http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showt...hp?t=123666252

There you have it, while the cheap coilovers might look pretty and all that, they've obviously skimped on the internals and quality control if they're letting shocks out with such large variations between shocks in a pair.

 

Good thread, but its not going to keep people from telling me my Koni/GC setup is ****.

 

Stupid people are something you just have to learn to deal with.

 

if i'm reading this right, apparently ksport owners effectively have a completely different shock on each corner of the car? that's kind of terrible.

 

Koni/GC ftmfw. At least when they were on my brothers Honda. I always wondered about cheap setups, now I know. Thanks!

 

Word

 

Konis are pretty good, not the best, but better than a lot of the cheap stuff.

Indeed, totally different on every corner and on one end you CANNOT adjust the shocks to get even close to one another.

This is why I did a heck of a lot of research before spending my money, looking at dozens of shock dynos, reading many owners reports of the performance and durability and so on. It's time well spent I'd say.

 

that was a good find!

 

Yeah, well, college student budget prevents me from getting some 2800s or something else similarly awesome.

 

I'm not so sure why you are so defensive at a topic that isn't singling you out. It's been a fairly well known fact that Koni's test extremely well and are one of the better shocks for the money. They are not in the same category as what this thread is hinting at (i.e. the cheap "integrated" coilovers). This topic just reinforces that going with a Koni + GC setup will be better than those cheaper integrated coilover kits.

 

I didn't mean for it to come off like that, its just been a rough week. I know its a good setup for the money and I'm very pleased with mine.

 

The funny thing is that it probably doesn't matter to most people that buy that crap anyway. Most buy those things b/c its cool or b/c regular springs don't go low enough (usually for good reason) or b/c some other guy has it and its mad tite yo...

 

it doesn't even go that deep... most people have no idea what makes one coilover or shock different or better than another

even those who do know are pretty much in the dark as to what shock or what valving is deal for what application. when it comes to buying, there's really not much to go on besides #1 forum recommendation, #2 brand name, #3 the very rare and often suspect shock dyno.

with a customer base like that, it's not too surprising companies can get away with stuff like this and still turn a profit.

 

Whether or not the valving is even close to ideal is completely beside the point here, because each and every one of the shocks is so different. To me it is absolutely inexcusable to ship shocks to a paying customer that are that badly mismatched side to side. I mean if you can't even get one side at max to be as strong as the other side at min, how the hell are you going to get the car to handle even close to right? It'll handle differently side to side, which is very bad.

 

oh geez..
so has anyone seen Tein's shock dynos?

 

i realize that. and yes it seems at least this set of k-sports is quite the extreme example.

but josh's comment is right on point with what i was saying.

have you ever seen four graphs, each representing one shock in a set of tein flex? i haven't either... i bought tein flex because it was recommended, i sat in a car with them and liked the feel, and the generic force v. velocity graph looked okay.

did they throw one shock on the dyno? all four and averaged it out? none and made up the numbers? i have no idea. i heard koni yellows are only within 10% of each other. if koni can only hit 10% with their yellows, i wonder how close the flex pairs really are to each other.

 

I've seen many TEIN shock dyno plots, here on this forum and many independant test by other forums and magazines. But now I think of it, never left to right comparisons, just TEIN verses JIC, verses etc etc.

~Mike...............

 

I have 8611-1257 koni up front and sport yellows out back. Tell you what, I get a whole lot better response from the front with these shocks than with the bilsteins I had before. That being said, I didn't revalve the bilsteins for my spring rates so they had WAY too much bump and not even close to enough rebound for my springs. At the same time, they worked with the racing beat springs that I had before the gc coilovers.
Another thing to see is that the gas charge on koni's is low pressure which helps with bump on stiffer springs (at least in the back of my car)

 

hhm, ksport is the same as D2 right?
bought mine last year(got a reeeeally good deal) had to get something fast, since my cuscos where damaged
seriously, the d2`s are so bad, that even my cuscos with allmost no oil left on the left side where much more comfortable.
the d2`s arent able to absorb even the slightest bump in the road. so i end up with my rear end bouncing around everywhere(and me hittin the roof with my head)

good i hate D2

does enyone know if the old cuscos are rebuildable? (the blue eloxed ones without dampening ajustement)

 

i believe cusco sells replacement parts AND does rebuild support for its coilovers. i do not know if they do that for people in norway / EU. try finding a local authorized cusco retailer. they should have better answers for you.