Koni yellow owners? What were your damper settings?

[vinnY]

if your ek has one-piece front lca's then it's a nightmare, managed to press 2 on each out on my own but the third one I just took it to a shop
couldn't get the angle right

[EG30]

With the Koni damper settings, the adj range is non linear; I find the last 1/4 turn makes a huge difference in the rebound damping and that would cause jacking down problems ie the spring cant extend fast enough to give you the travel you need for the next bump. With full firm setting on my eg and on 7.5kg spring it was causing jacking down problem at the rear so if you have say 4-5kg spring I anything more than 1/2 turn from firm is a bit much.

Best to trial an error to your taste, and why not softening the damping one end at a time till it feels floaty and then wind it back up 1/4-1/2 turn.

[Mikecivic78]

With the Koni damper settings, the adj range is non linear; I find the last 1/4 turn makes a huge difference in the rebound damping and that would cause jacking down problems ie the spring cant extend fast enough to give you the travel you need for the next bump. With full firm setting on my eg and on 7.5kg spring it was causing jacking down problem at the rear so if you have say 4-5kg spring I anything more than 1/2 turn from firm is a bit much.

Best to trial an error to your taste, and why not softening the damping one end at a time till it feels floaty and then wind it back up 1/4-1/2 turn.

Cheers for the input. I have tried putting my Konis on 75% firm and (with Pro kit) it's too much. Bouncy as hell and unstable. Definitely the jacking down problem you have mentioned.

I've found that 50% (1 full turn) firm front and rear works the best for me ATM. I wound them back to 25% (1/2 turn) firm for a day, but found it a bit soft (is that what you mean by floaty?). Perhaps I should of gotten springs with more aggressive spring rates. Reason I got pro kit was for a modest drop as my driveway sucks.

I haven't, however, tried different settings front and rear.

@vinny, yes my EM1 has one-piece front LCAs. I guess when I finally get round to doing them, I'll do the doeable ones myself, and get a shop to do the hard ones.

[EK1.6LCIV]

full hard, perfect for anything

[EG30]

Cheers for the input. I have tried putting my Konis on 75% firm and (with Pro kit) it's too much. Bouncy as hell and unstable. Definitely the jacking down problem you have mentioned.

I've found that 50% (1 full turn) firm front and rear works the best for me ATM. I wound them back to 25% (1/2 turn) firm for a day, but found it a bit soft (is that what you mean by floaty?). Perhaps I should of gotten springs with more aggressive spring rates. Reason I got pro kit was for a modest drop as my driveway sucks.

I haven't, however, tried different settings front and rear.

@vinny, yes my EM1 has one-piece front LCAs. I guess when I finally get round to doing them, I'll do the doeable ones myself, and get a shop to do the hard ones.

My set of konis started off fitted on king low springs on my eg to start off with ( around 3.5kg front and 2.8kg rear from memory ), and the suspension left the dampers at full soft which really suited those springs at the time. I would imagine your Eibach Pro Kit wont be much firmer that the Kings being OE fitment designed to work well with a range of dampers incl stockies ( perhaps up to 4kg front or therabouts? ) hence your 75% firm previously felt way unsettling to the car and its occupants.

I later fitted Ground Control sleeves over the konis and tried various spring rates started off with 6kg/4kg which was too soft for track work and in its last config I had 600lb (10.7kg) front springs which was the max the koni yellows could cope without revalving. They worked great in competition events, I since changed to Tein Mono Flex expecting another step up but they were only marginally better in terms of performance and the ride wasnt as good ( still much better than the usual riceovers though ).

I had my Konis+GC lying around for a while and finally got around to fit them to our dc2r last week, and I'm going thru the same as you ie fine tuning the damping F+R. For the street I'm going to leave them 1/2 turns from firm F+R, any firmer the ride starts to get jiddery. At the point the car is far from unstable or unsettled over bumps or jacking down, but the stock SR3 seats are too soft over the fast rebound damping rates and the occupants really feel it. With firmer seats eg: bucket seats one can afford to go more agressive in damping without being bounced on top of the seat cushions; comfort and practicality/legality of the buckets however aren't for everyone.

I'm sure you'll find a setting that is the best compromise for you, and down the track there is always the option of fitting coilover sleeves on your konis.

[Mikecivic78]

I changed the damper settings again today.

I dialed down the front to half a turn from soft (rear is still one whole turn from soft) and the difference is quite good. The fronts had been too firm, it was bouncy and ability to corner was suffering. Now it feels like I have installed a thicker rear sway (I have CTR rear sway btw) and turn in and cornering stability has improved noticebly.

It's interesting to note that stock EK9s and DC2rs run the same spring rates front and rear 250lb for the CTR I believe. My pro kit rears (and many aftermarket springs) are much softer than the fronts. Why is this?

[liberx]

In short - probably to meet ride quality aims.

Type-R rates are quite unique with similar or equal Linear rate fronts and progressive rears. Normally in a FWD car you'd expect fronts to be much firmer rate (OEM) as that's where most the weight is to provide similar riding (comfort/control) properties front to rear.

As the Eibachs are progressive front and rear, this may be part of the reason they have a more standard bias. Also keep in mind that the aims of the engineers may be quite different too - Prokits are aimed at moderate drop, firmer than standard (non type-r) while maintaining good ride to be daily streetable. Majority of ride quality seems to be a function of the rear.

The Type-R engineer's brief was more along the lines of "Make it responsive, controllable, no understeer and to hell with the ride". Again this is unique, as usually the roles are the opposite between OEM and aftermarket.

Having said all that, I can't find any reference as to HOW spring rates are measured for progressive springs, as the rate changes under load (is it max, min, average or at static load for the vehicle???). The manufacturers probably prefer not to let on about these properties anyway for competitive advantage and all that...

[Alvis]

^ I'm not sure how spring rates are measured for progressive springs, but the below might help.

ALSO, does anyone have the rebound and compression data ie kg per force for KONI yellows?



----------------------------
For 96-00 Civics

Front (kgs/cm)~ Rear (kgs/cm)

96-00 EX 2.9~ 1.4
99-00 Si (EM1) 3.6~ 1.8
CTR 4.3~ 4.3
Spoon Progressive Lowering Springs 6.5~ 5.5

H&R OE 5.0~ 3.4
Eibach ProKit 5.2~ 3.4
H&R Sport 5.9~ 5.0
Eibach Sportline 5.5~ 4.9
Gold-line GL 5.7~ 3.4
Gold-line GPS 4.9~ 2.9
Koni RSK Suspension kit 2.75 - 3.66~ 4.8
Neuspeed SofSports 4.6~ 2.7
Neuspeed Sport 5.0~ 3.2
Neuspeed Race 8.7~ 7.1
Skunk Coilovers -old 7.1~ 5.4
Skunk2 Coilovers - new 8.9~ 7.1
Spoon Full Coilovers 5.4~ 4.3
Spoon Progress Coilovers 6.3~ 4.5
Spoon Progressive Lowering Springs 6.5~ 5.5
Ground Control Coilover 6.8~ 5.0
Tein RA/RE/RS 14.0~ 10.0
Tein HT 20.0~ 8.0
Tein HG 6.5~ 2.3 - 3.5
Tein SS 8.0~ 4.0
Tein Flex 9.0~ 5.0
Tein S. Tech 4.2~ 2.5
Tokico Illumina Kit 4.5~ 2.2
APEX'i WS 8.0~ 3.2
SSR Cup 7.0~ 5.0
SSR S1 8.0~ 8.0

http://www.ek9.org/forum/suspension/...rings-ek9.html