Non-adjustable Bilsteins or Koni retrofit?

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:45 pm

James,

very sorry to hear about your current difficulties...I know you were stoked to get them and finally have a solid Stock class suspension. I find it disconcerting that Koni's QA/QC would let these go into distribution--I mean, how hard is it to have a dude/dudette there on the production line whose sole job is to confirm "2 turns to the left---check. 2 turns to the right--check."

Hope the resolution is swift and satisfactory.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:53 pm

Mark at shox.com just told me on the phone that he expects koni just to send everyone with the issues new ones with a prepaid return shipping box, so at least I won't have to swap the stock struts back on while the inserts are sent back and wait for the new ones.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 1:47 pm

well, shox.com is not Koni-NA (duh), but that would certainly be a satisfactory resolution if Koni goes that route.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:23 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Jason, has your bad insert experience only been with one car? Or multiple?\

one car.

After they (<-KONI NA) told me that the shocks that they market to autocrossers weren't strong enough to be used with R-comps, I have had no reason to buy another set.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:57 pm

Jason Mauldin wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

Jason, has your bad insert experience only been with one car? Or multiple?\

one car.

After they (<-KONI NA) told me that the shocks that they market to autocrossers weren't strong enough to be used with R-comps, I have had no reason to buy another set.

Which is a pretty stupid thing for Koni to say or do considering how many units they make/sell to autocrossers and road racers who use R comps and slicks on production based cars.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:26 pm

Well I have Legacy GT front inserts on their way to me (all people running these have no problems at all...at full soft the LGT inserts is stiffer than full soft on the WRX since the LGT is heavier and a bit more stiffly sprung). Lee is going to send me an shipping sticker with the new ones so they can get the WRX ones in hand asap for problem determination since multiple other people with the first 10 sets of these are having leaks and adjustment issues.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 3:15 pm

So I got the the replacement inserts and they are working well.

Now I have 1 bad rear shock (couldn't hear it previously because the fronts were so noisy). It's rattling under high frequency inputs. I took the rattling corner apart twice (including taking the top mount off and putting the spring and mount back on....with the spring off the rebound adjust seemed to be working but overall the bump damping seemed soft...possibly the issue). Retorquing every thing to factory spec (except the top mount to shock shaft nut since the OEM thread was M10 and the koni has M12 so I torqued it 50% tighter). Still rattling. Took everything out of the car..still rattling. Stiffened the rebound damping, still rattling. Removed the rear sway bar all together, still rattling.

On a whim, I swapped the assembly from side to side this morning....noise followed!

Well I want to put the rear OEM shocks back on but I had to drill my top hats from 10mm to 12mm (15/32" or 11.9mm).

I found some 3/8" lock washer which has an ID of 10mm, do you think this would be ok? I guess the alternative is to lathe a thin tube of aluminum that is OD 12mm and ID 10mm and cut a very thin disc of this tube.

Quite discouraging.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 3:30 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Well I want to put the rear OEM shocks back on but I had to drill my top hats from 10mm to 12mm (15/32" or 11.9mm).

I found some 3/8" lock washer which has an ID of 10mm, do you think this would be ok? I guess the alternative is to lathe a thin tube of aluminum that is OD 12mm and ID 10mm and cut a very thin disc of this tube.

Quite discouraging.

For a while it will work. We had to do this on Bryan's Crossfire when we sent them off for revalving. The constant pounding will bend the up the washer and it will fail. Considering how often WRX people are upgrading their suspensions, I would try to find some OEM used ones. - AB

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 4:42 pm

Geez...this is a lot of work to have SA Konis...

so the tophat mount hole causes a rattle/vibration when enlarged to fit the larger threaded portion of the Koni shock shaft. Ugh...sorry dude. That's some bad luck. Would it be easy to find a set of replacement tophats, maybe from someone who's gone aftermarket with theirs?

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 4:55 pm

Steven Carter wrote:

Geez...this is a lot of work to have SA Konis...

so the tophat mount hole causes a rattle/vibration when enlarged to fit the larger threaded portion of the Koni shock shaft. Ugh...sorry dude. That's some bad luck. Would it be easy to find a set of replacement tophats, maybe from someone who's gone aftermarket with theirs?

No the damper is rattling. That top hat nut is very tight right now. The hole I drilled is 11.89 mm (a few places read 11.92) and the threaded shaft on the rear koni shock is 11.73mm.....so it's tight...that is not rattling.

My issue is that I want to put the OEMs back on which have a 10mm threaded shaft but my top mounts now have 11.9mm holes in them. I scored some OEMs for $30 shipped from the BigSkyWRX (person who basically did the geometric R&D for Koni for the WRX konis).

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:08 pm

glad you got a set of OEMs to replace the ones you drilled out. So you're thinking the rattle is intrinsic to the new shock? doooood...

Don't send the fronts back to Koni just yet..the rears may want to tag along!

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:21 pm

Steven Carter wrote:

glad you got a set of OEMs to replace the ones you drilled out. So you're thinking the rattle is intrinsic to the new shock? doooood...

Don't send the fronts back to Koni just yet..the rears may want to tag along!

The rattle might be one of the two shocks.....once I install the OEMs, I'll have both rears to test empirically side by side, but the one making noise felt like it had less bump damping than the OEMs (granted the gas charge makes that misleading, but still).

If you think about the odds that I could install, break down, and install the same corner using the same practice and torques only to swap that same assembly to the other side and again torquing both sides identically (with suspension loaded) only to replicate a 'user error' on the side that was previously quiet which is now making the *same* noise. I'd put that at 10^6:1 odds....I think I have a bad shock. I think some Dutch were getting a bit excited about their 3 week vacation and slacked off a bit building my inserts/shocks.

These dampers better be better than sex by the time I have a fully operating vehicle or Koni will likely never get repeat business from me. I mean Lee really went out of his way to fix my insert issue at first so I have nothing bad to say about him or the customer service, but, come on, this is pretty ridiculous, don't you guys agree?

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:29 pm

...or, distracted by World Cup. Not that you follow soccer or anything :wink:

3 out of four bad shocks, in my opinion, means the fourth is waiting to fail at an inconvenient time. Hope not, though, but I'd be angling for a new set of rear shocks too.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:32 pm

JamesShort wrote:

The rattle might be one of the two shocks.....once I install the OEMs, I'll have both rears to test empirically side by side, but the one making noise felt like it had less bump damping than the OEMs (granted the gas charge makes that misleading, but still).

If you think about the odds that I could install, break down, and install the same corner using the same practice and torques only to swap that same assembly to the other side and again torquing both sides identically (with suspension loaded) only to replicate a 'user error' on the side that was previously quiet which is now making the *same* noise. I'd put that at 10^6:1 odds....I think I have a bad shock. I think some Dutch were getting a bit excited about their 3 week vacation and slacked off a bit building my inserts/shocks.

These dampers better be better than sex by the time I have a fully operating vehicle or Koni will likely never get repeat business from me. I mean Lee really went out of his way to fix my insert issue at first so I have nothing bad to say about him or the customer service, but, come on, this is pretty ridiculous, don't you guys agree?

With the ITT connection, I bet they are built China than actually in Holland. As to your complaint, I can't blame you for being frustrated. - AB

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:35 pm

Aaron Buckley wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

The rattle might be one of the two shocks.....once I install the OEMs, I'll have both rears to test empirically side by side, but the one making noise felt like it had less bump damping than the OEMs (granted the gas charge makes that misleading, but still).

If you think about the odds that I could install, break down, and install the same corner using the same practice and torques only to swap that same assembly to the other side and again torquing both sides identically (with suspension loaded) only to replicate a 'user error' on the side that was previously quiet which is now making the *same* noise. I'd put that at 10^6:1 odds....I think I have a bad shock. I think some Dutch were getting a bit excited about their 3 week vacation and slacked off a bit building my inserts/shocks.

These dampers better be better than sex by the time I have a fully operating vehicle or Koni will likely never get repeat business from me. I mean Lee really went out of his way to fix my insert issue at first so I have nothing bad to say about him or the customer service, but, come on, this is pretty ridiculous, don't you guys agree?

With the ITT connection, I bet they are built China than actually in Holland. As to your complaint, I can't blame you for being frustrated. - AB

Mine were designed/assembled in Holland. Lee had to email a tech person over there who was on vacation to figure out this 1.25 turn issue with the front inserts. Turns out they used a different adjuster nut internally for the first batch, but that the dynos show that they have the proper range of damping from full soft to full stiff. Future production runs will use the LGT adjuster nut so they'll have their damping range over 2 turns as opposed to 1.25. So that wasn't an 'issue' per se (my insert with 0.5 turns and the other which was leaking were however). But yeah, I at least know the first two production runs were made in the Netherlands.

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