KONI Sports for Classic Z's

[AK260]

To add to the body of knowledge here, just ran my Z for the first time in 4 months after putting it back together again with these Konis.

 

Having gone from the Tokico blues of the PO to these, I am truly stunned at how well the car is damped and how well it corners now. I’m currently on 2 full turns of the adjusters and find the damping to be wonderful without shaking out my fillings (I am on lowered eurospec springs). I think I will tick back to 1.75 turns though to get a little more comfort for longer journeys than my usual local blasts of the twisties.

 

The first set arrived damaged but with a couple of photos and emails, MSA priority mailed me a new set without delay. Love those guys even more now.

 

As an occasional track dayer and furious fast roader on bumpy twisty British B roads , I can’t recommend these shocks highly enough. They have truly transformed my Z! I also get way better traction at T junctions now with no wheel spin unless I really goad it.

 

[madkaw]

Ordered mine !

[AK260]

Ordered mine !

 

You won’t be disappointed! Just a heads up on the locknut that comes with them, while installing mine, I decided to undo one side to have a second look and on the way up, it started to get stiffer and stiffer until it welded itself on!!! I had to grind off a part of it on the flat side of the damper shaft with a dremel and chisel it off!!!

 

Being a stainless steel nyloc nut, it produces a lot of heat if turned quickly as I did (by hand) and produces some galvanic reaction of sorts. Moral of the story? Go slow or ditch the lock nuts for something better.

 

 

The other thing i found was that the adjuster couldn’t get deep enough through the holes in my rear strut towers, so I had to “improve” on the Koni design with a hacksaw ;). I halved the height of the “gripping bit” and it fits perfectly now.

 

[madkaw]

On 8/31/2020 at 6:21 PM, AK260 said:

 

You won’t be disappointed! Just a heads up on the locknut that comes with them, while installing mine, I decided to undo one side to have a second look and on the way up, it started to get stiffer and stiffer until it welded itself on!!! I had to grind off a part of it on the flat side of the damper shaft with a dremel and chisel it off!!!

 

Being a stainless steel nyloc nut, it produces a lot of heat if turned quickly as I did (by hand) and produces some galvanic reaction of sorts. Moral of the story? Go slow or ditch the lock nuts for something better.

 

 

The other thing i found was that the adjuster couldn’t get deep enough through the holes in my rear strut towers, so I had to “improve” on the Koni design with a hacksaw ;). I halved the height of the “gripping bit” and it fits perfectly now.

 

You say it wouldn’t get deep enough ? To fit under the strut tower cap ? 

[Captain Obvious]

No, he's saying it "bottomed out" on the metal at the top of the strut tower and wouldn't reach down deep enough into the hole to get onto the adjustment spinny.

He had to "lengthen" the tool to reach deeper into the hole by removing some of the finger grip knob portion from the underside. I don't think he was ever intending to leave it under the plastic cap, it was completely unusable as originally designed. Couldn't adjust the strut at all.

Of course, I'm trying to translate for someone else....... @AK260    

[Captain Obvious]

On ‎8‎/‎31‎/‎2020 at 6:21 PM, AK260 said:

Just a heads up on the locknut that comes with them, while installing mine, I decided to undo one side to have a second look and on the way up, it started to get stiffer and stiffer until it welded itself on!!! I had to grind off a part of it on the flat side of the damper shaft with a dremel and chisel it off!!!

Being a stainless steel nyloc nut, it produces a lot of heat if turned quickly as I did (by hand) and produces some galvanic reaction of sorts. Moral of the story? Go slow or ditch the lock nuts for something better.

Stainless Ny-locs are a dangerous thing, especially if you aren't aware of the issues. Stainless is prone to galling and that's exactly what happened to you.\

If they ran a stainless nyloc onto a stainless shaft, they were asking... No, wait...  BEGGING for trouble.

[AK260]

God I love [mention]Captain Obvious[/mention]!!!! He totally understands me! If he was a woman, I .....

 

Aaaand in the blue corner, on my other shoulder in a super deep British accent: “Ahem! Steady on old chap”!!!

 

Exactly what he said, better than I did. [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]I’m going to a write to Koni to give them feedback and let’s see if they act on it.

 

There is a little too much play in the adjuster knob for my liking so at some point I will make my own on a lathe with a much tighter fit and include degree marks. Am I obsessing too much? Or is it too much to ask that a quality product should have this resolved from the outset?

 

The “galling” cost me 5 hours for a 5 min job!!!!!! So it’s really worth heeding the warning. Had to go really carefully with the dremel to avoid creating too much heat; regularly cooling it gently and avoiding potential damage to any seals. Also once the shaft and nut are in the strut hat / cap thing, there is diddly squat room to get anything in there.

 

This is what I call the strut cap / hat thing - which I had buy another of and take back to bare metal / de-rust / treat and paint with chassis paint!

 

 

I tried to recover the threads with a thread file, but to no avail as zooming in showed me how the galling had eaten away some of the thread. A fat 5mm washer was employed to use the undamaged threads above it. Not ideal, but it worked well.

 

 

 

On the topic of the adjustments, I was out test “thrashing” the car at the weekend and the handling is now just sublime!!!! On 1.75 turns with what I believe are 2.18kg/mm euro spec springs (same ones as used before the Koni upgrade) and stock 195/70/14 Bridgestone Turanza T005 tyres, the limit of adhesion is way beyond where it was, often outgunning the hot hatches on the twisties. The ride quality is on par with my old S2000 - the bumps that would shake the car previously are just beautifully absorbed and dispatched without drama.

 

And lastly, on the adjustment topic, not all my shocks have a full two turns available. Being a nerd, i would say two of them are between 20-30 degrees short of 720 degrees. So for adjustments to be equal, rightly or wrongly, I made an assumption that at full turns the valve is at it’s max closed position, therefore I work back 180 degrees from there.

 

As an experiment, they are currently set to 90 degrees back from max and still, the ride quality is excellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[madkaw]

1 hour ago, AK260 said:

God I love [mention]Captain Obvious[/mention]!!!! He totally understands me! If he was a woman, I .....

 

Aaaand in the blue corner, on my other shoulder in a super deep British accent: “Ahem! Steady on old chap”!!!

 

Exactly what he said, better than I did. I’m going to a write to Koni to give them feedback and let’s see if they act on it.

 

There is a little too much play in the adjuster knob for my liking so at some point I will make my own on a lathe with a much tighter fit and include degree marks. Am I obsessing too much? Or is it too much to ask that a quality product should have this resolved from the outset?

 

The “galling” cost me 5 hours for a 5 min job!!!!!! So it’s really worth heeding the warning. Had to go really carefully with the dremel to avoid creating too much heat; regularly cooling it gently and avoiding potential damage to any seals. Also once the shaft and nut are in the strut hat / cap thing, there is diddly squat room to get anything in there.

 

This is what I call the strut cap / hat thing - which I had buy another of and take back to bare metal / de-rust / treat and paint with chassis paint!

 

 

I tried to recover the threads with a thread file, but to no avail as zooming in showed me how the galling had eaten away some of the thread. A fat 5mm washer was employed to use the undamaged threads above it. Not ideal, but it worked well.

 

 

 

On the topic of the adjustments, I was out test “thrashing” the car at the weekend and the handling is now just sublime!!!! On 1.75 turns with what I believe are 2.18kg/mm euro spec springs (same ones as used before the Koni upgrade) and stock 195/70/14 Bridgestone Turanza T005 tyres, the limit of adhesion is way beyond where it was, often outgunning the hot hatches on the twisties. The ride quality is on par with my old S2000 - the bumps that would shake the car previously are just beautifully absorbed and dispatched without drama.

 

And lastly, on the adjustment topic, not all my shocks have a full two turns available. Being a nerd, i would say two of them are between 20-30 degrees short of 720 degrees. So for adjustments to be equal, rightly or wrongly, I made an assumption that at full turns the valve is at it’s max closed position, therefore I work back 180 degrees from there.

 

As an experiment, they are currently set to 90 degrees back from max and still, the ride quality is excellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would have been besides myself -pissed if I had to do that with a brand new set up (lock nut) . I will take your advise seriously . I wonder if my old KYB nylon lock nuts will work? I hope you do give them some feedback . That shouldn’t have been overlooked . Makes me wonder if they actually have a test vehicle to mock this stuff up on . I’d be happy with a T handle that fit the slot . Since there is two full turns of adjustment , having marks on a dial is kind of worthless. Kind of like a carb mixture screw - can’t remember how many turns out , so you dial it in while counting and dial it back out . 

[dutchzcarguy]

3 hours ago, AK260 said:

God I love [mention]Captain Obvious[/mention]!!!! He totally understands me! If he was a woman, I .....

 

Aaaand in the blue corner, on my other shoulder in a super deep British accent: “Ahem! Steady on old chap”!!!

LMAO !!!   ???

[AK260]

I would have been besides myself -pissed if I had to do that with a brand new set up (lock nut) . I will take your advise seriously . I wonder if my old KYB nylon lock nuts will work? I hope you do give them some feedback . That shouldn’t have been overlooked . Makes me wonder if they actually have a test vehicle to mock this stuff up on . I’d be happy with a T handle that fit the slot . Since there is two full turns of adjustment , having marks on a dial is kind of worthless. Kind of like a carb mixture screw - can’t remember how many turns out , so you dial it in while counting and dial it back out . 

 

You’re not kidding! My language was definitely not family friendly and I had to walk away from it for a day or two. The thread is metric fine, so beware you don’t end up forcing metric coarse threads onto it.

 

This is what I used in the end which is consequently the same size as the ones on the compression rods, moustache bar, diff insulator’s long bolts etc. They were also on my previous shock absorbers.

 

https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/14-1274

 

Letter to Koni will certainly be done complete with photos.

 

They developed them in conjunction with MSA / Zstore so I would imagine they did use a test vehicle or two but I guess you can’t test every scenario of how the consumer goes about fitting them. I was using a non ratcheted socket handle and turning it quicker (and without regular stops) than you would if you were ratcheting it, so maybe that’s why they hadn’t seen this issue previously.

 

 

As for the dial, I was only going to put on a giant + sign for 90degree adjustment steps - 8 settings is plenty enough. But I do want a less floppy fit as I will be constantly playing with them when going tracking again one day. I agree on the carb comment - THE ONLY way I have succeeded in accurately setting up carbs is taking the domes off and using digital callipers.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on. I’m certain yours will go smoothly.

 

Oh BTW, I made my own gland nut removal tool for the price of a spare bracket, some drilling and a couple of 8.8 bolts - in the pic below the second one is hidden behind the shock rod. The big bolt was purely to give me a point for a socket to attach to but in the end a few taps with a 2.5lb hammer worked way better.

 

 

LMAO !!!   [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

Glad to be of service. ;)

 

[Captain Obvious]

5 hours ago, AK260 said:

He totally understands me! If he was a woman, I .....

LOL. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that......  

[Captain Obvious]

5 hours ago, AK260 said:

 

Yup. That's typical galling. Here's some links that talk about such things. Some of these even specifically call out stainless nyloc nuts:
https://www.boltdepot.com/fastener-information/Materials-and-Grades/Thread-galling.aspx
https://www.anzor.com.au/blog/what-is-stainless-galling
https://www.westfieldfasteners.co.uk/Ref_Thread_Galling.html

The bottom line is usually... Use lots of lube and go slow. And even then, don't do stainless Nyloc on stainless threads unless you're an expert. Now I don't know if Koni's damper shaft is stainless, but it might be. Did they supply the stainless Nyloc nuts with the dampers? All those parts were in the same box?  Seems they would know about the risks. Especially by now.

So is the yellow tip the thing that you spin to change the damping? Seems like you could just take a small piece of metal tubing and judiciously "crush" one end to ovalize it and allow it to grip that yellow tab. If that's the case, it would be an easy way to make a longer tool to reach the adjuster.