DeathMetal

Recently, I stumbled upon a "best shock replacement" thread and since I've lurked this forum a ton, I noticed the dude who seems to be a huge suspension buff, recommended Koni Yellows with some sleeve-overs. I hope he joins in this thread and responds to the following questions:

A. What kind of sleeve-overs would you recommend for a stiff-drifting set-up?
B. Would you even recommend this on a drift set-up (note: I am an extreme noobie drifter so anything is better than stock, obviously)
C. What spring rates would you recommend the sleeve-overs to have (I was thinking around 10/8 as it seems a good stiffness)?
D. What are my adjustability options for these?
E. How long will they last if I drift on them a lot?
F. How much are they to rebuild/revalve?
G. Lastly, who has used a successful drift-shock and sleeve-over set-up?
H. I hate "-"

Things to consider:
I will mostly be running this on a 10" wide rim (no i dont know the damn offset and 15" tall btw) and will probably do small stretch for less contact patch (looking for wide-stance low-grip as I will be underpowered for a long while).

This is for an s13 hatch, it's old and busted, will do bushings, arms etc down the road.

Sorry if there's vast info on this, I'm just looking to get down to the specifics and not search through the suspension wars threadz

DeathMetal

No one will help?

jrbump

PM veilside180sx.

He's not very active on here but he builds very nice Koni 8611 / Ground Control Setups with custom housings he makes.

LOL, if you do a image search for "koni 8611" on google you get a pic of his setups:




www.nissanroadracing.com is a good place to contact him.

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LAWL

That set-up is $.

Although if you meant "Koni Yellows" as in Koni Sports that's not what you are after, Koni Yellows are single adjustable and bolt on. Those 86-series are double adjustable and you need to fabricate custom housings or buy veilside's.

I for one am not impressed with Veilside180sx. He wants 375$ for a PAIR (fronts/rears separate) for his custom housings which consist of MAYBE 50$ worth of materials and his mediocre welds. I don't think he's realized that asking that much puts that option within the range of KW or AST coilovers which are damn good brands and very WELL-established.

Regardless I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Just pointing out that for the price of the 8611 fronts and koni sport rears you can have true height/rebound/compression adjustable coilovers form a damn good manufactuerer for the price of the piece-it-together-yourself kit. And if you want 86 series all the way around you'll have to add on atleast another 500$ to your budget if you plan on using veilside 180sx's housings.

If you want Koni Sports they can be had relativly cheaply, and can handle pretty good spring rates. Some autocrossers claim up to 600lbs even. The common combo is Koni Sports with Ground control springs/sleeves and some top hats and you've put yourself right up around 1k$. As for how they would hold up to drifting, I have no idea, I don't do such silly things.

SoSideways

^ Yeah but to some people who don't have access to a welder to fab up such houses for the strut/shock inserts, there really isn't many other avenues to take other than Veilside's housings.

You seem to know your stuff, how about you offer the 240 community with some housings with higher quality welds and much lower price, hmm?

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jrbump

^ Agreed, there we go.

Richard doesn't make much money on those, the 8611's themselves are a lot of money.

His costs aren't spread out over 50 or 60 Taiwanese pre teens welding in a shack somewhere -it's all him.

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LAWL

Well Richard's indeed a good guy for doing what he does and I'm not saying he doesn't have them priced appropriately for the work he does because I don't know how much work it takes or how much he values his time.

I just know of two friends, (One an engineering grad, one currently in school for it) that know a thing or two about welding (FSAE participants and the grad is a welding business owner) who don't like the examples they've seen of his welds and know they could do it better.

I don't claim to be an engineering student because I'm not, I'm a sales and marketing major so I'm just calling it like I see it from that angle.
KW and AST are much more established and you don't have to search out all the components yourself. (KW you do have to find your own tophats though.) Therefore they are my recommendation in the price bracket Richard has placed himself in.

Regardless, this thread is about Koni Sports and that's not even what Richard offers.

SoSideways

Richard can get the Konis, yes, but his main front is the housings.

Being able to get the Konis allows him to put together the "coilovers" before he ships it out, which is a plus because a lot of people don't know how to put the whole thing together if they just get Richard's housings and source everything else from elsewhere.

And because Richard has access to Konis, he has had a bit of experience with them, and know what they can and cannot do.

For example, the Koni yellows for the 240s, at least in the rear, he said would handle up to about 450 lbs springs without problems, but anything more than that, the valving on the yellows would become a bit too weak for the spring rate.

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ManoNegra

To OP:
The set up your considering is well regarded.
The main issue in my estimation is that it's not that simple to implement.
You'll need to cut your struts, do some welding, track down camber plates, etc, etc.
And at the end of the day you'll be in the ballpark of an entry level set of coilovers.

I usually don't advice this but I think in your case you'll probably be better served with
a set of Stances and once you have experience under your belt move on to a better set up depending on your needs.

Also many people are letting go of quality parts for cheap because of the time of the year and the economic situation.
I think Duffman was selling a set of Form Functions for $800 for example.

Rest of people: I mulling in my head using Stance bottoms and building my own threaded
housings to hold 8611s for my S14.
One day.

LAWL

I was genuinely interested in his housings, I asked him what he wanted to source the whole thing for me and he told me he doesn't do that anymore. All he was going to do is give me a list of vendors to buy from.

usdm180sx

Just throwing it out there. I have a set of Tein Flex in great condition I am selling for $800 shipped. Spring rates are 7/7 kg/mm but these can be rebuilt/revalved to what ever specs you like:

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McCoy

And that would be my painted garage floor

For Richards housings you need to factor in for the cost (material and labor) of having the flanges made, the tubes threaded for the gland nuts (again labor), and having the housings powdercoated. At the end, Richard is not making "a killing" on this deal.

Also, the welds may not look pretty, but they sure are not "mediocre" as you call it. I have these on my car and have over 8 track days (on 275 RA-1's for several of those) this year and a years worth of street driving and they are holding up fine. And I'm not the only one on his suspension that is tracking there car either.


Housings and Koni inserts he can supply you, the only reason he suggest YOU to purchase the GC kit (or who evers), and camber plates is that it just adds on to your overall cost having to pay for shipping twice on some of these parts.

DeathMetal

Thank you sir, you've answered my question. Since I am new to the modding scene, I told myself I should stick with coilovers but I just wanted to put the questions out there to see if it would be cheaper/simpler (note:to any of you the sees it fit to pick on noobs, don't bash me, I was once you).

I'm sure I could search for this, but since I've gotten your attention already, what are good things to focus on when starting out with suspension mods. I know it's probably been covered a million times but is there anything special I should look out for, anything that I can do to cut-corners and still have quality, and what makes coilovers good? I read about the valving and such but it all makes no sense to me.

Sorry, Florida is a retard state and school didn't teach me anything about mechanics or engineering .

LAWL

All this aside, I recommend an OTS coilover. You are drifting, you won't know the difference between a good setup and a bad one.

DeathMetal

OTS coilover?

ManoNegra

cheaper/simpler
get some used coilovers in good shape.
attend track days and gain experience.
ride in other peoples set ups.

what are good things to focus on when starting out with suspension mods

fix all the things that are wrong with the car to begin with
ie replace worn bushings, tie rods, better pads, fluids...
go drive and get experience
don't replace things just because it's what everyone else does

what makes coilovers good?
that's debatable and you'll get different answers from different people
and a good set up for one thing can be horrible for another
the inexepensive 'drift' coilovers for example - decent for that they're made for
but I wouldn't daily drive on them.


a friend has the Koni yellows/ GC set up on his coupe
with withline swaybars and bushings on some arms
I got a chance to ride in it and loved the feel
great start for autox, track days and daily driving imo.

Def

So what do you know of other brands, and the dampers they use? I've heard from more than one source that KW uses lower end dampers sourced from Koni, so given the same price range I don't see why your "sales and marketing" slant is leaning towards liking them. Other than they have more pretty logos and things like that...

Glad to see you have lots of real world experience and knowledge behind that recommendation.

It's not that much more expensive to consider Richard's housings and 8610's, which will give superior valving, more travel up front, and probably weigh less due to the much smaller damper size.


I don't think veilside180sx's(Richard's) housings are absolutely the best thing in the world, but for the price bracket they compete in I think it's hard to beat them.

The expensive part of the process is threading the tubes, getting flanges cut, and providing appropriate Koni gland nuts - which are NOT cheap(~$20-25 ea IIRC). So yes, he's making a few bucks from the endeavor, but it's not just "MAYBE $50 in materials" as your extensive experience would lead you to believe. The cost of getting that stuff made is far above the materials cost, which anybody who had ever tried to have something manufactured would know. That's like saying a fighter jet is only a few ten thousand bucks worth of aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, and high nickel alloys. Well, the process to form that crap into something usable costs something, so that's why they're $50+ mil a piece.

DeathMetal

Unfortunately, all I have to go off of, is you guys. There is no such thing as a tuner scene around here. Everyone drives riced-out shitbucket hondas with sick-ass body kits and bright flake paint jobs yo.

Even the two kids I know who know anything about cars, both drive FWD's. One is a turbo civic and the other a chevy cobalt.

Ugh.

Anyone heard of Englewood, Florida? Didn't think so.

LAWL

No. HAHA, "not that much more expensive" than what? last I checked doing 86 series all around using 750$ worth of housings alone was way more expensive than Koni sports. Rear Koni Sports are bolt-on, and the fronts re-use the stock shocks as thier housing so that eliminates 750$ right there. Then the Sports are cheaper by about 250$ or so so all in all an extra grand for the next step of Koni...

I'm not trying to discount how good Koni's are, because they are impressive shocks. I have two friends with them. An E36 owner that has them and another S2000 owner, both track their cars and both love their shocks. I had them on my Civic. But I don't know anyone personally with 86 series.

Now, the fastest one among my group of friends has been running KW V3s on his S2000 for the past two years. He's so good, he's been signed off for his license by a NASA instructor (TTA class champ last year) without ever attending a NASA track day. All because the TTA champ in his corvette couldn't shake him and his puny S2000. My friend highly recommends the KWs because that's what he had. He claims he would have never switched but he had to go with a custom AST setup because the class he's going to run in (TTC) doesn't allow external reservoirs (which is pretty much the only way S2k rear shocks come, even factory)

I didn't mean to ruffle anyone's feathers, I'm not insinuating that Richard is making a killing, feeding off of people or anything negative. I'm just not impressed that if you pay 750$ for his housings, and piece together a set-up you are in the same range as these other proven brands of coilovers.

Deathmetal: OTS means Off-The-Shelf. Something like the Teins the guy posted earlier.

Def

I've experienced more "nicer" dampers than that, and the 86 series Konis feel right up there with anything else I've felt except Motons/JRZs/fresh Advance Designs(which don't stay fresh for long).

I should have clarified, I meant going with an 8610 up front to eliminate the Koni Sport setup's major issue of little travel up there. The 8610 insert is comparable in price to the front Koni sport insert, so you just have to factor in the price of the housings. I guess on a college ramen budget it's "a lot of money," but it's about the same price as something like 1 set of SPL arms and some small bushings. Not all that much in the grand scheme of things for a better damper and more front travel if you're buying everything new... and like you said, if it's "that easy" you could always make it yourself right?


I've completely worn out two sets of Koni sports on E36 M3s I've owned and track, so I'm well aware of what those feel like, in addition to driving dozens of modified cars on all different sorts of suspension.

AST stuff is alright, but for the same price as a full Koni 8611 setup, the AST 4200 is probably at best a "comparable" shock, and it's pretty easy to source some stuff used on the Koni setup and significantly reduce the price.

Never had experience with KW stuff, but like I said, I've heard from more than a few sources that they source relatively low end dampers from Konis for most of their products. The V3 stuff is meant for street usage anyway, and you'd need to go to their Clubsport stuff, which is even more $$$ for something meant for higher spring rates and the like.

DeathMetal

Thread jacking much?

Herrow, need help on suspension ideerasss.

On another not, Def, how do you like TX? I'm thinking of moving there? Are there emissions laws? I'll probably be doing Ls1 swap ne wayz but just wondering. Ty XD

Oh and how's the scene? Plenty o' tracks?

Def

TX has some pluses and minuses compared to other places I've lived. Each big city has a different feel, so hard to say what it's like without knowing where you are going. People are nice on the whole I'd say, at least when you first meet 'em.

Cities have emissions laws, but they are fairly lax(OBD2 hookup for OBD2 cars, think a sniffer for OBD1 cars), and "easy to skirt" if you know some people.

Lots of tracks, and track events are pretty cheap compared to anywhere else.

Def

My take:

A. What kind of sleeve-overs would you recommend for a stiff-drifting set-up?

Ground Control setup, or just buy used stuff and piece it together, that's what I did. I'm going to have to end up buying at least one set of springs to get the rates I want(a big over 9 kg/mm up front for the metric crowd)

B. Would you even recommend this on a drift set-up (note: I am an extreme noobie drifter so anything is better than stock, obviously)

Sure, a better damper = a more controllable car in ALL situations(even drifting) and overall a faster car. You don't see the guys that can really drift running on shit dampers do you?

C. What spring rates would you recommend the sleeve-overs to have (I was thinking around 10/8 as it seems a good stiffness)?

That's pretty stiff. I think Koni Yellows could handle that, but it'd be at the very limits of their valving with the rebound all the way up, or a little over IMO. I don't think you'd consider it horrible, but there'd be room for improvement there I'm betting. I've never ridden on S13/S14 Koni yellows, so can't say for sure, but based on other cars that's on the limit of rates it could run well at best.

D. What are my adjustability options for these?

Rebound adjustable only - which is actually what you really want if you only adjust one thing.

E. How long will they last if I drift on them a lot?

I've seen Konis with about 40-60k miles on them start to show signs of wear or start leaking when running "high rates" on them(like 550-650 lb/in springs on an E36 BMW - or about 10-12 kg/mm)

F. How much are they to rebuild/revalve?

You have a bunch of options when rebuilding them, but they have a lifetime warranty when sold to the original purchaser, but from what I understand they sometimes frown on someone running ginormous springs on a stock replacement shock then complaining when it wears out in 3 years, but they're generally good in honoring it regardless of the circumstances. As for revalve costs, I think it's about $80-125/corner depending on where you go and what you're asking for.

G. Lastly, who has used a successful drift-shock and sleeve-over set-up?

I don't see how it's different than track driving. Mine are working fine like expected.


The main issue with Koni yellows up front is the lack of travel when you really lower the car - veilside180sx's housings with 8610's(single rebound adjustable, but with superior valving - originally designed for SCCA Improved Touring racing) will give you plenty of travel to run the car low and you'll easily be good with the spring rates you're talking about up front. The 8610 will cost about the same as a Koni front yellow, but the housings are extra as has been discussed.

You could try to do a Bilstein setup, I think the 3000GT fronts work and are a bit shorter than stock, but I'm not an expert on those. They're not damping adjustable. More info at Nissan Road Racing Forums - Powered by vBulletin

DeathMetal

Haha, thank you for your reply, very informative.

Based on what I gather from this thread, I shall stick with coilovers as my fist suspension purchase. I need to learn A LOT obviously, and if I am to do so, I'm going to start easy and progressively get more advanced with my car.

I'm going to try and gain enough knowledge so next year when I go into the military, I'll have a good basis of knowledge for their education training. Then, I will take full advantage of the military school grants and go into automotive electronics and possibly dynomometers and ECU tuning.

McRussellPants

Isn't not having a Coaxial Spring Seat on your Koni GC setup just gonna fuck up the shock piston in a day?


2k or whatever it is for 2811/2810 GC setup seems dicks retarded, Koni is far from the end all in dampers anyway.

240sxScores

What other "off the shelf" Coilovers in the comparable range of the Koni 86xx/GC setup come with "Coaxial spring seats" that allow the spring to unwind and flex without putting any stress on the piston?

The only pieces ive seen that do all that are a couple hundred dollars each. And probably are really only effective for pro people really pushing their cars to were they need that last little bit.

Def

wut?

Are you talking about hydraulic spring perches? Why would a Koni shock/strut need that? You do realize that the cornering forces a strut sees are FAR greater than the small side loading it sees with the spring compressing...

What other double adjustable dampers are out there for ~$2k?


As far as "how good" Koni dampers are - they're used more in motorsports than anything made in Japan.