koni settings with sprint springs?

[Accordtheory]

I just got a set of sprints and konis, and I was wondering if anyone has this combo and has figured out approx how many turns to set the konis to.. It would be about the same for the other springs that have the same stiffness, like progress or s/t springs
Thanks

[Busted_Blue]

i suggest you email gordon if you look down on the same page there is a thread about shock settings which Gordon's email (he's from koni if you didnt know already). If you know the spring rates, let him know and he will be able to reccomended you a setting.

[SteveDX89]

I have that setup. I adjusted the Konis as stiff as I could while still being able to pull the strut rod back out.

[smufguy]

I just got a set of sprints and konis, and I was wondering if anyone has this combo and has figured out approx how many turns to set the konis to.. It would be about the same for the other springs that have the same stiffness, like progress or s/t springs
Thanks

i got progress and the sprint with 2.25" drop is only like 4lbs stiffer than mine. Jim asked me to set it to max rebound and thats what i did and bitch is stiff. handles like the way you like it. no chopy or bumpy ride. But just comfy stiff. Also, you might wanna change just your rear sway bar and leave the front stock. Even with the stiff suspension, i get a lot of understeer. But the turn in and exit is much faster. Maybe its because i got sooooo much shit in my trunk. :( crap.

[SteveDX89]

i got progress and the sprint with 2.25" drop is only like 4lbs stiffer than mine. Jim asked me to set it to max rebound and thats what i did and bitch is stiff. handles like the way you like it. no chopy or bumpy ride. But just comfy stiff. Also, you might wanna change just your rear sway bar and leave the front stock. Even with the stiff suspension, i get a lot of understeer. But the turn in and exit is much faster. Maybe its because i got sooooo much shit in my trunk. :( crap.

Hmmm, I have pretty neutral handling. I can enter 90º corners at 35 and accelerate the whole way through it and the car stays right where I point it.

[smufguy]

Hmmm, I have pretty neutral handling. I can enter 90º corners at 35 and accelerate the whole way through it and the car stays right where I point it.

ur engine weight is different too, it makes a big difference.

[SteveDX89]

ur engine weight is different too, it makes a big difference.

Ahhh. Hail to thee aluminum block. :bow:

[smufguy]

Ahhh. Hail to thee aluminum block. :bow:

bet u take that turn in 1st gear, lol. bitch takes too long to rev up hahahaha. just messin with ya. hail to the Iron Block :rockon: :bow:

[SteveDX89]

bet u take that turn in 1st gear, lol. bitch takes too long to rev up hahahaha. just messin with ya. hail to the Iron Block :rockon: :bow:

Naw, 2nd gear works. :)

[guaynabo89]

I have that setup. I adjusted the Konis as stiff as I could while still being able to pull the strut rod back out.

lol

I have that combo and I turned the struts to full stiff. I suggest you get help with this cause you'll need another person to help you pull ther strut rod back out. (as stated by Steve above) Well for the fronts anyway. That or a vice thats on a table that is bolted down to the floor.


I would suggest saving money to get the struts shortened though. They will bottom out all day long with so little suspension travel.

I am planning on getting my struts shortened, revalved, plus being made externally adjustable. grand total just about 900 for all 4 struts.

[smufguy]

lI would suggest saving money to get the struts shortened though. They will bottom out all day long with so little suspension travel.


i never had the shox bottom out, if u mean the springs compressed fully, as in turn over turn. The spring rates are high enough to prevent that .

[88Accord-DX]

i never had the shox bottom out, if u mean the springs compressed fully, as in turn over turn. The spring rates are high enough to prevent that .
I'm with you. I just don't see a need to shorten Koni's. Not only are the spring rates high enough, I don't see the Koni struts bottoming out with the right setting, unless your doing some shit like "Evil Kanevill".

Edit*- I personally don't see enough strut travel to get them shortened under 2.5", cause of the stiffness of Koni struts & high spring compression.

[guaynabo89]

i never had the shox bottom out, if u mean the springs compressed fully, as in turn over turn. The spring rates are high enough to prevent that .


Actually no. The shocks will bottom out being that low. More so in the front than the rear because thats where most of the weight is in an ff car. If you dont beleive me go check out your bumpstops sometime and you will see wear marks from repeatedly hitting them, and thats if you have the koni bumpstops. Anyone who has lowered their car and still has the factory style bumpstops i can guarantee that if they look at them they will be basicly disintegrated.

Look at it this way. Have you ever really noticed how much travel is within the range of motion of the front struts? I havent measured it exacly but Im pretty sure its not much over 4 inches of travel from fully compressed to fully extended. Now take half of that travel distance away and your left with basicly a 2 inch stroke, lets say2-3 inches of travel. Thats not enough travel to let the srtuts do their job and will always hit the bumpstops when yo hit the bigger holes and dips.


Spring rates have nothing to do with whether or not a car will bottom out. The struts determine how much travel the suspension will have.

That being said the konis struts while being the best strut for the third gen is still very weak on the compression stroke.



The konis struts are a very good choice and most of the people here will never feel the need to do the extra things I mentioned above.

TO those people I say cut your bumpstops in half, and keep the receipts. Also 2 inch or lower springs and coilovers adjust your struts to full rebound and you'll keep the bouncing to a minimum.

[88Accord-DX]

Looking through all the old threads, I haven't seen anyone that know's how much travel is on the strut in order to get them shortened. I have a set of Koni's and don't have the facts straight to spend extra money for shortening. Just by pulling the Koni strut all the way out, seems to me like that is alot of travel space even with 1" - 3" deducted for lowered springs/coilovers. I haven't looked at my bumpstops yet to see how much bottoming out the car has on it.

[smufguy]

Spring rates have nothing to do with whether or not a car will bottom out. The struts determine how much travel the suspension will have.


yes sir, springs do help you from bottoming out. increasing the spring rates resists the compression duration, ie it takes more force to compress the spring with higher spring rate the same dist compared to another one with lesser spring rate. So this being the case, u will not have the issue of less enough travel. And all lowering springs are manufactured in the way that it does not allow full compression and hence prevents bottoming out when used correctly with correct shocks. we had custom progress springs on our SAE car and it kept bottoming out no matter how we set it. It was bottoming out bad enough that it tore the rod end, clear off the frame. It was an inboard shox too. Then we found out the shox dyno result was mistakenly switched to that of a less stiff shox that ours. WE corrected it using stifffer sping and it never bottomed out.

also lowering springs are not the same length as the stock ones so what did u actually measure? the stock spring or the lowering spring length?

nobody here hits holes, that is big ass potholes unless they are blind. The only time i bottomed out enough to have sparks fly was when i had 4 people in my car and doing about 80mphs and did not realize that the road was under construction and it caught the road height difference. but it was just the bottom of the car so unless i pull the shox out again and look at it, no body knows if the shocks actually bottom out, it could be just the floor of the car is just too low. :dunno:

there are a lot of people who run wrong coils with wrong struts. we can easily pick out about 50% to 60%. nobody really talks with techs or have enough experience to work in the suspension dept. most rely on personal experience rather than actually understanding the mechanics behind it.

[Accordtheory]

My stupid konis are not even. In other words, when I have one adjusted about a 3/4 turn from full stiff and the other one approx 1/4 fom full stiff, they have have about the same rebound resistance.. I find this rather disconcerting, and I will probably eventually get 4 revalved bilsteins.

Also, some people might find this type of question annoying and just say you should always get aftermarket springs, but I had my car sitting on cut factory springs for a while, and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to determine the % increase in stiffness associated with cutting the accord spring to drop the car say 2". I haven't driven the car with the sprints yet, so I haven't been able to make any comparison, but once cut, the factory springs were much stiffer, and physically, the sprints don't look all that different.

As far as bottoming out, opm motorsport sells shortened konis, but I think they are like $1K..? I just want to use some type of tapered polyurethane bump stop. Has anyone done this?
Thanks for the assistance

[smufguy]

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to determine the % increase in stiffness associated with cutting the accord spring to drop the car say 2".

cutting a spring does not increase its spring rate, but rather decrease it cause it reduces the length. Spring rate is usually the Force required to compress the spring by one unit length. Common denotion is lb-f/inch. (lb-f is pound force). Since the overall length is decreased, it reduces the rate. Also. Lowering springs are made of different metal or even alloys added in to keep them stiff. If u closely notice, the thickness of the spring itself is beefier on the aftermarket springs than the stock ones.

[AZmike]

Cutting a spring does make it stiffer. Let's say that you have a 100 lbf/in spring with 10 active coils. When you apply a load of 100 lbf the spring will deflect 1 inch (0.1 inch for each coil). Now cut out two coils. Wih a load of 100 lbf each coil will deflect the same amount, 0.1 inches. Now for 100 lbf the whole spring deflects 0.8 inches--the spring rate is now higher: 100/0.8=125 lbf/in.

[smufguy]

MIke, what you said is true but it will only work for some situations, LIke if u cut the spring a lot, then in reality, it will become weaker. We got a some what Conical spring. And most coil springs are Helical. There is an increase in the spring rate as you mentioned because as the spring is loaded, active coils near the ends "bottom out" first, thereby becoming "inactive". as the successive turns bottom out the spring becomes increasingly stiff, the number of active turns N progressively decreases, therby gving increasing valves of K, the spring constant (spring rate).


K = F / Delta = d^4*G/(8*D^3*N)
Delta = (8*FD^3*N)/(d^4*G)

Delta = distance the sping compresses
N = #of active turns
D = Diamter of the spring
d = Thickness of the coil.
G = Shear modulus = E / (2(1+v))
E = Elasticity of the material
v = density of the material.

[guaynabo89]

yes sir, springs do help you from bottoming out. increasing the spring rates resists the compression duration, ie it takes more force to compress the spring with higher spring rate the same dist compared to another one with lesser spring rate. So this being the case, u will not have the issue of less enough travel. And all lowering springs are manufactured in the way that it does not allow full compression and hence prevents bottoming out when used correctly with correct shocks. we had custom progress springs on our SAE car and it kept bottoming out no matter how we set it. It was bottoming out bad enough that it tore the rod end, clear off the frame. It was an inboard shox too. Then we found out the shox dyno result was mistakenly switched to that of a less stiff shox that ours. WE corrected it using stifffer sping and it never bottomed out.

also lowering springs are not the same length as the stock ones so what did u actually measure? the stock spring or the lowering spring length?

nobody here hits holes, that is big ass potholes unless they are blind. The only time i bottomed out enough to have sparks fly was when i had 4 people in my car and doing about 80mphs and did not realize that the road was under construction and it caught the road height difference. but it was just the bottom of the car so unless i pull the shox out again and look at it, no body knows if the shocks actually bottom out, it could be just the floor of the car is just too low. :dunno:

there are a lot of people who run wrong coils with wrong struts. we can easily pick out about 50% to 60%. nobody really talks with techs or have enough experience to work in the suspension dept. most rely on personal experience rather than actually understanding the mechanics behind it.

Sorry, should have worded my response better. What I should have said is that the sprints are not stiff enough to keep the accord from bottoming out.(moreso in the front where most of the bottoming out occurs on these cars)

The meausurement im talking about is the range of motion of the shock from fully compressed to fully extended. Which in this perticular car is what controls the range of motion in the suspension. Wouldnt you agree that if the car is lowered 2.25 inches your strut is that much closer to to being fully compressed and you just lost 2.25 inches of travel for the strut to do its job. And being that the konis in stock form are pretty weak on the compression stroke you'll be a whole lot more likely to bottom out. When I say bottom out I mean the suspension being fully compressed enough for the struts to hit the bumpstops and not the underside of the car hitting the floor. Sorry if I didnt make myself clear on that.

What exactly do you mean nobody here hits potholes?

Did you mean noone hits holes on purpose? cause if so than yeah I agree. I lived in PA for about half my life and I tell you I had all the dips and holes memorized around where I lived, but every winter without fail new holes and dips would pop up overnight.( not exagerating either for the lucky folks who've never had to deal with harsh winters)


I also might not be as informed as the rest of you guys when it comes to the more technical side of suspension or its components but I do know this. I've been in contact with the techs over at koni several times and if they see extreme abuse of their struts (ie being to low) they will not honor their warranty!

[smufguy]

guaynabo89, i got what you meant bro. I got progress springs on my car. Progress 2" group front 70% rear 205% and the sprint 2.25" front 66% rear 192%. i have to say that i have to agree with you bottoming out because of lower than me and have less stiffness than me. No wonder its bottoming out. Of all springs, progress is the stiffest in the rear and Speed tech is the stiffest in the Front. I have no idea why sprint did not make it stiff enough and being 2.25" makes no sense to me. It defenitely should have higher spring rate.

i try my best to avoid potholes and i hate the understeer in the car and it just sucks for quick jerks like that. I am actually thinking of running stiffer springs in the rear later next year and possibly upgrade the rear sway bars.

Im actually scared of this winter tho, but gladly they are doing a lot of road work in NJ and laying down new roads, so hopefully it wont be that bad.

[Accordtheory]

I would find it mildly amusing if the stiffness of the cut accord spring turned out to be comparable to the sprint spring..I suspect this might be the case.

[guaynabo89]

im also looking to upgrade the rear sway bar. if you find anything please post. we can probably get some sort of group buy set up.

[Busted_Blue]

im also looking to upgrade the rear sway bar. if you find anything please post. we can probably get some sort of group buy set up.


88lxi68 is selling the addco sway bar...maybe you can custom fab it to work with the rear disc brakes?

[guaynabo89]

I actually have s.t. swaybars. I'm just looking for something a litle biger than the st and adco bars. maybe about the same size as the front. that should certainly even tings up a bit.

[Busted_Blue]

I actually have s.t. swaybars. I'm just looking for something a litle biger than the st and adco bars. maybe about the same size as the front. that should certainly even tings up a bit.

I couldn't agree more. :D I was looking at something in the areas of 1inch or so..but I wonder if the endlinks can take that much stress?