Hi Guys,

I'd like to upgrade the suspension on my R for street usage and an occasional autocross (just for grins). I was planning upon using the Yellow Koni's.

I've been looking at various springs and coilover set ups and the Skunk2's caught my attention. 500/400 pound spring combination in a standard 2.5 inch ID, 7 inches long, so if I wanted to change springs it would be easy.

However, in my research I've found some negative, but vague comments. I'd appreciate hearing about anyone's experiences. Especially good ones<LOL>!

Thank you,
John

 

i personally don't have any negative expirience with them (i helped one of my friends install a set on his car) however, i have seen pictures in which the coilover failed. in one of these cases, the spring itself actually cracked. it seems like the general consensus around here is that, if you want to get a coilover sleeve instead of a full coilover setup, spend a little bit more and go for the ground controls.

 

should be a good affordable combo wid the koni's. frankb16a.com is running them, but i'm not sure of the shocks. hit him up on his opinion of them.

 

I have a friend who has had a set on his LS integra for two years now with no problems. I ordered a set last week myself, i hope their are no problems either.

 

IMO if i had an R i would'nt put any type of C/O sleeve kit on it. Save some cash and go for the real deal. Skunks are fine for a mule like my civic, but not for a throughbred like the Type R. Just my $.02..........

 

spring itself cracked? that's hard to imagine... or maybe you mean the sleeves cracked? if installed in correctly on the front (O ring on the front bottom is a MUST, lots of people don't follow instructions) they will break. the sleeves themselves are forged 7075 hard anodized, that's some pretty tough stuff. i've put atleast 25k miles, many many track days and i have no problems at all. i just use kyb agx. for less than $600 it's a hard combo to beat. i've repeated this many times. Rhys Millen liked my setup just fine, no fancy alignment (stock), stock swaybars.

 

nah it wasn't the sleeve--the spring itself broke into two pieces. there was some pictures of it floating around on one of the honda message boards about 6 months ago.


[Modified by delinquent, 6:42 AM 2/16/2002]

 

Hi JV,

You wrote: "IMO if i had an R i would'nt put any type of C/O sleeve kit on it. Save some cash and go for the real deal. Skunks are fine for a mule like my civic, but not for a throughbred like the Type R. Just my $.02.........."

Your $.02 is appreciated. But here is where I am scratching my head......
I really don't see a difference between the two different directions?????? Going with the S2's/Koni's I get an excellent rebuildable shock (never heard anything bad there), a commonly sized spring that can be replaced by a high quality spring by Eibach, etc., The 500/400 spring rates sound close (I was thinking about putting the 400F/500R as a start).

I was thinking about epoxying the threaded sleeve to the shock body for a solid connection.?.?.?

This just seems too good<LOL>, thats why I'm looking for feedback. What am I missing beyond the Mugen, Teal, Zein stickers? Seriously!

Thanks,
John

 

wow really... i'd love to see that. anybody got the pix?

 

Here's what I don't like about any type of coilover sleeve kit:
1) You're adding weight (an extra threaded shell) to the shock body.
2) You can only raise the car higher, but can't lower it any lower than the fixed collar.
3) Good shocks should have a pretty good size valve diameter (42mm+). I don't think a sleeve kit would fit over that thick of the shock body. If the sleeve kit does fit, it means that your shock's valve is not big enough to be "good".
[edit]which is the major difference between twin tube and single tube design, in which would be explained in my following post.[/edit]
4) When the springs are sitting higher than the fixed perch, you're not utilizing the full stroke of the shock. [edit]that's why most single tube true coilovers are short stroke.[/edit]

Now some of those true coilover kits aren't really that expensive, I don't see the reason of using those sleeve kit for the ITR.
I paid under $9XX for a set of these (shock + springs):



[Modified by Wai, 9:56 AM 3/4/2002]

 

i disagree with #2 i bet you can lower it, you can really dump it with regular
coil overs specially when you flipp the collar upside down but that's pretty low

 

I have the Koni/Skunk combo, the ride is quite stiff, and i havn't adjusted the firmness right up yet. The coils them selves are really short im scared when i go over big bumps that the coil will jump out of place. It's really easy to adjust ride height because of the short coils. To be safe i would go for the coilover shocks.

 

I guess the 99spec Apex'i N1 coilovers don't qualify as a "good shock". It has a 40mm piston diameter.

Konis are even less, like 24-26mm




[Modified by Supersonic DC2, 2:31 AM 2/17/2002]

 

Hi Wai,

Thanks for the input! What make are your coilovers and where did you get them? Are different coils available? How good are the shocks and are they as good as Koni's?

I'm not looking for a ground scraping profile for my R. Mostly just a slight drop and the ability to tune the suspension through the use of different springs. The Skunk2's use a 'common' 2.5 id, 7" spring. Several companies such as Eibach, Hypercoil, etc, make different springs in that size, including 8" if I want more spring travel and can lower the perch enough.

As to weight increases, the Skunk2's are apparently aluminum. If your coilover bodies are steel, than they probably made that part of the body thicker so it could be threaded(???????). As important as weight is, I haven't seen a lot of figures on the weights of these systems.

It seems like REAL DATA is very hard to come by on ANY of these systems and the lack of manufacturer support, in the U.S., doesn't help.

Thanks again,
John

 

just some counter points:

1. the forged 7075 sleeve weights very very little. the threaded collar weights a little bit more, but since true coilovers also has this part, it doens't count as extra weight.

2. the adjustment range is 5" (length of the treaded sleeve basically) or so, more than enough for 90% of people.

3. KYB AGX = the old GAB's which are considered good shocks by many many people. Just because they're alot cheaper now doesn't mean it isn't as good as it was.

4. at 500+ lbs spring rate, the springs won't rarely be compressed more than 2" or so anyway.

$950 might not sound like a lot more than $600 but if you work it by percentage, it is whopping 58% more in price. I don't think it will offer 58% increase in performance.

Just some thoughts.

 

Compare to the Tein HA's 35mm and Koni's 26mm, it's considered pretty big already. But the trend of shock design is just going towards the "short stroke, large valve diameter" approach. Some of them even have 50mm valve(reasonably priced too)!

The ones shown in the picture are from KYB. 4-way damper and height adjustable. Short stroke with 45mm valve. Although I don't have a cut sheet for the Koni's, by looking at the valve diameter (26mm) I would think that the Koni Yellow uses the "double tube" design (dunno the correct terminology for that.) The fluid inside is not highly pressurized and is in direct contact with the air inside. This allows great ride comfort and cheap construction cost; but is not ideal for high temperature usage (track use) because of possible cavitation in the fluid.

Large diameter valve shocks use the "single tube" design, where the fluid is highly pressurized and is separated from the air inside with a movable valve. This provides more fluid volume to resist heat and the big diameter valve allows stiffer dampening performance. They can also handle much much higher spring rates. But construction cost is higher. (Remote reservoir is another design that is similar to the "single tube" but with even greater fluid volume.)

KYB AGX is good, but it's more like an OEM replacement. Otherwise KYB would not have come out with the Super Function series for track/competition use.

If you want to justify it that way, that's fine.
But if a person has an ITR but is not willing to shell out at least $950 for suspension upgrade, I would suggest him to keep the stock superior suspension. The Koni Yellows are good, but can't handle too much spring without revalving. If you're gonna go thru the hassle of using coilover sleeve kit and revalving, why not just get a true coilover kit with large valve to begin with?

To the original poster (Racebrewer), sorry I didn't give any good comments that you're expecting.
If your car is for street usage and occasional autocross, just stay with the stockers. Get a set of sticky tires and it would give you lots of grin already.


[Modified by Wai, 9:54 AM 2/18/2002]

 

I had Skunks on my GS-R Sedan. Installed them on Illumina's. The springs rattled and overall were very hard to keep in a satisfactory working manner. Plus to have that feeling of quality. I have my R now and would way to either get Spoon Springs or Tein/Mugen.

- Brian

 

Ya know, Wai, you sure talk a lot of crap for someone that's NEVER EVEN TRIED MOST OF THE STUFF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Valve diameter doesn't mean crap. That's just one way of looking at the shock. If size was all that mattered, we wouldn't be driving tiny little 4 bangers.

Warren

 

Huh? Do I have to try every single product in the market in order to figure out the facts? I'm offering some design basics of shock that most people are not aware of. If you don't even know the difference between twin tube and single tube design, then get back to your corner and keep quiet. Tell me to shut the hell up if I ever intended to spread wrong information.

If you think the Koni's 26mm valve is so great (don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's bad), please explain to me why it requires re-valving for ~12K springs while other single tube design can handle 20+K springs off the shelf?

Valve diameter is a direct reflection of what type of tube construction the shock is. It's not the bigger the better, but it tells a lot about the shock design. There are advantages (and disadvantages as well) for both single tube and twin tube design. I'm pointing them out so people can put them into the equation.

You, along with couple others here, have a tendency of bashing everyone who has different opinions than you. Some of you guys' comments really cracked me up sometimes. I don't really care, at least I give you basic respect. If you're happy with your Koni's with sleeve kit, fine. I'm not forcing anyone to dislike it.

If you want to continue the dog fight, IM me. I feel bad wasting bandwidth here trying to solve your personal problem.

 

What ticks me off is when you just spread misinformation around. Hell, you don't even have to revalve the Konis to run high spring rates, just crank them to max stiffness. It's best if you do, but you don't have to. I know someone running off the shelf Konis on 800F/1000R. He's still rocket boy on the track.

20k springs off the shelf. I want to see you run 7k springs on those same shocks. Probably end up on the bumpstops after half a mile.

Rember that whole spring rate crap thing? I don't know where you got your info from, but I spoke to a Japanese race team member today. They ran higher spring rates in the rear of all their civic/integras.

Warren

 

Well Racebrewer try to gather more rides and info before u spend the money. I will keep the stock suspension for daily and going auto-x events occasionally. Or I will throw in SPOON or Kg/mm springs they got real good performance. Upgrade it when u feel like going to the higher level.

By that time, I will get a set of ZEAL B6 or Buddy Club Racing spec damper "MYSELF".(just in case )

Koni/Bilsten...I will choose Bilstein BTW...perform way better IMHO(again )

 

aren't you contradicting yourself here? "it's best you do, but you don't have to?"

what the hell is that mean? You are saying he is BSing, and now you say "It's best you do, but don't have to?"

what caused your engine to BLOW? hmmm, I wonder

aren't we all want the BEST for what it's worth?


[Modified by blitzingperformance, 10:43 AM 2/19/2002]

 

I can't make heads or tails of what you are trying to say, or even ask, so I won't even try to reply to that.
I blew my engine up coming out of the last turn at Watkins Glen. I've posted this before, but since you didn't bother to search, I'll give a quickie on what happened. Full bore 3rd gear, about to hit rev limiter. Shift, come off the clutch and smash the gas at the same time. ZZZZZZZZING! 2nd gear at near 90mph.

Warren

 

yea, u are right, 99 Apex'i is not good enough. since 99, apex'i upgrade to 42-46mm

 

nah, valve size does matter, and the mono vs twin tube design is also matter. with a bigger valve size, it also means it got a bigger place to store oil and also for oil too cool down, thats very important for race car. i believe after 5-6 laps in hot summer, koni shock will get a good amount of air bubble.