Advice on Koni Adjustment

I received my Koni adjustables today and they are the kind that have to be pre-adjusted before you install them. You push the rod all the way down and engage a gear mechanism. You turn the rod left for soft and right for firm.

Well, how am I supposed to know where I want them adjusted without having them on the car and trying out different settings? I have pretty light springs--they're 4kg/mm in front. Should I just set the shocks to the middle and hope that's close?

The Konis for my MR2 had the knob adjustment on top so they were a snap to tune.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks JP

In reply to redvalkyrie:

So, what car are they going on? I can tell you that on my 66 Mustang, with a slightly stiffer than stock springs, my Konis are set on full soft.

My Lotus Elan has them set in the middle.

I like these settings on these cars with my driving style. You really just have to experiment.

YMMV, obviously.

In reply to gjz30075:

They're going on a 82 Toyota Starlet.

I had those on my gti, what a pain in the ass design. Good luck, I hope you guess the right setup the first try.

I have those types on 2 vehicles. both times I set them at 1/4 turn from full soft and then installed. haven't felt any need to remove and change the settings but these are only street driven cars.

The answer is that you get to set them full soft, drive and then take them apart and adjust them....rinse repeat.

Another option would be to send them to a shop with a shock dyno and get some days you can use to set get them close to the ideal suspension frequency.

Anybody know what they come "set" at from Koni when they arrive? I have a set for a 128i that I will be installing shortly (and funnily enough, the fronts come with topside adjusters).

My understanding is that they should ship set at full soft but Koni says to check them anywise.

My general fuel has been the heavier tge car the stiffer the settings in the shock/strut. This is for track use. For street use I would soften it up by one quarter is the range. In most cases the race cars have had stiffer springs added as well. For stock springs I would soften things up a bit.

The short of it is you wave several things to look at and take in to account when setting up shocks. I would error on the side of a bit softer for the street. Fro racing I usually go more towards the middle then try and dial I the car by adjusting one end of the car to get balance.

I set mine at 1/4 of the way from full soft to full hard stiff (on stock springs on a BMW E82).

You want to make sure that they're not too stiff so as to not hamper weight transfer to the front under braking (probably more important for autocross than road course). That was the main physics argument I conjured as to why not to go stiffer.

I had a 240sx and the rear Konis were this type. I set them at full soft initially, then drove the car for a few days, and go up a 1/4 turn at a time until it felt right. Once they were set I never touched them again.