I need ta know, cause thats what I'm gonna need to go with next, I'm gonna buy the Sub-Frame Connectors from Spohn, but, as far as Struts and Shocks go, I'm pretty well lost... some people say KYB's are nice, some people say that Monroes are nice, some people wouldn't drive without Konis...... I need to get a better than avaredge set of Shocks/Struts, and I don't wanna invest TONS AND TONS of money into them, its not like I'm gonna be flying around a Rally track at 200+ MPH, I'm just gonna be running it in the city, and maybe here or there at the strip, but mostly street activity. I've already opted to go with the Eibach Springs, seeing as how everyone seems to like them and due to the fact that they are a reputable company. But as far as it goes with Shocks/Struts.... I'm lost. But I CAN tell you right now, my car sits to low in the rear, I feel every PEBBLE and ROCK, and when I we start talking about Pot Holes, OMG I always cringe and imagine the frame and rims distorting all the way into completely different shapes, so, I need new ones, but I don't put crap on my car, or I try not to. So, I don't want the best, but I sure as hell don't want merely AVERAGE shocks and struts. So, if any of you can help me out, please, vote in the poll, or post here with your OTHER Choices. ThanX

Adam

 

Get Bilsteins!

 

I'm new to this aswell... Noone replied to my post... BUT
there's some threads on the boards about the Koni reds read them.

 

u beat me to posting a poll.. but u should of added Bilsteins

 

Monroes are pretty good if your going to leave the chassis alone. Shocks are for fine tuning and springs are for major tuning. Lets say you put a nice exspensive set of double adjustable shocks on your ride. You probably wont notice much differance on the street from full soft to full hard. If you want to make your car handle better by tuning your better of trying different spring rates. This becomes expensive with the front springs. You could switch to coil overs as the springs are cheaper and would allow you to experiment a little. To make things even more complicated it is easier to set up a race car than a street car because the road conditions are limited on a track. This means if you change your routine (where you hang out or like to drive) the car set up will likely need to change. Adjustable shocks can be fun if you can afford them.

 

I like my Bilsteins. High performance and high quailty German engineering.

 

coilovers are meant for a quarter application are they not?

CAn they be tuned for autocross use?

 

KYBs are good and cheap....

 

Guys,

This is a good poll to have because the "what shocks should I buy" question seems to pop up every week. However, I think the whole premise of the question "what shocks should I buy" or "which shocks are the best" are flawed questions.

I not not trying to preach here or anything, I am just trying to get some of you to think this through a little more, especially when faced with spending upwards of $600 (yes, that's about what the Koni Yellows will cost you). In the past, I have consistently responded to a question such as this in (what is viewed as) a strange way. My typical response is:

The real question is what sort of behavior are you looking for? The only way to answer this question is to spend the hour or so understanding what dampening/rebound rates actually do to the car, then checking the dampening rebound rates of the struts/shocks that you are looking for. The best place to learn this (that I have found) is www.koni-na.com There have specs for the shocks and downloadable PDFs that described adjustment procedures for Drag, Circle Track and Road Racing (and these are not compatible goals). When you see a dampening/rebound rate that creates the behavior that you are looking for, check the dampening/rebound rate of the other brands and see if they are close. If they are, it comes down to price and expected lifespan of the given shock, not whether one is better or not.

The reason that this is the correct answer is the number of different uses that people have for their third gens on this site:
1) Drag racing
2) Autocross (me)
3) oad racing (me on open tracks)
4) Daily Driver (me)
5) Show Car
Or combinations of the above. Car handling more than anything else (including gearing, in my opinion) is the biggest tradeoff you can have. More horsepower is always good, but handling is a series of tradeoffs.

I have Koni Yellows and they are great on the track, but quite frankly suck (and are fairly useless) on the street - the ride is too uncivilized and you rarely really get to exercise them on the street. In addition, they are so stiff that they have hurt my acceleration from a stop, since there is little weight transfer. Are they bad shocks? Nope. Are they a little frustrating when you're trying to blow the doors off a Civic at a stop light? Yep. However, for me, they are the "best" because autocrossing is my most important criteria - it's why I bought the car in the first place. Others may have other things that are important.

The other reason that this is not really a valid question is that for someone to be able to intelligently answer it, they should have significant seat time in their third gens with at least 3 different brands of shocks before they can say. There aren't many of those guys around. I had the stock shocks and changed over to the Koni Yellows. I honestly couldn't tell you if the Bilsteins are better because I have no seat time with them. If I did, I could probably give a real answer.

Does anyone understand this?

 

Yep, and what you have to say makes perfect sense. (in an otherwise imperfect world.....)

If I get this straight, the ideal solution (price not being a factor..) would be adjustables......... Change your driving environment? Adjust your shocks to meet the current need.

Money is a whole 'nother issue...........

 

Great post, but the question following the "adjstables are the only way to go " is... How adjustable are adjustable shocks boys?
Can i take my car out autox'ing on friday and then go home change the rates and go dragging on saturday?

 

I have the Koni reds, and it seems to me like they're too stiff for the street, but not stiff enough for autocross. That's a great middle ground since I have mine on the middle setting. To answer the last question, the reds are three position adjustable. I like them, but I'm probably going to move them to my Z28 and try Tokikas or Bilsteins instead.

 

Jza are they way to sloppy for auto xing? How about on the hardest setting?
If you get the blistens any time soon let me know, i might just get some kybs to hold me over.

 

Gta-Paladin -

"How adjustable is adjustable'. Excellent question. Again, since my experience is limited to the Koni Yellows, I will talk about them. I have the shocks in the full soft settings. Always. In autocross, on road racing courses, and on the street. There is very little lean and any situation. So, yeah, they are adjustable, but I will never adjust them! They are already more firm than I need them to be. It makes the feature useless to me.

That's exactly my point above.

I didn't follow the advice above and only realized it after-the-fact. I think that the full soft setting is great for my needs, but if I had bought a shock that I would have REALLY liked, the current damepning/rebound rating would be the FIRMEST on my shocks and I could soften them up for street driving. ...if only I had though of it.

So, what I am saying is that I have adjustables, but I will likely never use the adjustable feature because the only adjustment I have is firmer - and I would want softer for street driving.

If I had been smart, I would have shopped for a different adjustment range or bought a non-adjustable shock with the dampening/rebound rate that I currently have. In the first case, I could truly have the "best" shock. In the second case, I would have the same shock that I have today, but I would have paid less since they wouldn't have the adjustable feature (and added cost).

See what I did wrong here?

 

I'm catching on. As for the rebound rates, apparently they're not a "GIVEN" for the yellows, this is what i gather from you... You could have chosen a different adjustable shock where the firmest Is the rebound you have now and the softest, just jets softer?

From what i was reading on the KONI website, the rears need to be exceptionally stif in either dragging or auto x'ing. So i could have a stiff non-adjustable for the back. And an adjustable for up front... I know the 1/4 ideal front shocks would be a 90/10 but i'm willing to sacrifice 1/4 times for a stiffer shock. Though not SO stiff that i dont have any weight transfer whatsoever.

 

Anyone have any experiance with HAL's?

 

GTA-Paladin-

You are correct. The dampening rate of the Koni yellows are not adjustable. Only the rebound rate is adjustable. Also, you do see my mistake - I just bought 'em on someone else's word, so for my purposes, they work fine but the only adjustment that I have available is undesirable - I want softer and I can only adjust firmer...

As far as the rears being stiff for drag racing is concerned, I think this is not correct. In drag racing, you would be looking for a bunch of weight transfer to the rear wheels at launch to get the power down. Like I said before, with my Konis, I get so little weight transfer, that I can't accelerated from a stop like I could with the stock shocks. But that's OK, because my goals are not drag racing, they are road racing...

Also, it's good to see that you understand what I am saying. I think you will be glad you spent a little time researching and you won't spend your time wondering if you couldn't have done better...

 

That's why I'm wondering about HAl's. I am equally interested in launching and cornering, so I'd like to find that can give me the capablities of both. For drag, I would think you want the rear loose, as well as the front, for weight transfer purposes. I have heard great things about HAL's at the strip and on the street. I would compromise a little in the corners for better launching capabilties at the strip. Does anyone have any experiance using HAl's for non drag racing purposes? I'd like to see what people think of them in terms of performance in the twisties.

 

I went ahead and got some Gas-Adjust shocks and some GR2 Struts from KYB, I figured after reading all this, that my needs are fairly simple... "Ride smoother than with broken shocks/struts, and have them be a tad bit above stock." I don't have enough power in my car right now to do ANYTHING, I just got smoked by a freakin mini truck 2night (Though it looked really, REALLY customized, and when he switched on his Hyrolics and lifted the truck up to a higher position, I just had to see what would happen, and although I got off in front of him, my car just Growled real loud and kept accelerating at the same speed, PISSED ME OFF! Then he came flyin by... made me feel like I had disgraced all ThirdGens ).

So, bottom line was that I needed shocks and struts, cause I got 4 broken ones in my car right now, and it SUCKS MAJOR ***. So anything is a direct improvement. I figured KYB's would be fine, seeing as they seem to be a decent and reputible company and they also were decently priced. So, maybe when my car can perform better, I'll get somthing different. But even when my car DOES perform better, its still gonna be a Daily Driver that Street Races on Occasion and gets brought to the Track to do Bracket Racing on Occasion. I can't see any need to spend $600+ on Shocks and Struts when I can't see a use for the improvements that there supposed to give. So, I agree, me buying Adjustable Shocks and Struts would have been rediculous..... and I seem to have accepted your advice KeithO, cause I would have just paid more for a feature I'm never gonna use.

Heh, at first, I thought this post was gonna croak, but, I see that for some-reason it has gained strength! Thanks for all the replies, I've learned quite a bit so far. Can't wait to get my shocks/struts!! They should be here any day now!

-Adam

 

I wouldn't say they're "sloppy", just it has a noticable bounce. I don't use the hardest setting, so I don't know. Every time I think about changing them, I go out to the car and get sidetracked.

 

For drag racing purposes you want the rear stiff and the front loose

if the rear end is TOO loose the car will squat and wont be moving foward...meaning wasted ET

Hals are a great all around shock for the street/strip. They are probaly the #1 used shock in the 4th gen peoples cars....they work very well

only problem is that HAL doesn't make a front adjustable strut for thirdgens, only mustangs

they DO however make adjustable shocks for 4th gens

hope this answered some questions

 

I just recently got some Koni yellow's too (for under $600 ).
I'll be installing them tonight. I plan on using one click less than the hardest for the rear and 2 clicks less for the front to start. I'm going from stock RS struts/shocks. I already have 36/24 sway bars, SFC's and Poly bushings. I'm waiting to see how harsh the ride really is.

 

I have the kyb agx shocks. The front have 4 adjustments and the rear 8. I started with them on full soft, and the ride was almost the same as the beat blistiens that were on the car, just a hair stiffer. After trying all settings, I ended up on 3 out of four for the fronts, and the stiffest on the rear (8, even though I think the rears they could be stiffer). they are rough for a daily driver, but I'm one of those peole that care not for the comfort, but the once every blue moon that I get to show what my car will do. Yea my old lady complains about the ride, as well as non-enthusiast, but it does not bother me. the shocks were probably the best thing done to the car so far, besides lowering springs for looks.
The tightest settings on these shocks and struts are about equal to the konies loosest.

 

THanks for the info on the KYB's. When I replace my Koni Yellows, I may have to consider them. ...either that, or I'll finally learn to drive with the Konis this season...

 

I put the Koni's on the back yesterday. What a difference!! I still haven't got enough courage to see what the traction limit is. I took a tight intersection corner at 25mph with no tire squeal at all. On the highway (where I do most driving) they are fine. Once in awhile where it's bumpy I can really tell the difference. Very loud and unstable. Hopefully I'll get the fronts on today and I can make a full assesment. I have the first autocross event of the season coming up this weekend. I can't wait!

 

So what do you guys think is the most comfortable??