I am putting in some new rear shocks for the weekends track session, but are not sure where they should be set. I dont really want to keep adjusting them for raod and track, so want a good compromise if possible. I dont have fronts yet, but they are on their way... hopefully be here this week!!

 

I'm pretty sure you want to set them pretty much to match your torsion bars / coil springs (if you have them). Do you have double adjustable konis or regular single adjustable ones? If single adjustable, the adjustment is primarily for rebound (please correct me if I'm wrong here guys!) .. and going too stiff with the rebound gains you pretty much nothing - the *** end will just rise back to normal ride height a bit slower after a bump, and can actually hurt handling / traction on sections where you hit several bumps (the shocks won't recover in time and will bottom after few bumps).

Anybody agree with this thinking?

 

Hmmm they are just single adjustable ones, everything else is stock in the suspension in the rear except that it has been lowered...

 

Ok, so it's essentially the same setup as I have at the moment. Mine are set to full stiff by the previous owner and it sucks.. I'm just too lazy to adjust them to a softer setting. If/when I take them out, I'm going to try something between 1/2 and 3/4 stiff.

 

Yeah I was thinking around 1/2 to 3/4 myself... if for no other reason than it sounds well, reasonable.

 

i went by what i had read several times on here - full stiff up front and full in the back then turned back 180 degrees.

these konis by no means are stiff.

 

NZ951, drop Jason at Paragon a note. He has been dealing with Koni for a very long time. In addition, he owns a 951 and he's a "hot shoe" so he'll steer you correctly.

 

I have the koni yellows all the way around. I have the rears at full stiffness and the fronts at 1/4 turn backed off from full stiffness. It is very very nice on the street but it is also stiff enough to run a good track day.

-Costanza

 

Full stiff for the track. For street, it all depends on your local environment and personal tolerance for a stiff suspension. Backing off the front a bit takes some of the harshess off for the street.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I do my threshold driving on the track, not the street. If you're threshold driving on the street, all bets are off (you never know where that next pothole is!).

 

oh, by the way, forgot to mention that the number one reason i went with the settings i did was in response to a long long conversation i had with chuck at paragon about suspension, namely my weltmeisters and my konis

 

I have played with these shocks in the past and full stiff on the rear is dangerous. The shock won't rebound quick enough. On turns with elevations and bumps you will surely loose the rear end at some point. The rear at full stiff also locks up the rear brakes on bumpy roads while breaking hard. I set them up at full stiff up front and 1.5 turns from stiff in the rear. I think the coil springs help rebound the shock better than the torsion bar setup. Im guessing that's why the rears can't be set to full stiff.

 

I think it's important for everyone to indicate whether your experiences with settings are street or track.

I can't see going less than full stiff on the track, as most tracks are quite smooth compared to the streets we usually see. I've never had a problem with traction at full stiff on the track.

On the street, it can be an issue, but only if you're really pushing it hard on a bad surface. The lack of comfort is more of an issue for me than lack of traction.

 

I have 968 M030 rear Koni's on my 951 (valved slightly stiffer than 951S M030 rears) and have them set to ~3/4. My experience is all on the street and they are too stiff. I have 200# helper springs on them as well which brings the rear effective spring rate to ~240# I believe. I have regular Koni yellow fronts with Weltmeister 250# springs. I leave them set to full still pretty much all of the time, which I will explain later.

Let me dispell a common misconception about "stiffness" though. Most people seem to think these spring rates are stiff, especially saying the 250# springs are for track use only. Those spring rates are WEAK for a 951. IMO, that is soft for a ~2900-3000lb car, and even for street use, unless you just want a cadillac type ride. I have to run my shocks close to full stiff most of the time to cut down on suspension travel in the front. The front rides pretty low with those 250# springs, and with the light spring rate and dampers set to soft, theres enough suspension travel that just hitting average bumps at speed on roadways was causing me scrape the front end and almost bottom out. Same with the rear. I'd get too much weight transfer with the rears set soft.

Running the dampers stiffer to compensate for a lack of spring rate is the wrong way to go about things from what I understand. From all the research I've done, and going by friend's setups, I think 300-350# rates F/R would be ideal for a mix of street/track use. Personally, with my current spring rates and dampers set to full soft, the car feels very unstable to me and pathetically soft for even spirited street driving.

Wow, I just typed alot mostly about stuff no one asked about! Sorry, I've been researching for a long time and trying to design the best suspension setup for my 951 so I was kind of thinking out loud. In response, I would say run no more than 50%, 2/4, etc on the street (for the rear at least). For track use, if you have low spring rates, just put everything on full stiff.

 

Koni single adjustables are adjusting for rebound. Rebound is how much damping the shock will do as the wheel returns to it's original position after being compressed.

Too little rebound and the car feels like it's pogo-ing after hitting a bump. Too much and the car starts to jack down over successive bumps until you're riding the bump stops.

Neither of those situations are within the range of a koni adjustable but illustrate what's happening as you adjust. Stiffening koni's doesn't effectively increase your spring rate much if at all.

To answer NZ951's question however, think through it logically. Do you have adj koni's in front? If so, those are far easier to adjust on the fly than the rears. With suspension, you're always tuning for balance in front and rear. Since there are variances in anything, setting the rear's to full stiff is a bad move since the fronts may not have enough range to match or if they do, only just barely. If you're lucky that results in the balance you wanted but if not, you're outta luck and need to go through all the shenanigans of adjusting the rears.

So adjust the rears at 50% and adj the front's to give you the balance you want.

Now if you don't have adj's in the front, all the more reason to go 50% in the rear. There's slim to no chance the fronts are stiffer than the rears at full. If the fronts are worn out old struts, go with full soft in back. Otherwise, 50% is again your best chance at balance.

 

"I have the koni yellows all the way around. I have the rears at full stiffness and the fronts at 1/4 turn backed off from full stiffness. It is very very nice on the street but it is also stiff enough to run a good track day.

-Costanza"


COSTANZA !!!!!!!


Andy, do what Fast said. Those guys have forgotten more about Koni's than the entire board knows.