So I changed my front Koni Yellow front shocks for Koni Race. As you know the race has the shorten stem.
http://www.koniracing.com/RACE.cfm

I ran into a problem when assembling it with my adjustable sleeves. See pictures below.
-Left side is the "old" set-up with the good ride height.
-Right side is the new shocks but the welded "ring" is under the coil.

If I want to be able to install the top hat, I would have to drop the coil until I can bolt it up. But that would mess up the ride height. Or do I try to compress the coil and don't touch the adjustable rings....But won't that still mess up the original ride height also? I'm lost!

 

Is it for crx? Is it at stock ride height? For lowered car I think your spring is too long, I only use 6" springs or 7"....but easist way to fix this is to take the sleve off and have a machine shop cut new groove lower so you can lower the whole sleeve. It should cost $20. You can't lower the adjuster because you will have no adjustment if you take it all the way down. Or just get new springs.


I see there is one more lower grove for the clip did you try lowering it on to that?

 

If I try to make the top hat "fit" by lowering the clip and ajusting the sleeve down, everything is okay but I believe I just messed up my ride height.


What's important? height 1 (H1_blue) or height 2 (H2_green). I think H1 determines the ride height?

 

you got shocks that have much less droop travel. Now your springs will be heavily pre-loaded at full droop. You need to get spring compressors to install the top hat. Getting shorter springs or cutting a lower groove won't help. Don't change the perch position if you want to keep the same ride height.

 

Even if he compresses it his height will be different

 

Got an answer from Koni. The only difference with my new Race shocks is a pre-loaded coil. Will have to rent a coil compressor....

 

wow... with the springs preloaded like that, you will not be able to adjust the perches by hand. And I don't know what perches those are, but they don't appear to have provisions for using any type of spanner wrench.

In your pic above, H2 is what determines ride height, which is the distance from the shock fork to the spring perch. If you got a shorter spring, you would have to move the spring perch up to get the same ride height, which will negate the purpose of a shorter spring to get the top hat on.

 

you should buy 6" springs.

 

There's nothing you can do to retain your original ride height with the way they are currently. Send them in to koni and let them remove the 30mm droop limiter and you'll be back where you want to be. This is why it's recommended to revalve Koni Sport to spss3, everything stays the same but the valving. If it where me, I'd return the spss3 shocks and revalve the sports.

 

You can also buy yourself another 1/2-3/4" of droop travel by running an additional sleeve/spacer between the shoulder on the piston and the bump stop washer. This trades bump travel for droop travel. Make sure that your bump stop is long enough (or add a spacer on top of it) so that you won't ever jam the shoulder into the shock.

MAYBE then you won't need spring compressors, and you can install the shock assembly without the two top locking nuts, and then use the weight of the car to compress the spring. Then add and tighten the nuts. You'd have to do this same procedure if you wanted to adjust the ride height.

 

these shocks don't simply have a droop limiter in them the shaft and body are shorter.


Tons of racers use these without issue.

 

The shaft isn't shorter, only the body is. What you see is the 30mm droop limiter that's keeping the shaft from coming up as tall as the Sport is. Getting rid of that will free up the shaft and the top hat will fit no problem. You still lose about an 1nch from the shorter body though.

The OP wants a certain ride height, I was letting him know it's not going to work with the current set-up. For the most part, revalving Sports is the way to go to maintain a nice level of height adjustment both up and down.

 

Doesn't look like there's a droop limiter on the OP's new shocks. The length of piston visible is exactly the same on both shocks. It's just the shock body is shorter on the new shocks.

 

[QUOTE=PatrickGSR94;38839130]And I don't know what perches those are, but they don't appear to have provisions for using any type of spanner wrench.QUOTE]

those are Koni sleeves & perches.

OP you won't be at your original ride height, the shocks are physically shorter.
Winding the collar down as you did is no different than getting a shorter spring. You can only go so high now with these. Look at the overall height difference between the two shocks.

 

If that were true then the piston would bottom out much sooner on the 8041 RACE shock.

It isn't true.

with the shortened shocks you wont/can't bottom the shock out. THe UCA, and or tire will hit the car before the shock will bottom out.

With the 8041 sport the shock bottoms out before the wheel/UCA does.

No its not, and it will work with the 8041 race shocks. He simply needs to purchase 6 inch springs and move the perch up, then he could get to his previous ride height.

Re-valving sports is expensive, more expensive then just buying the 8041 race shock.

 

As far as I remember, they do but I could be wrong.

 

[QUOTE=slammed_93_hatch;38845204]He simply needs to purchase 6 inch springs and move the perch up, then he could get to his previous ride height.QUOTE]

this is the only part I respectfully disagree with. No matter the spring length, you can only go so far up with the shorter shock. It won't "stretch" past its maximum length.

 

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showpo...92&postcount=3

Front have extra 40mm droop. Take that out, you'll be back where you want to be. Other than that it's not happening.

 

Doh you are correct... Sorry i got confused for a second. Thanks for the correction!

He will be able to get within .75". Which should be a problem, as that is pretty "high".

I would guess since he is running race shocks he does some type of track/autox, his car would benifit from a reduced ride height.

 

25mm is basically 1in.

 

Here is the answer from Koni:

There is not shock issue here, just I think a misunderstanding on his part. If his perches are set at the exact same height on the same length and rate springs, then his ride heights will be exactly the same. Yes, there is a max length difference when there is no load on the shocks and springs but that is totally moot when the shocks are on the car and the car is on the ground. Because the bodies are shorter on the ACE units, it has less max length as well when the shock is unloaded which that he will need to use his spring compressors more when installing the springs onto the shorter shocks but this all is negated when the car’s weight is loaded onto the springs. When he jacks the car up such that the suspension will go into full droop, that is the only time that the shock will ever get to max extension so his wheels will droop down less than they did with the longer max length shocks. Since you aren’t driving the car on jack stands at full droop, this difference is non-functional to the actual driving usage of the car. On the other hand, the shorter body of the RACE does let the car sit lower or compress more and not hit the bump rubbers or bottom internally which is an important function in driving the car when on the ground.

There is not shock issue, just his understanding of what happens and what doesn’t happen. The only difference in installing the two is that he will need to use his spring compressors more to get the upper perch and springs installed but this only occurs on the workbench and not with the car on the ground. Because the spring length and longer shock max length before, he may not have needed a spring compressor to do the installation but that had nothing to do with car function. The RACE shocks have the almost exactly same stroke range as the old shocks on their own but now it is moved down into a range where his car can use it rather than up at the top which made it easier to install but the car never, ever used it. For the car’s purpose (which is what it is really all about), the shorter shocks have much more usable stroke range and less droop range.