I have a set of koni compress-to-adjust yellow shocks on my ITA car. I've run them for a few years, they're probably due to be sent in for rebuild after this season, at which point I'll have them revalved/shortened, etc to suit my springs (7" 450f 650r)
at this point in time, can they be changed to dual external adjustable? It should be mentioned that these are eyebolt style shocks for a 88 crx, which is why I didn't get externally adjustables ones in the first place

what's the rough cost on revalving and shortening? hundreds? thousands?

 

I'm am 95% positive they can convert all their Sport shocks to double adjustable. Call Koni or PM CRX Lee here on Honda-tech.

I think the shock revalving cost depends on the application and the required revalving. I've heard $150 per shock (low end), but it varies.

 

Yes, they can be revalved and they can be converted to externally rebound and compression adjustable. Here is a basic rundown of service pricing:

Rebuild as a single adjustable: $100 each for labor and generally $20ish for parts depending on condition

Shorten body and rod: $72 each (an hour of work at a $72/hour rate) that must be done with other service while the shock is apart. This is common on fronts, overkill on rears usually.

Convert a twin-tube Koni from single to double adjustable:
Adjuster through the bottom like a Honda front is $310 each includes rebuilding/revalving labor and most parts
Adjuster through the side like a Honda rear is $360 each includes rebuilding/revalving labor and most parts

If your rears are not externally adjustable like the shock you mention, then they can be converted to externally adjustable when they are apart for service for the cost of a $35 hollow rod.

Converting a street shock to a double adjustable and possibly shorteneing it is the most labor intensive and most expensive thing that we can do to them. By the time they get up in the $400ish range then you are getting close to the price of having some new racing shocks fabricated like 8211 or 3011 so it would be wise to consider all of the options when you get up to that range. A proper single adjustable race valved shock will get 95+% of the performance gain for less than 50% of the cost so like most things in life you have the Law of Diminishing Returns. A double adjustable damper (a real one and not the fakers that claim to adjust rebound and bump simultaneously) can be a good advantage if the car is already well built and sorted out and you are hunting down the last small increments of lap time and savings after all of the big gains have already been made.

If you have any questions, you can contact me at Koni at 859-586-4100 ext 316 from 8-5 Eastern.

 

I have a related question:

Why are the 240SX rear shocks sold as compress-to-adjust, if they can be so simply converted to externally adjustable? I never understood why they did that, especially since the rear shock mounts like a McPherson strut at the top. I know a whole lot of people (myself included) who would rather buy Konis than KYB shocks or a "JDM" coilover, but they don't because of the inconvenient adjustment setup.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AKADriver &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have a related question:

Why are the 240SX rear shocks sold as compress-to-adjust, if they can be so simply converted to externally adjustable? I never understood why they did that, especially since the rear shock mounts like a McPherson strut at the top. I know a whole lot of people (myself included) who would rather buy Konis than KYB shocks or a "JDM" coilover, but they don't because of the inconvenient adjustment setup.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Cause j00 won't reach the adjuster unless the car is gutted? (If my memory serves me correctly)

 

Typically it comes down to an access situation although where in the world it is developed has some relation on it as well. When we develop parts here in the US, we will always make them externally rebound adjustable if you can have any reasonable expectation to be able to reach the adjuster.

In Europe and elsewhere where external adjustability is not as much of a primary concern as it is here, then if it is not easy to get to the top adjuster without pulling out parts of the interior then they will develop them as an internally adjustable unit and sell them at 20-25% cheaper than their externally adjustable counterparts. We have pushed the Europeans to consider using more external adjustables even when it is not an easy access situation so more of the newer applications will be four corner external compared to their older counterparts.

In the US we have developed our own externally adjustable rear shocks for a few cars when the Dutch sell an internally adjustable unit like on the Honda Accord, Ford Focus, etc. for applications that sell enough parts in a timely manner that we can have our own special production runs made. For this market, when developing a new application we will always go for external adjustments and a Sport valving when we can becasue we know our market wants it more. Other partts of the world, if you can't simply lean over a normal car model and turn the **** to adjust it, they would rather save the 20-25% because they don't normally tweak on tehir cars to the level that US customers might.

For many applications in our shop, we can convert the shock to externally adjustable without too much trouble but the car owner may need to be ready to drill access holes in the car, remove interior pieces, etc. to give them access to the tops of the dampers. For our mass market parts, we still have to deal within what the manufacturer of the car gives us to work with.

 

In my fastback, all I had to do to reach the tops of the struts was remove some little 3" square access panels, not the whole rear interior. I *think* the coupe is the same way in the trunk (I'll check tonight).



It's sort of a valid point, since KYB puts the adjust **** on the side of the shock body for the rear of the 240SX. But, all the JDM coilovers adjust at the top.