rberry951

I had koni adjustables (blue/black) on the front and koni reds on the rear, seemed like nice combination, car felt good at all speeds.

Thom

As already mentioned, they are definitely not.

Check Turboman's post in this thread.

They came either with Sachs or Koni (M474), the strut type varying with year and spring outer diameter.

ehall

I love my Escort Cups. Florida roads are pretty good and I don't find them too stiff at all. YMMV

bald_joint

i just loose a lots of money on all kind of struts... Don't waste your time trying to save a few bucks...
buy Koni Yellow Sport front insert and rear struts. All the other brand are for sunday ride... unless you wanna take you 951 as your grocery car !!!

toddk911

Thanks Bald.

That is what I was figuring, but thought I would make sure as I don't mind spending money, just don't want to throw it away if I don't have to

toddk911

What about a mixed set up?

Bilst. up front/koni rear...or vice versa???

ehall

Todd it's all about getting damping and rebound right. The components themselves aren't as important as long as they are of good quality. Bilstein, Koni and Leda are are good for your needs. It's a matter of sourcing the components that you need depending on how much more suspension improvement that you'd like. If you just wish to replace to factory stock, then it doesn't matter much as long as you can get what fits. If you want to improve, you can go with a Koni yellow set up, a bilstein firhawk or escort cup set up or Leda's. If you go with yellows, you may as well get it all at Paragon and let Jason, Skip or Chuck get everything set up for you. You can also go to e-shocks.com and source things a bit cheaper for a bilstein set up. Chris White is the guy for Leda's. You can't go wrong with any of the above. They are all tried and true around here. Perhaps we can help you out better if we know exactly what you want out of the ride and handling.
E

User 41221

Long time Bilstein guy here. I've been running modded early NA housings with Bilstein inserts for a very long time on a number of cars, and short of spending the mega bucks for Ledas or similar, you won't find better. A good while ago, Don Istook had a shock dyno at his shop, and we pulled eight new Bilsteins and eight new Konis off the shelf and tested them. The Bilsteins were all within 1% of each other, the Konis were all over the place. Plus, the Bilsteins have a much larger diameter rod than the Konis.

Anyone who says that Bilsteins aren't as good as Konis hasn't driven on Bilsteins. I've had perfectly good Konis on two cars, and pulled them off to replace them with Bilsteins. Theres a big differnece, in my opinion.

Regards,

Mark-87-951

What would it cost to get bilsteins on my car, compared to converting to the koni inserts?

User 41221

Track down a set of the early strut housings and order a set of front inserts. You'll need to enlarge the top hole of the strut housing to mate to the the spindle and I like to shim the bottom side of the hole (and I've seen some folks just notch the bottom hole, but that raises the strut), put the spring on it and bolt it in. My last set of Bilstein inserts cost me $220 for the pair, iirc.

Regards,

black944 turbo

Do you have any pictures on how to do this Scott? I am in the process of trying to figure out which strut to buy and you have made me think maybe bilsteins are the way to go.
Thanks

bald_joint

do not use mix set up... my front Koni absorb the shock quite fast, but has a slow rebound, and my rear bilsteins is fast in both direction (contraction / expension), so it makes the rear end of the car unstable. While the front is still compress, the back end is already back at it's normal setting...

toddk911

Great comparitive info Scott!!!

toddk911

Ok, Bald, thanks.

Actually, that is the set up I was going to go with. Now I won't.

toddk911

Mark: I have been researching a lot lately and depending on the source, you are looking at about:

$160-185 Koni front inserts
105-130 Bilstein inserts

$130-150 Koni rears
85-105 Bilstein rears.