FML SMH OMFG WTF......koni strikes again

Kevin Allen · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:42 pm **Posts:** 3479

Hopefully it's the install issue, and you can fix it before the autox. I don't want you to have any excuses when Liz outpaxes you. :wink:

But seriously, it would suck if you got screwed by Koni again. :thumbsdown:

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:18 pm

I'm going to reinstall the Koni's and soak the rubber top mounts in hot water for a while and then grease them up really well and then torque the top nuts down.

Luckily these dampers are even easier to install in the rear than the WRX...no spring over damper so just plug and play.

JamesFeinberg · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:15 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Anyway, Chris at Redshift says he ignores the torque values set by the FSM or Koni and torques them till he knows there is metal to metal contact and then just a bit more.

That is a standard installation practice for any Koni I've dealt with. I wouldn't worry too much about the actual torque value as long as you don't go completely ape on it. Or hit it with an impact gun. Honestly, it's hard to torque them down too much by hand since the shaft generally starts spinning at some point.

You should have see the bushings after a Moton install. They don't have the same amount of threading exposed as the Konis (or stockers for that matter) and you wind up squishing the top hat bushings to the point that they mushroom out a bit. No big deal since they are just there for NVH attenuation.

Jim

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:24 pm

Well if it turns out that I just didn't tighten them enough this will be 2 times that FSM/aftermarket torque values have failed me

(front sway bar endlink nuts had to be torqued almost 40% higher than the FSM says or they loosen after an autocross or two). Anyway, I guess I need to lighten up on my maniacal torque wrench issue

.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:40 pm

Reinstalled, still noise

.

Yesterday I couldn't tell if the noise followed a specific shock. But I kept them switched and it does seem to be the same passenger rear corner, so maybe the bushings on that side are a hair thicker or something.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:08 pm

^ That's good news! You've got me all paranoid about mine though... :wink:

Good luck nailing down the culprit James.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:31 pm

Honestly, I'm not sure about the side to side thing. I might call up James Milko to drive me around in the car while I'm in the trunk so I can use the stethoscope or just touch the shock tops.

But the noise is identical to the noise that the 'bad' WRX rear sounded like. I guess it's hard to tell if a gas charge shock has any compression damping since it's always pushing against you. Not to mention the rattle only occurs with high frequency inputs so I can't even generate piston speeds with my bare hands to test this. With the purely hydraulic shocks that the WRX had, you definitely could tell.

I think I'm going to drive around on them the rest of the week and see how it goes.....maybe the rubber will settle and I'll be able to tighten a side down a bit more. However, I'm pretty damn nervous about shearing the 9mm head off the top given how much force I'm torquing them down with. It's hard to tell if the washers have met the tube with metal to metal resistance given how much the rubber has compressed already.

Come Saturday morning, if I can't figure out, the stockers are going back on and I'll get a koni claim going. Hell I have another set of 08 SI rears I can try to hopefully quell the chance that I'm botching the install.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:26 pm

These are shocks and not struts, right? If so and you want to try them on a dyno, let me know. I'm in BFE, but it's not hard to throw normal shocks on the dyno (usually...assuming they have eyes on both ends -or- the threading is something we have an eye that will spin onto already, anyway) and see what happens.

They were new, right?

--Donnie

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:03 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

These are shocks and not struts, right? If so and you want to try them on a dyno, let me know. I'm in BFE, but it's not hard to throw normal shocks on the dyno (usually...assuming they have eyes on both ends -or- the threading is something we have an eye that will spin onto already, anyway) and see what happens.

They were new, right?

--Donnie

Shocks, yes. Ironically the struts are perfectly fine.

Eye on the bottom and threaded shaft at top m12x1.25.

Yeah, putting them on a dyno would be awesome. Something more than .01 m/s piston speed might tell us something

.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:18 pm

Checking now to see if we have the proper eye. Should know tomorrow. We have a couple different ones, and that's seeming likely...

--Donnie

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:54 am

JamesShort wrote:

Donnie Barnes wrote:

These are shocks and not struts, right? If so and you want to try them on a dyno, let me know. I'm in BFE, but it's not hard to throw normal shocks on the dyno (usually...assuming they have eyes on both ends -or- the threading is something we have an eye that will spin onto already, anyway) and see what happens.

They were new, right?

--Donnie

Shocks, yes. Ironically the struts are perfectly fine.

Eye on the bottom and threaded shaft at top m12x1.25.

Yeah, putting them on a dyno would be awesome. Something more than .01 m/s piston speed might tell us something

.

Can the dyno reach the input force function needed to make them clunk? On the E46, it was only over high frequency inputs where the clunking was loud and annoying. I'm just wondering if a shock dyno can oscillate the shocks at a high enough frequency (as opposed to just a single stroke input) -- clearly, I know little about the actual operation of these dynos, so just thinking out loud.

As to the E46...shocks are still at Koni being either rebuilt or replaced. They've had them for almost 2 months now. Supposedly I'll see them again sometime next month.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 9:33 am

The dyno that Koni-na uses goes to ~13 in/s piston velocities. On my WRX rear dampers that represented about 600N in bump, 1400N in rebound on full soft and 2800N in rebound on fill stiff.

I'm able to get this noise with the dampers set on full soft in rebound.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:52 am

I have another set of rears on the way 2 day air from Chris at redshift. He said that I got the last set for at least a month, but he meant full set including the fronts. He still had one set of rears left.

We'll see how this goes and then I can casually figure out the warranty claim side afterward.

jeremy gast · **Posted:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:30 am

glad to hear that james. Hopefully this wil fix it and be good to go for the autox.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:17 pm

Oe rears back on (34min for both sides

) and no noise. Just a dull <duh duhh> over bumps.

Honesty, pure chaos theory says the chances of me installing the Konis 3 times (original, side to side swap and then yesterday) and some how did something wrong and yet both times I reinstalled the OE ones, I just happened to do exactly what I did wrong on the konis, correctly is probably approaching 0.000% very quickly at this point.

Donnie, since I have the 'bad' koni's off and new ones on the way for Friday, I'd still be up for throwing them on a dyno to see if it can expose anything obvious.

My hunch is that Cash was right. I bet the rebound curve is fine and the compression curve is almost like a F= C (constant or near so....possibly being only the gas pressure) instead of the F ~= f(V)

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FML SMH OMFG WTF......koni strikes again

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