving a fuel injected suicide machine! Love it! Firm, solid, maybe not a BMW (it´s a Camaro right?) but very much like a German sport Sedan. A player. My focus has been on the rear damper settings and front/back tire pressure and already that´s paid of. Stick with it! Maybe your wheels/tires is the problem, I don´t know. If you have another set sitting in the garage, throw them on and let´s see what happens. Patience!

caliswangin916

iTrader: (3)

i'm definitely not giving up on the setup and will be doing adjustments and report back. i'm just throwing out what my experience thus far is. i'm glad a couple of you came out and said this is not a bmw ride comfort. i was not expecting that at all when i purchased the koni/stranos but was hoping for something along the lines of a 300k mile civic. lol.

it's weird because there are rare times that the car feels real good all around but i'm attributing it to perception. but the overall feel most of the time is not much better than my old setup.

it is much better at 80mph or so when following freeway turns. i can keep the car on track with the lines much better than before. but lower speeds, things are far from great. i hit railroad tracks much harder now without thinking about it but i was doing this with the strano springs alone. adding the konis didn't make things better.

the first couple of days after springs, then after sway bar, then konis, the car did seem better. i also installed a new racing seat before the konis and this may have made things "feel" better.
maybe the konis settled in and need to be bumped up. i know that the rear konis installed alone were very hard to push to collapse when new. the rear konis actually raised the car up when installed. i can tell due to my headlights aiming lower.
it could be bushings on the car, the sfc, tires, whatever else but right now i do not have a night and day difference. my tires are at 40psi with a max psi of 51. i had them at 46psi before these suspension mods but the rears were not putting much tread on the ground so i lowered it.
i'm at roughly 1000 miles total with everything on at the same time. is there such a thing as the konis settling in? at how many miles?

HotWS6

Because it is a honda...

tripps

iTrader: (7)

prokit = rough as **** ride!

I had to get rid of mine, i couldn't stand how bumpy it was when driving down city streets.

JD_AMG

Its not 100% BMW, its just similar. Its firm, but not jarring, very tight and easy to control with lots of feel.
Overall best ride quality is Konis and other wise stock suspension.
The impact harshness increased for me when I installed my rear swaybar (front already installed, no change in ride quality).
Springs made it slightly more harsh, still not jarring.

So you were on just strano springs, and stock shocks and stock sway bars?

So you did shocks last?
As I already mentioned, the rear swaybar increased harshness for me, if you want to compare it to your old setup use the same swaybars.
Did you over tighten the swaybars? Did you grease the bushings?
And on the rear springs, did you use the stock rubber piece on top of the spring, or something like the hose mod?
They "settled in" for me and became overall softer after a little while. What "pushing" did you have to do in the rear? Did you install these right?
What are your rears set at? And did YOU set them, or just throw them on the car?

My tires are set at 32 front, 30 rear....
Sounds like you are driving around on bowling *****...
And you never answered me before, did you use the upper spring perch on the front shocks? One last question, what set of Konis did you go with (SA or DA) and did you buy them new from Stranoparts?
Honestly there is something wrong if you don't think the handling is great compared to before, unless you daily drive an Elise...

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

Did the civic have 19's and rubber bands for tires?

You have 19 inch wheels and 30-35 profile tires running 41 psi on the strano koni setup. Dude its gotta be the suspension that's causing the problems.....

Sorry for being a smart ***. I'm trying to slip you a little hint here though How did the car ride before you put on the new suspension with those wheels anyway?

caliswangin916

iTrader: (3)

so i should get the night and day difference in ride comfort once i get a taller sidewall on the car? hahaha. i seriously hope not because that would make me feel worse about these konis. everything works together, but there should be difference when some things are substituted such as the tires, but i doubt the tires should be what makes or breaks the setup. the 245/35 and 275/30 19 tires are around 3.2" sidewall. new corvettes run on 285/35 tires which are 3.7" tall sidewalls. so i hope vettes don't ride this shitty. trust me, i know what a shitty setup is and what a shitty ride is. these konis did not make me oooo or awe what the difference was.
i do have my fronts on the top perch.
by pushing the rear konis i meant as trying to collapse them by hand. with the lowest setting, i think they are to hard.
i appreciate everyones help but i will find out what's going on when i do adjustments to the setup. i have 245/50/16 tires that i'll try too.
but for some more background, i've had the old setup which was 2.5" cut front springs and 3-4" rear cut springs on stock shocks 3 corners, and a used autozone shock on the front driver side running 215/40/18 front tires and 245/35/20 rear tires which rode like crap. i changed the tires to 245/50/16 eagle rsa tires and there was no difference in ride comfort. so tires on the old setup didn't do any good. the 19" tires feel the same as the other tires i had on the car with the old setup.
i'm not going to be in this topic any more because i'm typing too much of what is going on with the setup. i'd rather make a topic soon and review everything and get suggestions there and not have to type so much because i tend to do that just like this post. lol. but bottom line is that with the setup now, there is no night and day difference attributable to the konis on the initial settings.

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

Hey maybe you will toss on 17s and still not like it... who knows? Suspension ride quality is definitely subjective to ones opinion, and you may never like the setup. Not everyone likes everything.

41 psi is a bit high though. Is having a lot of air pressure in tires important on the smaller sidewalls to keep them stable?

Basically everything between the ground and tires to your seat and your **** can have an effect on ride quality. When I go over bumps or like railroad tracks slowly, yeah my car feels like I'm losing a few bolts and a BMW doesn't feel that way. Then again you can probably attribute that to the incredible chassis and build quality of the 4th gen

If you swap out the stock driver seat with a metal seat, then that will probably hurt ride quality. If you increase the shocks dampening way more than the spring needs, that will probably hurt ride quality. If you shorten the tire sidewall using a crappy compound tire and increase the tire pressure, you will probably hurt ride quality.

Camaro_Zach

iTrader: (19)

You own a Camaro SS and you say you love to drive your gf's HONDA because its a smoother ride?




I hope you do realize Im just givin ya a hard time, Im not really suggesting you have menstrual cycles.

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

See this thread: https://ls1tech.com/forums/suspension-brakes/915755-koni-s-strano-s-installed-my-thoughts.html

Sam mentions some good points in there.

Nightrydass

What's ride quality?

Jeep_junkie

Man you definitely need to bleed off some of that excess tire pressure. 51 psi is like having no tire at all. I drove home from the shop with that much air in my 18s and it was like not having any rubber on the pavement at all! Bumped it down to 35 and eventually down to 30 which is just fine. I wouldn't go any higher that 32 now. Even going from 35 to 30 made a huge difference in high speed tire impacts (surface changes, expansion joints, railroad tracks etc). In your case I definitely think it's worth a shot. Try it, if you don't like it you can always put some air back in

caliswangin916

iTrader: (3)

my psi post meant that i have 40 psi in the tires now with a max tire recomendation of 51 psi from vredestein. down at 40 psi, these tires now will screech when giving it a little gas. i don't like that. i mentioned 51 psi max because different tires have different max psi pressure.

wtf were you doing with 51 psi in your tires?!?!?!

z28bryan

iTrader: (7)

Have you ever tried like between 30-33? 40 is generally what I run in my fronts at autocross, and some fbody owners don't even like to use that much for autox never mind street driving.

You are also an SS too right? So you probably have the blunt ended rear axle bumpstops. Z28 ones are more progressive and don't spike the suspension rate at full suspension travel the way the SS/WS6 ones do. The switch has been known to give better ride quality to some people. I recently just bought a new set of bumpstops because my originals were getting old and cracked. They aren't too expensive.

RevGTO

iTrader: (12)

Nah, you're not the first. I posted this thread and observed that while the Konis (on lower perch) gave much better control than my previous Bilsteins, they increased ride harshness substantially. https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthrea...light=bilstein Although the Konis seem to have softened a little over time, Bilsteins were the way to go for a BMW-like ride.

Elliott's94Z

iTrader: (12)

I'm sorry but this is the stupidest fuc*ing question I have ever seen posted..sorry

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

I don't know about anyone else but I think my camaro rides pretty good for a sports car... granted i'm still on stock suspension. But my wife has an 06 Honda Civic... that thing will bounce you to death over everything I hate riding in that car. But what is to be expected out of a solid axle sports car? You aren't going to get lincoln towncar ride quality, its just a fact of life.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

It's time to add a few things here. First of all, just because the tire is built and can handle a maximum psi of 51 does not mean in any way that you should be running 51 psi. That's the maximum pressure the tire can take @ full load for one hour, at the rated speed of the tire. It is not in anyway indicative of what you should be running. 40 psi is too much even for an f-body if the tires have any sidewall structure to them at all.

As for the "BMW" thing. There are various BMW's, and you will never get a solid axle, nose heavy car to feel exactly like any of them. However when I talk BMW like I'm thinking M3/M5, not 330i. The Bilstein's are not as performance oriented as the Koni's are, and to me would be overall more Volkswagen than BMW in their performance aspect. And I hate to beat a dead horse, but the above Bilstein vs. Koni thing is not a 100% apples to apples comparison because the car also sits a bit lower on the Koni's. Now, I'm not saying the two shocks will ride exactly a like as they are valved differently and have different missions. But for the most part, folks don't mind firm in a GT type car, but we dislike harsh. But with the range of the Koni's and the fact I tend to run the fronts about half firm, most can find something they like if they need softer.