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

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:15 pm

Got the koni's on the car this weekend and the rear is clunking. Quite similar noise to the WRX. Swap the rears side to side and no obvious noise movement but it was still there.

Put OE dampers on, noise is gone.

With both Konis off the car, there is nothing like the issue with the rear WRX damper where there was zero compression damping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HH-EI7U_2Q

This is absolutely unbelievable.

Well glad I transferred Lee Grimes personal cell phone number to my new phone when I got it

.

jeremy gast · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:21 pm

i would just turn the radio up louder!!! damn man but seriously that stinks

JohnByers · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:18 pm

PSS9 time?

too soon? :shock:

I'm still shocked by this, the ones on the bimmer have been great (knocks on wood)

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

May I suggest revalved Bilsteins, good Sir?

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:28 pm

Andrew Jonell wrote:

May I suggest revalved Bilsteins, good Sir?

Would if they made them. The only other option is Tokico HTS and they are not only more expensive, but probably not as good as 'working' Koni's.

I have to echo what Brice said "Koni's are great shocks when they are working". After I got all my things fixed on the WRX, I loved them. I couldn't say that prior to then though

.

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:33 pm

James,

Based on your description and video, the clunking you hear may be rebound jacking. If the compression rate is much faster than the rebound rate (very soft compression, very hard rebound), and you couple that with a very quick successions on turns (which asks the shock to cycle up and down repeatedly and quickly) the shock can’t finish the rebound before it is asked to compress again - resulting in the clunking which gets worse as the cycle period decreases or amplitude increases.

Notice I weaved in some engineering jargon I knew you’d appreciate.

Anyway, yeah - that sucks!

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:35 pm

Doood...had to check my calendar--was sure this was an April Fool's Joke. Sorry to hear about that--and I hope there's a quick fix/turnaround for you.

edit: Cash, that video is from the busted WRX Koni Yellows, not the Civic ones (granted, it's getting hard keeping them straight :oops:

)...although the issue may be similar, or more like what you describe. The WRX ones were found to be malmanufactured and replaced.

double edit: james, maybe your sig should read "11 Civic Si, now blowing Konis" (too soon?)

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:46 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Andrew Jonell wrote:

May I suggest revalved Bilsteins, good Sir?

Would if they made them. The only other option is Tokico HTS and they are not only more expensive, but probably not as good as 'working' Koni's.

Car choice FALE. Or pony up for something custom. Or keep learning the hard way about Koni. Higher education is expensive... *shrug*

--Donnie

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:11 pm

James,
Will you swap back to OEM and still run GS (or X) or will you ditch the R comps and play in TIR for this event?

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:28 pm

Steven Carter wrote:

James,
Will you swap back to OEM and still run GS (or X) or will you ditch the R comps and play in TIR for this event?

Got some ideas. So the two rear Konis feel very similar to each other in both bump and rebound (at multiple settings). I also have my OE dampers and a set of rear 08 SI coupe shocks. And the bump damping 'feels' similar at piston velocities I can generate with my hands.

Anyway, so the 'top mount' for these shocks is a washer on a perch on the damper shaft, then a rubber donut, then the chassis, then a rubber donut and finally another washer. Between the donuts and concentric to the damper shaft, is a hollow tube. Due to the 10mm to 12mm difference, the konis came with their own tubes that are 12mm ID. However, they are slightly shorter (1.45mm shorter) and about 0.8mm larger in OD. So coupled with the fact that my car is brand new, I think the rubber has yet to be permanently compressed/deformed such that I hit my torque value before the tube made metal to metal contact with the upper and lower washer and hence the tube was rattling against the upper and lower washers.

I'm going to reinstall one of them and really lube up the bushes and tube and washers with grease so that I can torque them to the point that I get metal to metal contact between lower washer, tube and upper washer. I also assembled everything off the car in this fashion so that I know that when properly torqued, there should be 7.38mm of threads exposed from the top of the nut to the end of the threads.

And anyway, I'm going to be running the race tires on Sunday regardless and the front koni's are staying on too.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:47 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

Andrew Jonell wrote:

May I suggest revalved Bilsteins, good Sir?

Would if they made them. The only other option is Tokico HTS and they are not only more expensive, but probably not as good as 'working' Koni's.

Car choice FALE. Or pony up for something custom. Or keep learning the hard way about Koni. Higher education is expensive... *shrug*

--Donnie

Donnie, you are a prick.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:07 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Donnie Barnes wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

Would if they made them. The only other option is Tokico HTS and they are not only more expensive, but probably not as good as 'working' Koni's.

Car choice FALE. Or pony up for something custom. Or keep learning the hard way about Koni. Higher education is expensive... *shrug*

Donnie, you are a prick.

Indeed.

Hey, I truly hope it's not the shocks and it's something in the mounting, but if it is the shocks, well, it's not like there haven't been plenty of us who *tried* to warn you up front.

I really didn't mean to seem crass...the FALE part wasn't anything bad to do with the Civic, just the lack of options for shocks causing you to buy Koni *again* and end up in this mess *again*. Sure, there are always plenty of "but I used the hell out of Koni and everything was fine..." posts, but then this kind of thing happens. Again, hopefully you find it ain't the shocks after all and these will serve you well like the folks who "never had a problem." But I spent a LOT of money on Konis over the years to ALWAYS end up disappointed (well north of $10k in Koni dampers ALONE) and often on the biggest of stages with the most at stake (I probably wouldn't have won the ProSolo championship, but I had a decent mathematical chance in what ended up being my second Pro Finale IN A ROW that was ruined by blown Konis). Hence both my "higher education is expensive" comment and why I don't have much sympathy when folks don't heed the warnings and even their own failures.

--Donnie

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:14 am

JamesShort wrote:

I also assembled everything off the car in this fashion so that I know that when properly torqued, there should be 7.38mm of threads exposed from the top of the nut to the end of the threads.

And anyway, I'm going to be running the race tires on Sunday regardless and the front koni's are staying on too.

Torqueing the assembly down off the car until all the hardware meshes is actually a great idea to insure it's not the problem (hopefully it is). I know when we did mine we could have kept torqueing it down, but instead we stopped. I'm not sure if it helps, but I can come by soon and you can drive mine to see if the sound persists. So it sounds like the issue isn't internal, eh? (as it was on the rex)

Worst case scenario you have to wait for a replacement set again, tossing the stockies back wouldn't be a terrible thing, especially since you're going to be 'learning' the new race tires. I'm still trying to figure mine out and the only definitive thing I've learned about their contribution is that sweepers feel a bit faster and full stiff on the rears and soft up front equals a spinfest if I toss the car around like I did on the OE's. Something tells me that I need to learn how to drive it on those setting though to aid in rotation.

-M

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:28 am

Matt McGrain wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

I also assembled everything off the car in this fashion so that I know that when properly torqued, there should be 7.38mm of threads exposed from the top of the nut to the end of the threads.

And anyway, I'm going to be running the race tires on Sunday regardless and the front koni's are staying on too.

Torqueing the assembly down off the car until all the hardware meshes is actually a great idea to insure it's not the problem (hopefully it is). I know when we did mine we could have kept torqueing it down, but instead we stopped. I'm not sure if it helps, but I can come by soon and you can drive mine to see if the sound persists. So it sounds like the issue isn't internal, eh? (as it was on the rex)

Worst case scenario you have to wait for a replacement set again, tossing the stockies back wouldn't be a terrible thing, especially since you're going to be 'learning' the new race tires. I'm still trying to figure mine out and the only definitive thing I've learned about their contribution is that sweepers feel a bit faster and full stiff on the rears and soft up front equals a spinfest if I toss the car around like I did on the OE's. Something tells me that I need to learn how to drive it on those setting though to aid in rotation.

-M

Matt, on your car, with countless autocrosses and DD miles, I think your rubber donuts were 'smaller' as in the rubber has permanently compressed or slightly dried out such that when we started torquing those top nuts, that we made the lower/upper washers butt up against the pin without much effort. I think I remember that distinctly now. 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.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:49 am

fingers crossed for an easy fix!

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