knfeparty

Hi guys, some of you may know that I purchased konis for my 996 awhile back. I finally finished installing them. I think these are fairly new to the market (I don't know anyone else who has them) so I thought I would put the info out there.

Price: I got them from Paragon Products and I think they were about $1000 total. Now you might say "why not just buy the RoW m030 suspension which also includes springs and swaybars?" Well that is a good question. For me, I already had the swaybars and I couldn't legally use the springs in SCCA A Stock autocross. The other thing is that buying that kit is getting harder to do; I was told that wait times on it might be as much as 10 weeks.

Fit and Finish: 10/10. The dimensions are, as far as I can tell, identical to the US m030 that came off. No ride height change that I can see, and they bolt up without a snag.

Install difficulty: I was quoted $1200ish dollars to get these installed, so I did it myself. It took about 12 hours of labor to do working patiently, using a chassis lift for the rear and just jack stands for the front and a good pneumatic spring compressor. The biggest hickup is getting the struts in and out with a spring compressor that you can fit in the wheel well. The front is easy enough by just unbolting the stop, stepping on the hub, and swinging the whole thing outboard of the wheel well.
Anyways, I wouldn't attempt this without either a lift or a really good spring compressor you can fit in the wheel well, and you need a 7mm allen key as well as a 7mm wrench. Those are the only real oddball tools you need.

Cosmetics: Yellow is always a plus.

Ride Quality: I left these on full soft, as they come out of the box and as I recommend them for street driving. In my 325, konis made a vast improvement to my ride comfort. In the 911, it is not really that noticeable. I do think it cuts down on road vibration a bit and possibly eases out the speed bumps, but it isn't definite enough to bet on.

To adjust the fronts, you have to remove the plastic covers in the frunk around the battery using a torx bit and then pop off the little plastic circle covers over the struts. The short koni **** fits fine.

To adjust the rears with a bose-optioned car, you have to pop off the rectangular bose-emblemed plates around the sub and then uninstall the whole woofer unit using a torx bit. After that you will be left with the carpeted shelf that non-bose cars have. Over the strut towers, the insulation and carpet will be cut into little squares that you can pull out to access them. For autocross, I intend to just leave the bose sub at home.

I haven't been able to really drive them yet, but I can say that even on full soft there is a definite reduction in body drama when performing quick turns or when hitting bumps. The car feels very critically damped for those engineers out there.

This job also gave me a chance to use my longacre toe plates. These made it super-easy to determine what my net toe-in or toe-out was both on the front and the back, but I haven't figured out a way to ensure that the wheels are truly centered (I believe that is referred to as thrust angle in alignment terms?)

knfeparty

Well an update after a couple thousand miles and a track day. They are a marked improvement of ride quality on full soft and really transform the response of the car when stiffened up, although with an obvious increase in bumpiness. I was actually getting a bit of front wheel skipping across some of the rippled pavement at NCCAR's seemingly endless corners when I had the fronts set almost full stiff.

Another product review is for my SWEPCO 201 transaxle fluid. It is worse than the stock fluid on really cold days (below 40) for the first 5 or so shifts. It actually is quite difficult to shift when you first start the car on a below-freezing morning. Once it warms up though, which is pretty quickly, it becomes much easier to shift than the stock fluid. It also increased the locking of the LSD in my car, which is a bit more tail-happy at very low speeds now, despite the SWEPCO having LSD additive.

IrocMan

Thanks for sharing. I'm thinking of replacing the suspension on the C4S - still riding on OEM shock and springs and they're OK but almost suck. The idea to save $1000-1500 doing the job by myself is exciting as it would pay for the wing I want to replace...

I'm not a big Koni guys, I've been more often disappointed with Koni than Bilstein and Ohlins for instance. Can you develop the bumpiness aspect of the new Konis ?

Thanks again

Pac996

Sounds nice and thanks for the info. Staying in regs for some events is a big thing especially when somebody doesn't win and points at your car when talking to his friend the event runner

knfeparty

I think the konis on full soft make the car about as comfortable as it could be on the stock US m030 suspension. Konis are only rebound adjustable so the skipping over bumps I mentioned is what's commonly referred to as "jacking" where the wheel won't return to the pavement soon enough.

Again, this was only on the almost fully stiff setting, which on a relatively soft spring like the usm030 was really too much damping. It made turn-in much crisper but I wouldn't ever drive like that on the street.

I did the install myself with a bit of help but you can't really safely do it (especially in the rear) without a spring compressor you can fit in the wheel wells.

IrocMan

Thanks again for the info, especially the advice on getting a spring compressor.

Dharn55

Before I did my PSS10's I almost did the Koni FSD's. They had a great sale last year when they were first released, less than $800 for a full set. However, they did not have them for a C4, only C2's. Not sure about the Sports.

knfeparty

I've heard mixed things about the FSDs. They won't work nearly as well as the Sports if you're doing any sort of competition because they can't be manually adjusted. I think I wouldn't want them for a track day either for the same reason. On the street? Yeah they might be cool but I wouldn't want to be the first to try them over bilsteins or some more tried and true ones.

balefire

Thanks for the write up. Its good to hear that they are adjustable w/o removing the shock.
Did you have to cut the carpet to access the rear shocks?
Did you run full stiff all around on the track?
Have you done any autox yet?
Looking forward to the spring to get mine too.
Thanks!

balefire

fyi, tirerack has the koni yellows and the koni FSDs for 20% off.
http://www.tirerack.com/specialoffer...p?promoID=K112
i feel dumb having ordered it from a 2nd tier seller to save a few bucks, and waiting 2 months to arrive when I could have ordered it from tire rack and had it months ago.
oh well. my koni yellows are finally here. hopefully i'll get it installed soon!

balefire

finally got my koni yellows installed. only glowing comments for them.
for autox, response is considerably better than US M030 shocks.
for DD, even at my autox settings (rear full stiff, front 3/4 stiff), ride quality is considerably better, esp in the rear. perhaps the rear engine layout wears the shocks out faster in the rear?
also, the rear shocks are adjustable without having to cut the carpet in my 40th AE.

Yomi

Balefire, glad to hear you got your Koni's and they're working well. Now that I've settled on tires, I'm debating doing Koni Yellows also (given basically anything else kicks me into BSP unless I pretend the X73 is a factory option). I'm looking at about $1400 installed, but haven't seen what Tire Rack charges yet.

It sounds like you really recommend them for autocross, which would be my main use. It's also my DD and me-plus-3-kid-cruise-mobile, so full track setup isn't in the cards. Any other comments on them?

balefire

At my autox settings (front 3/4 stiff, rear full stiff) which I will leave until winter, my wife and kids have not complained about it once. I still find it hard to believe, but in my now 44k mile car, the konis certainly give a better DD ride than my OEM US M030 shocks. In contrast, plenty of others (wife, friends) complained about my RX-8 on full stiff konis being too bumpy. I also appreciate that adjusting them does not require a complete disassemble as it did in the rears of my RX-8.

About my only disappointment is that they didn't lower my ride height at all (same with knfeparty). I was hoping for a few millimeters so I could gain an extra tenth of camber, but that didn't happen.

Right now the price on konis is amazing from TR. And SCCA guaranteed stability for AS until 1/2013 at least. And our AS PAX is nicer this year than last. I'd consider jumping on the konis and getting something else in 2013 if we're not competitive in the class then.

Yomi

The DD ride quality sounds very promising, especially not having to adjust them. TR has good prices on the rears, but can't seem to find the fronts. TC Kline is more expensive but they've got a full set in stock.

I've never done just a shock change, so I'm not sure how much it'll help for autocross. Considering almost every serious (e.g. NT/Pro) stock class car does it, it must be non-negligible. I don't feel like the car is a rolly pig like my stock STi, but it'd be nice to be more stable in fast transitions.

Ride height change sure would be nice (the stock C4S is quite high), but now I'm looking at X73 or coilovers and the associated BSP class. Staying in AS is probably the best way to keep myself from spending too much money on the car.

Yomi

I went ahead and ordered them for my 2004 C4S:

Koni Sport 8241-1274 for the rear
Koni Sport 8741-1543 for the front

$887 delivered from Tire Rack, should arrive by Monday. Quoted $382 by local Porsche shop to install them, and he's got it scheduled for next Wednesday. I might even have my new wheels and tires by then, which will make for a very interesting driving school / autocross on Saturday.

Any other obvious things for SCCA stock class that are worth doing for someone not chasing a championship? Front swaybars, bushings, and endlinks come to mind. I doubt we'd want a stiffer front bar -- the reverse if anything. Driver and tires are the big gains and I'm (slowly) working on those.