I have recently taken over managing the Motorsport Dept. at Koni and am in the planning stages for the next year and the future. One thing that I am giving strong consideration to is adding more pre-produced, on-the-shelf race dampers to our inventory so people can get them quicker and most likely less expensively than having them custom built one set at a time.

My goal would be to have small production runs of single (rebound) adjustable, race valved, slightly shorter bodied shocks initially for '89-00 Civic and '90-01 Integras with a goal price about 3/4 of the current cost of buying shocks and then having them custom built. These units would be on the shelf like any normal street shock. These units would be designed specificly with racing, autocross and open track activity in mind. They would be technically streetable but they will ride aggressively and handle sharply as the primary goal is racing performance. As with any real racing shock by any manufacturer, they will not carry the warranty of a street shock. My goal would be to have the first ones on hand in about January to February 2005 before next season gets rolling.

What is the catch? We can only have these made if we absolutely, for certain know that there is a market so that we can sell them. You would not believe the pressure on development and inventory in the modern corporate world. We can't do it if there is any doubt that there is not a market to support the production of parts. Maybe in the future we could add more applications but first we would need to start with the most common applications to prove the merit of the effort. About 10-15 years ago was the last time Koni made a production run of Honda, Mustang and Camaro race valved shocks and they were cancelled over a time due to insufficient sales. But I think the times have changed with the popularity of folks taking their street cars or dedicated track cars to autocrosses and open race tracks. The shocks would need to be single adjustable versus double adjustables initially because of the costs and potential market size. Maybe later but first we need to get started with singles.

So what do you think? Any input? I would like to do it but have to be sure that there is a sufficient market for it.

 

If I were to buy Koni's, I'd buy them and immediately have them revalued, so there's a market, and I sure as hell see a lot of Koni's being bought and revalved around here.

How about branding them too? Koni Sport Rs or something like that to identify they're designed for high spring rates.

 

Question: What spring rates would the shocks be rated for? (average)


I think its a great plan. I would be all over them if i didn't already spent the money on coilovers.

 

You know what, it's about freaking time I always wondered why Koni never did that, because the market is most certainly there.

 

I think it's a pretty good idea, Lee. There are plenty of honda Roadracers/a-x'ers, and a good portion revalve and shorten (you know better than i do i'm sure) but the inherent risks are:

a) what if the EF Si suddenly falls out of favor due to classing requirements and is no longer the darling of STS? will people respond by leaving hondas as a succesful platform for A/X? will new rule allowances in certain honda populated classes in Solo 2, SCCA/NASA, XXX change the demand for certain components?

b) can these appeal to the bling obsessed masses who are willing to dump 1600 into a set of JIC's just because they are mad tyte? does that market segment matter, considering the projected prodcution run? as much as we dog the bling addicts, they've got a lot of money to blow...

i'm curious as to what kinds of spring rates these will be able to damp, OTS. 600-1200#?

i myself would definitely be interested if i had the right car. i'm pretty sure all of the competitive a-x'ers in my region would be too.

 

Currently we call our race valvings (ther then drag racing) as SPSS. We have yet to decide a specific name but the part number itself would have the designation to prove it is the race version. For example, 8041-1152SPSS vs. the street 8041-1152 Sport. What I don't know is that with the planned shortening of the bodies (probably about 1 inch front, 1/2 inch rear) in addition to the valving if we would need to competely change the number itself so that it may not cross exactly to the original Sport version.

 

Sign me up. It'll save me from destroying a new perfectly good streetable OTS koni's that I have now.

I've always wondered why a shock had to be built twice before being used for the first time.

 

I think you should only do it if you're going to willing to publicly advertise an optimal range of spring rates that they might be used with.

The people that are getting custom-valved Koni's are coming away with the feeling that they will work for their intended use. Most of them are not going to buy into an off-the-shelf solution unless you can provide a little more detail than you do with your street products.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bad-monkey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
a) what if the EF Si suddenly falls out of favor due to classing requirements and is no longer the darling of STS? will people respond by leaving hondas as a succesful platform for A/X? will new rule allowances in certain honda populated classes in Solo 2, SCCA/NASA, XXX change the demand for certain components?

b) can these appeal to the bling obsessed masses who are willing to dump 1600 into a set of JIC's just because they are mad tyte? does that market segment matter, considering the projected prodcution run? as much as we dog the bling addicts, they've got a lot of money to blow...

i'm curious as to what kinds of spring rates these will be able to damp, OTS. 600-1200#?

i myself would definitely be interested if i had the right car. i'm pretty sure all of the competitive a-x'ers in my region would be too.</TD></TR></TABLE>

a) That is absolutely a risk that concerns me. Times and classes change. Koni's advantage here is that we can build shocks in much, much smaller production numbers than our competitors. We can probably do them in volumes as small as 50 car sets at a time so we don't built 500 car sets and hope like hell the car is hot for several years.

b) I am hoping the Bling Boyz won't buy them honestly. These will be made for racing and they won't carry the normal street warranty. The customer needs to know what he wants, know what he is getting and realize that racers must take responsibiltiy for their actions. No down stream whining "but I didn't know they were for racing".

c) For these cars, we would have to run the valving about as high as we can to cover as many bases as possible. Currently we use what we call SPSS1 (original race valving for high rates) and SPSS3 (race valving for higher rates). I spent some travel time with our R&D Manager yesterday and discussed this. We felt better to go on the high side as an intermediate race spring rate will not be negatively effected if the adjustment range is plenty wide. As I have said before, you can't just say "This spring rate is good for XXX but not XXX+50", there are too many variables. Generally I have no concerns when someone has an SPSS3s with 1000+ lb springs. Regardess, I'd bet this will be the only off the shelf shock that can really deal with racing rates like this at $900-1000 per set.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Lee &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have recently taken over managing the Motorsport Dept. at Koni </TD></TR></TABLE>

what other Depts. do you have?

 

I believe that if they were available off the shelf that sales would actually increase. I know of racers who have gone the JDM route because, like most racers, they didn't plan for the lead time needed to wait for the revalved Koni's. This is even when they knew that they would be getting a inferior product.

 

Even though your proposed initial shock offering isn't my application, I still think it's a solid idea.

$.02

 

Like I told you on the phone, I like the idea even though I got some SPSS revalves done by you guys just recently. I'd buy some for any Honda racecar I built.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Todd00 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I always wondered why Koni never did that, because the market is most certainly there.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That is the problem. Ok then... how big is the market? How many is right to make and how many is too many? On a weekly basis at Koni we get emails that say:

"Why do guys hate the Brand X mobile so much that you don't make parts for it? You suck up to the Honda guys because they are so popular but then you are dissin' the Brand X which is better than Honda because....(blah, blah, blah).

Our web site BrandXrocks.com has hundreds of guys who are dying for parts. I know you'd sell a lot of them. But you won't do it because you suck."

This makes my heart swell with pride in my fellow car guy. When you do chase them down the numbers are like: 1000 members on the list, but only 200 say it might be good to have Konis, then only 100 say they might buy some one day, then 50 say "yeah, I'd do it" and 10 guys say "here is my order". I have been through it several times and it often comes out the same. Lot of people say it would be cool but few might realy put their money where their mouth is.

That is the kind of thing I can't stick my neck out on. Example: When the Toyota MR2 Spyder came out a few years ago, I pushed the Dutch really hard to develop it as it looked like an interesting little open car and the autocrossers got enthusiastic. Luckily Koni Holland did the development and didn't force me to buy and own the entire production run. So I ordered about 50 car sets of MR2 Spyder dampers as a guess for initial order and pipline fill. We sold about 10-15 car sets quickly primarily to autocrossers...then sales died totally. About a year later, I returned over 30 car sets to Holland but on these race shocks I won't have the safety net to return them.

On the otherhand, we pushed hard for the 350Z and did the development here in the US because we couldn't get the Dutch and otehr countries interested in the car. We stuck out neck out (knowing it might be chopped off) that we would sell 50-100 car sets the first year. Already in the first 6 months we have sold probably 250 car sets and the problem is that we can't get them made and shipped here fast enough. I thought the GTO would be a good car to develop for this market and that car seems to have died on the vine. Luckily we haven't made an investment there yet and are waiting to see if there is any rise in interest.

It is a tough call and a lot of money can be tied up in inventory if it for some reason (marketing, price, applications, etc.) doesn't sell as projected. Are you willing to risk your job on it? A few screw ups and you might.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NegativeLift &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
what other Depts. do you have?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I manage the Automotive and Motorsports Departments. Also in Koni North America we have a Railway Dept., Bus, Truck & Motorhome Dept., R&D and the Koni Service Shop.

Most people don't realize that in North America, we do nearly as much business in Railway shocks as we do Automotive and Motorsports combined and we have a seperate railway shock rebuild shock. Big heavy things that build ungodly force, last about 1 million miles and get really dirty. Koni is on almost every high speed bullet train in the world, most of Amtrak, many locomotive and lots of the trains that carry passenger cars on them. Lots of commuter trains and even some rollercoasters and Las Vegas hotel trams too.

 

It will be cool if the shocks are made with threaded body

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Andrie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It will be cool if the shocks are made with threaded body</TD></TR></TABLE>

Problem is that a threaded body not only raised the price solidly but it also cuts out a number of autocross and racing classes very quickly. Becasue of the size of the gamble, we'd have to be as inclusive as possible so we'd start with the usual circlip mounted stock shaped spring perch and have a drop on sleev that could be used with it as a coil-over if the rules allowed. The more things you do, the smaller the market gets quickly so the project gets shut down quickly.

 

I hear Koni already makes threaded-body shocks...

 

I think this a great idea....as long as thats what you get(shortened/revalved)...not like the neuspeed/koni fiasco.

 

Lee,
while I must qualify this by saying I don't have my finger on the pulse of SCCA, I don't see the numbers of Honda racers dying down. I think that moving the Civic EX to ITA is a positive move. I think that the development of the 2nd Gen Integra will prove it is the car to have in ITA & HC H4. Every car in NorCal H4 is running the Koni's. I would suspect that most in SoCal are too.

I also know what you mean about sticking your neck out. When we set up the custom mold of the 15X7 Slipstreams, there was a ton on interest. Granted, there were unexpected production delays but those who were interested just didn't spend the $'s to make it worthwhile.

If it was my project, I would do a fairly small production run. Large enough to be able a offer a 'discount' over the current pricing while maintaining my margin. Small enough so that you could predict turning the run in one year. Small enough so that if you didn't, it wouldn't hurt that bad. I know, easy to say & hard to predict.

 

well I think I look at it a different way.

if you have really good dealers, they can get teh word out and sell the product.

i think its a decent idea. but it will only work if your dealers know the benefits of a off the shelf koni shock vs a high end jdm unit.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bob-DC2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i think its a decent idea. but it will only work if your dealers know the benefits of a off the shelf koni shock vs a high end jdm unit.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The market that blows money on high-end JDM units are not the ones looking to run 1000# spring rates on their cars.

The target market for these knows what they want, knows what they are getting them for and the product will sell itself. I doubt there are too many people out there looking for a high-rate road racing shock but don't know about Koni revalves.

Drew - Who doesn't run revalved Konis because he can't afford them BUT if money was no object I woould choose the Konis over anything else - including the pimpy JDM bling

 

It's an interesting proposition.

From my personal experiance (which is admitedly not much) most RR/AX Honda owners tend to be very low budget and some (me) can't afford to jump in head first and choose to run the OTS Konis for a season or two and then send them in to get re-valved when budget allows.

You mentioned the cost savings... if it comes out to where the SPSS' are just a few dollars more than regular sports (or perhaps similarly priced to the "Neuspeeds") then more people might jump on it.

Another thought... If you do decide to pre-build these, would you still have the rebuild / revalve service for current koni owners? Would you just send them a set of these and offer some kind of trade-in on their old shocks to speed up turn-around time?

I may be over-generalizing here, but it seems that a popular spring choice to go with the Konis tends to be the Ground Control / Eibach coil over kit. Since GC is a Koni distributor, perhaps you could work with them on which spring rates to package the SPSS' with and have them be the official distributor. then again It may do more harm than good to only let one company distribute them.

Personally, I'm such a cheap bastard that I ended up getting my Konis used, and even got the wrong ones for my car (own a CRX, got the ITR) but "made them work" so take my opinion w/ a grain of salt.

 

Fantastic idea I would buy a set! Oh wait, I already did

 

Lee,

I have often wondered why Koni didn't offer something like this sooner. The thought of buying and new shock, only to have it cut apart to make the shock you needed in the first place, has never really sat well with me.

I think the way to do it would be to do a small run of them and see how sales go...

Just make sure you get the 89-91 Civic/Crx in that first run.

Man...it is so freekin' cool to have you here Lee. A big thanks to all the support you have givin to the grassrooters. We all really appreciate what you do!