I am looking to get some adjustable dampening & compression shocks

does anyone here have experience with any of these 3 shocks? or know the fundamental differences?

I know the race (8041) have shortened bodies

this is for an auto-X car with full spherical bearings, 24mm GSR front sway, 24mm ASR rear sway

also what stroke, min length & max length is desirable for an eg application?


Modified by 6SPD_EK at 7:43 AM 8/21/2008

 

no 2812 or 3011?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MSchu &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no 2812 or 3011?</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah aren't the 2812 like $900 a piece? lil confused b/c website listed prices as sets for some & individual for others

so we have

*8611 dual external adj
2812 -
8212
3012
8041 - non adjustable compression but are application specific
8216
*3011 - dual external adj

looking in the budget range of $1500-2000...

one's with a "*" are current top choices


Modified by 6SPD_EK at 12:11 PM 8/21/2008

 

The 86 series shocks are strut inserts. You do not want them.

The 8041 has a skinny body, and is also not compression adjustable, unless u want to spend a lot of money to fix it.
I think you could do better. I believe the 8216 is also single adjustable only.

Because the 8212 is larger body than the 8041, I feel that it has less twin-tube pathologies than the koni yellow. For example, people occasionally complain that the Koni yellow rebounds too violently at first, even if you try to crank up the rebound. Maybe this can be fixed with re-valving, but I feel that my 8212's are much better about this.

This leave you with basically deciding between 8212 and 3011/3012. Unfortunately, these shocks cost about $500 each, plus the cost to weld on the proper attachments, blowing your budget.

In my case, I have a set of rear 8211 (which is the old steel version of 8212). You can see the project I used to get them to fit onto my car

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2282475

I was able to get a used set cheap off of ebay. Also, Koni sells a "drag racing" version called 8212 SPA1 which you can buy from various people for about 400. The rebound valving is good for up to about 500 lbs springs in rear application, and maybe a bit less for front. It will be more digressive than a Koni yellow, probably, but then again, I think autocross people like lots of low speed damping. The compression valving will definitely work, but is clearly sub-optimal. See here:

https://honda-tech.com/zero...age=2

One thing you might be able to get away with is to have Koni or whoever rebuilds these to only change the compression valving. Tell them that you realize that all they have to do is unscrew the compression adjust **** and play around with that little foot valve. They don't even have to change out the oil or break any seals or anything. Maybe then they won't charge you the full rebuild price.

For rebound adjustment, you have to think about how you want the upper mount to be. You can keep an eyelet spherical upper mount, but then you have to jack up the car every time you tweak with the rebound, as well as losing some shock travel. Compression adjust on the 8212 is just a **** near the bottom, but for the 3011, you have to do that stupid procedure where you have to extend the shock all the way and turn the shaft or something.

Anyway, I'm going to stop now because this is all just examples of problems you are going to run into.

The short answer is this:
8212 vs 3011 is basically twin tube vs monotube.
To have either of these done "right" may blow your budget
Things would get a fair bit cheaper if you forget about the compression adjust ****, but truthfully, I really like turning it and seeing how it affects the handling.

I think your stock stroke is 6" rear, and either 5 or 6" front. How much stroke you needs depends on how much your car is lowered.

Not sure about the front, but for the rear, the 1123 version of the 8211 (19.5" max, 7" stroke) fit fine. You could probably even use the 5" stroke version.

 

nice post about the Koni's. thanks for sharing.