Ok ladies and gentlemen, here's the deal.
Lately I've been seeing A LOT of people out here not only claiming to have a perfect setup with Tokico's but also recommending them for use with damn near any brand of spring the aftermarket produces.
It seems that regardless of how many times the facts are shown that they are a bad idea, the claims of 'it feels great on my car, don't listen to the facts' are winning out. Why? Maybe because they're relatively inexpensive? Because they're blue? Because the name sounds cool? Who knows.
So let's just cut through all the bull and call a spade a spade.
I just got off the phone with a strut & shock engineer at Tokico USA, and after a lengthy conversation, and an initial response to my inquiry about compression/rebound specs being 'that's confidential and proprietary information of Tokico' I softened the guy up and got down to the cold hard facts. Yes we talked numbers.
FACT: Tokico HP's (aka. Blues) for the 86-89 Accord are valved to handle an absolute maximum rebound rating of 345 lb/in up front, and 195 lb/in in the rear. (That is straight from the mouth of the engineer at Tokico.) Now, an industry standard is to pair a spring to a strut/shock that is valved to handle 10-15% MORE rebound (lb/in) than the springs.
Prior to actually getting to the nitty-gritty with the tech about specs, and proving to him that I was at least a little knowledgeable about suspension dynamics, I got this whole schpeal about "It's not recommended to put a spring on a strut that is 'stronger' than the strut." Ya think?
Anyway, to anyone out there still adamant on pairing Toki's with ANY spring out there, with the exception of Neuspeed/H&R. Thanks to one of the (if not the most) knowledgeable suspension guy on this forum, Mike, AZMike, here's a link to his post on the stickie'd thread at the top of this sub-forum.
https://www.3geez.com/forum/showpost....97&postcount=2
That link contains a very detailed spec of each spring available to the 3G, and breaks it down in plain numbers showing the exact spring rate of each.
If you want a set of shocks that are well paired, and will perform very well for your spring application, take the spring rate of your spring selection, and multiply it by 1.15, and you'll get a very good base to start from for your rebound valving. 1.1 if you don't plan on really pushing your car should be safe.
Example:
Sprint springs: 350 lb/in Front, 225 lb/in rear. 2.25" drop.
The 10-15% More calculation: (Front: [350x1.1=385 to 350x1.15=402.5], Rear: [225x1.1=247.5 to 225x1.15=258.75])
Recommended Damper Valving: 385-403 lb/in Front, 248-259 lb/in Rear.
For reference:
Tokico HP: 345 lb/in Front, 195 lb/in Rear
Koni Red's: Said to be 'good for springs up to 350 lb/in', from which you can assume they are valved around 385 lb/in Front, 385 lb/in Rear.
KYB GR-2: (15-20% stiffer than stock [as stated by KYB engineer a few weeks ago]), so one could assume: 243-253 lb/in Front, 135-140 lb/in Rear
Billstein HD: (said to be oem replacement only [without revalving])
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