vince vette 2

Was planning to get Bilstein sport shocks with a composite spring. But I see Tire Rack has a sale on Koni adjustables at $97 apiece vs 77 for the Bilseins. Also, a $50 rebate on the Koni's brings it to $85. Seems like the way to go unless anyone has had a bad time with the Koni's

Let me know

ddawson

I've always had good luck with Koni's. The adjustment is just for rebound FYI.

vince vette 2

Thanks, I didn't catch it was adjustment of rebound only. Have you used them with a composite spring and if so, what was the spring stiffness and where did you set the rebound? Since they have to be off the car to set it would be nice to get it right the first try.

Street Rat

I had Koni's on an old Chevelle that I owned.

I was impressed with the ride quality on that car.

I purchased them for my '81 and I love them.

They are pricey though.


Craig

MelWff

Your in PA, potholes, rough roads, if you go with Bilstein you want the HD.

vince vette 2

I figure I'll only be driving between Mechanicsburg and Carlisle - 20 miles on I 81. Then again, you may be right - HD for PA interstates

7t9l82

vince vette 2

How do you go about getting them to custom valve them?

7t9l82

I ordered them from VBP and QA1 called me and they set them up how they thought would be best. They have been great. I was affraid if they put ***** on it all I could do is screw things up.lol.

Sky65

I had a set of Bilstein Sports on my 65. They were way too harsh for me. I replaced them with Koni and they were much better. Ultimately I replaced the Koni with Spax shocks. The Adjustment process on the Koni requires their removal. The SPAX are externally adjustable and can be adjusted in minutes with the shocks mounted.

Tom

vince vette 2

Decided to get the Koni's to have some flexibility in setting stiffness. It will be a pain having to take them off to adjust, but I'll just start 1 notch from full and see how that works. As I tend to prefer a harder ride my guess is that if I have to adjust from there it will be just one notch either way and I'll be done. Also I spoke with VBP and they felt the Koni's were a good choice. I mentioned the adjustment was for rebound and they said that's ideal for the composite spring. In any event they have to be much better than the Gabriels that went in it 15+ years ago.

It will be a few months before I have this all back together - Diff is out at Bairs for rebuild, Composite spring will be a few weeks before they ship it. Still working to bang the struts out. Drive and half shafts are being blasted clean, will needed to be painted and have u-joints pressed in. Gas tank has to go back in. A lot of bushings t replace. And hopefully I can remember how it all goes back together. But I'll update on the results.

Street Rat

I think you will be happy with your choices. You're doing a great job researching everything.

BUT

I'm jealous of all the work that you are getting done vince vette 2.

Following your progress.

MelWff

Unless they changed things there are no "notch" adjustments. You completely compress the shock and turn it so it engages the adjustment valve. You then turn it either direction 1/2 turn to either increase or decrease the stiffness. For the rear shocks you have to remove the internal rebound bumper by using a very small screwdriver inserting it into a small hole on the side of the upper shock housing and pry the bump stop out. It is best to mark down the factory number of turns before changing anything.

vince vette 2

You are correct. Somewhere in my reading I recall seeing approximately 5 half turns one extreme to the other. And there recommendation was to always turn them all the way in one direction basically to zero, then count from there. It should work out.

MelWff

You are correct 2.5 turns and I believe I have mine set for 1.5 turns after putting many thousand of miles on them. You may want to start at 1 turn from zero.

vince vette 2

Well, it sure seems slow on my side.I started posting on this forum just a few months ago. But checking on the C3 vette registry, my first posts were January 2016. And I started the rebuild at least 3 months earlier (like all guys I need to get deep into it before asking for directions). So from about fall 2015 to fall 2018 all I accomplished was brake lines/master cylinder, carb rebuild (shipped out), and power steering control valve and cylinder (shipped out). Now, in my defense I did install two sets of brake lines. Story too long to go through again, but suffice it to say that even some very good vendors don't have them right. Especially troubling is they think all C3's have the same master cylinder to prop valve lines. They seem to forget that hen cruise control transducers started going in the lines were redesigned to go around them. I finally just sent my originals in to have classic tube match them. They actually had made the first set which I bought through Dr. Rebuild. Click here for the whole horrible story.

The brakes took me a year. Then I went to the power steering. Believe it or not, that took another year. Finally on the road back in November. Seems each phase takes a year. We'll see on this one.

2mnyvets

I wrote to both Koni and Bilstein to get the dampening information. Koni got a back to me with the following information:

Unfortunately, we do not have dyno graphs readily available for distribution. What I can give you are the compression and rebound specs of both the front and rear dampers. That information will be included below. As for the adjustment, you are only adjusting the rebound. Compression is made at the foot valve of a twin tube shock absorber, and the rebound at the piston valve stack. When adjusting the shocks you are only tightening the valve stack, by way of a preload spring and adjust nut. The foot valve of the shock remains unchanged. Normal wear from age is not covered by the Manufactures Warranty.



8040 1019 & 8040 1020 are both valved the exact same.

Test run with shocks at full soft setting, rebound approximately doubles at full firm.

Test @.33m/sec (13in/sec)

Compression - 750N Rebound - 1300N

Test @.13m/sec (5in/sec)

Compression - 420N Rebound - 750N

Bilstein did not get back to me. I bought the Konis but don't have the car finished yet.

vince vette 2

Thanks for providing this. It's good to know the range as that should give some idea on how much to change the settings if they aren't where I like them on the first try. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get things all back together. Probably a couple months. I don't get much time to work on it. But I'll report in when I do.

vince vette 2

PS, the rear set should be here Monday. The fronts are on backorder, but that's OK as I won't tackle the front until next winter. Might make for some interesting driving with a fully rebuilt rear suspension and the front limping along with 90,000 miles of degradation.