Hey all,

Koni Inserts seem to the "rage" over at nasioc with the wagon owners. I was about two minutes from getting a set of coilovers but got out bid (damn you ebay). So I was salty, lookin' up other options and a lot of people have the koni inserts, with some sort of spring combo. Just curious if anyone here has them. I did a search and the only posts found were by Pat Olsen.

If someone does have them, where did you get them installed, if you did it yourself was it a PITA, hows the ride, performance compared to coilovers?

Thanks,
Dan

 

Are you talking about the struts?

 

Yessir!

 

i think caterpil is running koni inserts with ground control springs. he has an 04 sedan, try ask him...

btw his name is also Daniel

 

I was told by mike that it is close to impossible for one of us to grap a strut, and a spring and try to match them for good performance, and all of that. He said it take really good suspension tuners to come up with a good spring/strut combo, so I don't know about getting those struts. Maybe just pick-up STI dampners, they're very good and properly match them with some STi pink springs. Otherwise I'd go with coilovers.

 

^

I have some 02-03 specific koni inserts with GC sleeves all around on my 04 sedan. I bought them back in the day, before the S-Tech's came out. I was a little desperate for something to stiffen my car up a bit, haha.

Initially, I started with 7" 400lb F/R springs, and it was a pretty good setup. But later on, as I learned all the quirks with the setup, I began to think, i'd end up spending a bit too much on it. I crashed into an embankment one rainy night, and bent the strut mounting brackets. Only now, the koni insert that apprently looked fine before is degrading and will probably die soon. Right now I have 750lbs in the front and 400 in the rear, and I ran into another stumbling block; the topmounts. They flex too much when you run high springrates. I can visually see the top mount flex almost 1/2" or so when I manually bounce the front of the car. So, to fix that, i'd have to get camber plates .. another $250 or so. Total spent on this suspension coulda net me close to a set of Cusco Zero-1's or something. lol.

But IMHO, Koni inserts are great replacements for stock, and they should last you a long time if taken care of. I can't think of anything wrong with running koni inserts with a good set of springs, as they can "handle" pretty much any spring set you throw at it, as they can handle springrates in excess of 400lbs. Not many regular springs come in rates that high. The only thing that some people may not like is the somewhat lacking compression damping in the koni's. Koni's are a performance shock, yet was designed for people who still want some kind of ride comfort, so the compression damping is a little weak. Also, adjusting the shocks can get cumbersome as it takes a while to find the perfect setting. Some adjustment and experiementing is needed to tune the setup. As keirnna said, it may just as well be impossible to get it perfect.

My car rides "alright" in the way that it doesn't feel as "stiff" as it did when I first put it on, that is understandable as I have probably gotten used to it, but sometimes it is hard to tell if it is "supposed" to ride a certain way. It is easy to overdamp the rebound in a way that for some reason the car feels very harsh, yet the tire exhibits some "jacking" over quick bumps. It is definately not bouncy in a way that the car excessively oscillates over bumps like with a performance spring on dead stock shocks. As far as performance goes, I am not sure. It is better then stock, but I have not had personal experience with a "full" coilover setup so I don't know the exact details. I do know that when you dial in too much rebound damping that the inside rear tire seemingly lifts off the ground and decreases lateral traction. But, i'm not a professional suspension tuner nor a racecar driver, so I could be talking out of my as$.

Not to forget the installation; it is not that hard when destined to be paired with springs, but when you go a coilover-sleeve route, you'll have to go the whole nine yards. Still, you'll need to do a little grinding and get your hands on a big pipecutter, as well as a set of dead shocks or whatnot. I installed mine at home, but it took quite a bit of time as well as needing to borrow tools.

Here, everyone loves the low ride heights, slammed look. You can't blame people for that, it adds to the visual appeal with a nice stance. But with these koni shocks, they are designed to be stock replacements as far as stroke and such goes, so there is not much suspension travel flexibility if you are one of those who want to run it stiff and low.

For me, after a while, a "full" coilover setup has more appeal as well as adjustability. Right now, I still enjoy my koni + GC setup, but i'd like to step up to "full" coilovers sometime in the future. I've always thought that spending so much for a suspension setup was rediculous, but there is no other way to do it, it seems.

I hope I didn't leave anything out. Good luck on your decision man.

^
My 2 cents..

 

^^^ Wow!!! Thanks for the great response. Now you've got me thinking. And undecided again. But it is a good thing. I was planning on the Koni inserts with Prodrive springs. I've noticed that Wagons are hard to find a good spring/strut combo without going JDM. ARRRRRRRGH

Thanks Caterpill and Nate

 

No problem, if you would like to compare my ride with caterpill's I am down.

 

haha, my car probably rides like ****, I know it does for a fact.

I'd be too shame if anything. haha.

but yeah, I dunno about this whole suspension thing.. I think it is a great investment, but when it comes down to spending $1000+ for suspension, I really HOPE it lasts .. Lately everything is coming down to being "race", compromising some longevity for performance. It is hard to tell which type of suspension needs to be rebuilt often and which is designed to last.. Only thing that comes to my mind when talking about being rebuilt/maintained often is DMS ..

*shrug*, I've also been lost for a while now. It's hard to decide.

 

Nate you are da man!!! Im already kickin' myself for not getting a STi. If I drive one I'd probably cry. Thanks for the offer.

Which coilovers did Chris get (808SUBARU)? How's he liking them?

 

HPD <--- Hawaii 50

 

:banana:

 

Chris has the tein flex. He really likes them!

 

I'm not sure who Mike is, but I disagree with him. Is my car perfectly tuned with its current setup (Koni inserts + GC coilovers (315f/280r))? No, I'm sure it's not. However, it cost me ~$1200 (including Noltec top mounts up front), and it's without a doubt better than it was with the $2000 DMS Golds I had before (note: when DMS Golds first came out they cost $2000). The Koni inserts have a pretty significant range of adjustment, so I can tune the ride and handling as I see fit. I generally just leave at my auto-x settings, but if I want to change I can, as I did at yesterday's Super Lap (resulting in better handling through the sweeper and better times).

I have Konis on my Mustang, too, and their damping agrees with me pretty well, which is why I chose to go with them when I found out they made the inserts for Subies. I'll admit I have very limited experience riding in cars with the various "JDM" coil-overs (Teins, Cuscos, whatever), but I think the spring rates are just too damn high for a daily driver. Others (who actually own them) will I'm sure disagree with me. With the Koni/GC combo I was able to choose spring rates I wanted so that the ride is very streetable yet the body roll and handling are where I want them to be.

As for the install of the inserts, I have some pretty detailed write-ups in the NASIOC Legacy Forum - you can search there and find them. Since doing my own I've also assisted my brother in doing Koni inserts on his 2000 Eclipse. With the experience of doing my own under my belt we were able to do it much faster - not to mention we figured out how to use the press at the Auto Hobby Shop to press the inserts in rather than hammering them in (as I had done with my own). Much simpler, and about a million times faster.

Oh, and it's kind of interesting that caterpill thinks they're too soft on compression - I actually think it's the other way around. On both the Mustang and the Subaru I think the rebound damping is a little too soft. On the Mustang I have Double Adjustables, so I can fix that without monkeying with compression, but on the Subaru I have to dial the damping up a little farther than I might do otherwise to get the rebound damping where I want it. If I was really motivated, I could send them to Coleman Racing or TrueChoice or one of the other multitude of Koni rebuilders and get them redamped to my liking (and probably still come up costing less than "real" coil-overs) but I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Pat Olsen
'97 Legacy 2.5GT sedan

 

Pat,

Most anything that comes out of your mouth convinces me that I ought to do just that (whatever the topic is.)

OT, you're a Lieutenant, right? Why haven't you made the forced-induction plunge?