Jom vs h&r race springs

[gtdragon980]

I'm not sure what's all this talk about bottoming out on Bilstein Sports. If you ride unreasonably low, yes you will bottom out or sit on bumpstops. From my experience, Bilstein Sports are a TOUGH shock. It takes a lot to blow them. And this is coming from a guy who ran coilovers all the way down on them for over a year, wised up and raised them and still had great compression/rebound.
I can't comment on Koni, but more times than none I've read how they don't last when compared to Bilstein. Oh wellz.

Lol oh trust me, I'm with you on that. I've been a supporter of bilstein shocks since I got my first set. Love the way they feel! I have not ridden on konis very much nor driven on them so I wouldn't know about them. I was just surprised and confused why people say bilstein is inferior.

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[Northern]

Shorter camber plates doesn't compensate for shock travel! It just lessens the "stack height" of your suspension a little. So you're car as a whole came down X amount of cm's now, or you moved your strut assembly up X amount of cm's (however you want to look at it).

No kidding, I'm saying that when I lost an inch of strut travel from the thinner stack height design of the top perch of the gc plates, it bottoms out frequently, and before with the regular ge top perch it just occasionally bottoms out. The strut did not move.

All the camber plates compensated for were the shitty camber plates they replaced.

I'mtrying to asay that bilsteins are great, but they are not optimized for a low car.

[Earendil]

No kidding, I'm saying that when I lost an inch of strut travel from the thinner stack height design of the top perch of the gc plates, it bottoms out frequently, and before with the regular ge top perch it just occasionally bottoms out.

I'm confused. A camber plate can't (or shouldn't) effect how far a strut can travel. If you have the same amount of travel as before, with the same springs, why would you bottom out more? It can raise or lower the car, but it doesn't effect the strut. You could replace the camber plate with a 2 foot stack of bricks and while your car would be two feet higher, the strut would function the exact same, with the exact same travel.

[ak-]

I'm confused. A camber plate can't (or shouldn't) effect how far a strut can travel. If you have the same amount of travel as before, with the same springs, why would you bottom out more? It can raise or lower the car, but it doesn't effect the strut. You could replace the camber plate with a 2 foot stack of bricks and while your car would be two feet higher, the strut would function the exact same, with the exact same travel.

Yes, this is what I was trying to explain. Is it possible that it was maybe installed incorrectly somehow (washers?) and a clunking noise could be mimicking the sound of bottoming out? :(

[nrubenstein]

Just to be clear here: In a STOCK length strut housing, you can achieve MORE travel with Bilsteins than you can with Konis. You just have to pop the bottom cap off and cut out part of the bump stop. This is because the Konis have an external bump stop which takes away from the maximum possible suspension travel, whereas the Bilsteins can safely compress down to the gland nut.

Standard E30 full size Konis are pretty shitty. As a rule, my experience with Konis is that they are also less durable.

Ultimately, both shocks are pretty dated.

[Roysneon]

What the fuck I just bought some Billy sports with IE3 springs. Is it really that bad of an idea?

No, it's going to be just fine. I prefered the way my car was with the GE coilovers in every way, but the springs are less work and do not require you to cut your perches off the housings. There is nothing wrong with using those shocks; in fact, I'd recommend them and won't stop doing so until something that performs better for your intended usage is available.

I've been happy with my Bilstein/H&R Race setup. It works well enough, and I don't have to screw with it.

.....

Think about how hard you actually drive your car. Are you really pushing it that hard?

I'm sure there are assholes who do drive their cars too damn hard on the street, and they will chirp up saying how they do so, but any reasonable person is either going to go with a simple, quality suspension for a street car or they have a mostly competition based car and will already know what they need to look for in a damper.

[Earendil]

I'm sure there are assholes who do drive their cars too damn hard on the street, and they will chirp up saying how they do so, but any reasonable person is either going to go with a simple, quality suspension for a street car or they have a mostly competition based car and will already know what they need to look for in a damper.

You forgot the third group. Those of us that go to the track, don't race, but attempt to drive every ounce out of our cars. I think more of your first group should do that, and they need to gain knowledge somehow. I'm not sure if the OP is in this third group, but I am :)

[Cabriolet]

Lol oh trust me, I'm with you on that. I've been a supporter of bilstein shocks since I got my first set. Love the way they feel! I have not ridden on konis very much nor driven on them so I wouldn't know about them. I was just surprised and confused why people say bilstein is inferior

i have owned many types of suspension. the konis hands down to every person that drives my 2 cars with identical suspension says the koni car feels better. i know so many people with blown billies. with <30k miles. where as my last set of konis was 200k miles and still preformed very well.

*IF* it's true that Bilsteins are linear and Konis are not (which I doubt) then that portion of it is comfort vs performance. For performance, you want a linear (read: predictable) compression. You don't want to turn into a corner and have it go soft to hard mid weight transition.

since you dont want to do your own research

http://www.e30m3project.com/e30m3performance/tech_articles/susp-tech/shock_dyno/rear_shock.htm

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=87352

The reason you dont want to rely on the shocks for this:
The car sits on the springs. and you want the wheels to give under hard bumps but then not bounce around after the bump. While I would say on a smooth track billies will out preform the Konis. The Konis on DD/autox/bumpy tracks will out preform the billies. the konis are soft on the initial bump so they feel much nicer to the passengers. then add on that you can adjust them for the spring rates you are running and that makes them full win.

[nando]

Having gone from Koni SA to Bilsteins custom valved, I would never buy Bilsteins for street use again.

Some of you guys get confused about what the purpose for a suspension is. What race cars use on a race track doesn't mean that's the best for a mostly street car, and vice versa. I might do Bilsteins again for track use, but I'd make them dyno them before accepting them. By default they'll make them way too stiff for the street and even the track.

For street use Konis ride way, way better. It's not even close. The adjustability doesn't mean you play with it all the time - it means you adjust it to suit your springs, and then leave it alone forever (or until you change something else).

The ride quality of my custom bilsteins is horrid. it's like riding on a washboard. And over bumpy surfaces, the handling isn't very good because the car bounces all over the place. There are times I feel like my internal organs are going to come out my nose over bumps that I shouldn't even be able to feel.

On smooth surfaces it handles extremely well. On a race track it'd probably be fantastic. On the street, it just sucks.

as far as the price of customization, Bilstein doubled it last year. I think it's around $150 per corner, not including dynoing. After all that you may end up with what I have - shocks that aren't really that good for either purpose.

also, there's some pretty ignorant comments on the two. Bilsteins are inverted. The giant "rod" you see is actually the body of the shock, it's not the shaft. The koni's shaft is much larger, but that doesn't say anything about the quality.

mototube vs twin tube - paper arguments. And neither will last forever. My Konis were dead after 150k. I already noticed the Bilsteins got a lot softer after a year of use, which is the only way I've been able to tolerate them at all.

[Cabriolet]

^ excellent post. you should sticky that.

[Roysneon]

You forgot the third group. Those of us that go to the track, don't race, but attempt to drive every ounce out of our cars. I think more of your first group should do that, and they need to gain knowledge somehow. I'm not sure if the OP is in this third group, but I am :)

I classified track days as "competition" even though you're really only competing against yourself. Everyone throws out the term "track" as a verb and I find it annoying. Anyone who needs to change their dampers to get the most from their driving already has a damn good idea what they need. I don't believe that any weekend warriors (no disrespect inteded) who take their cars to DE's and Auto-x events and still street drives it is going to seriously consider JOM coils.

[Earendil]

I'm going to try and be a little nicer and give you some respect, which you didn't care to show me at all with your language or comprehension of my post.

since you dont want to do your own research

http://www.e30m3project.com/e30m3performance/tech_articles/susp-tech/shock_dyno/rear_shock.htm

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=87352

That's nice, thanks for the graphs. You don't know that I've never done research, only that I didn't present it or state my opinion as fact. A few things to note with the research you did:

• The first graph has no units, so while we can observe that the rebound on one shock might be greater, without knowing by how much we don't know if the difference is meaningful. Welcome to statistics and graphs 101.
• The second graph has units, yay! It also doesn't agree with the first. The second graph with units shows the Koni SA to have a linear compression, just as I suspected. I appreciate you showing me a graph that backs me up.
• Next time you post some research, try and go to the source of the research. You did this with the first one, intentional or not, and I appreciate that.

The reason you dont want to rely on the shocks for this:

So that we're clear, I don't know what you mean by "this". I didn't talk about anything relying on the shocks.

The car sits on the springs. and you want the wheels to give under hard bumps but then not bounce around after the bump. While I would say on a smooth track billies will out preform the Konis. The Konis on DD/autox/bumpy tracks will out preform the billies. the konis are soft on the initial bump so they feel much nicer to the passengers. then add on that you can adjust them for the spring rates you are running and that makes them full win.

I made no claim to which shock is better. I currently run billies, and my next set with likely be Koni's, but for exactly zero of the reasons you just stated. Because, you know, I do my research.

And if you're about to say "but but but the graph shows the rebound isn't linear, so you're wrong!" then you don't know what I meant by "turn in". I made zero statement about what the rebound would do.

I'm not sure what you mean by the konis's out perming the billies on the street. I specifically called out "Performance vs Comfort". No one should be driving on the street in a way where they can tell the performance difference between these two shocks. They should absolutely know the Comfort difference though, which seems to be what you're addressing, and not what I was.

Let me try and reword my previous post. For PERFORMANCE on a hard surface you would want a linear compression shock to go with you're linear spring so that your weight transfer during turn in is linear. That is what both shocks appear to do based on the graphs you linked to, so the subject is a non issue unless we drag in a 3rd shock for discussion that doesn't have a linear compression.

I'm of course open to having my knowledge questioned, if you're nice about it. I'm certainly not an expert, yet :)

[Cabriolet]

I'm going to try and be a little nicer and give you some respect,

That's nice, thanks for the graphs. You don't know that I've never done research, only that I didn't present it or state my opinion as fact.
[*]The second graph has units, yay! It also doesn't agree with the first. The second graph with units shows the Koni SA to have a linear compression, just as I suspected. I appreciate you showing me a graph that backs me up.

sorry, didnt mean to come across that harsh.
if you look closely, you will see that the billies are the linear graph for compression and the konis are not linear but have a twist in both curves. in both rebound and compression that twist in the curve i prefer since the springs i run are also progressive.

So that we're clear, I don't know what you mean by "this". I didn't talk about anything relying on the shocks.

And if you're about to say "but but but the graph shows the rebound isn't linear, so you're wrong!" then you don't know what I meant by "turn in". I made zero statement about what the rebound would do.

Let me try and reword my previous post. For PERFORMANCE on a hard surface

I'm of course open to having my knowledge questioned, if you're nice about it. I'm certainly not an expert, yet :)

if you want absolute performance on the track you'd go re-valved billies with linear coilovers. where is on the street, touring roads, rally you need non-linear so you recover from bounces faster. the back roads around here have holes that could swallow my mother. and if you run linear you bounce in and out of them. and it's quite scary

by hard surfaces do you mean just road? or do you mean smooth?

[Earendil]

sorry, didnt mean to come across that harsh.
if you look closely, you will see that the billies are the linear graph for compression and the konis are not linear but have a twist in both curves. in both rebound and compression that twist in the curve i prefer since the springs i run are also progressive.

Bigger men than you have never come back and said sorry for a misunderstanding. No harm done :)

The problem is that the only graph showing both shocks has no units. I can compress and zoom any graph to make it say anything I want, assuming you ignore the units. The graph showing only Koni's has units, and also shows a very linear compression and a curved rebound. My guess (and it is just that without knowing the source of either) is that the one with units is more accurate. As I said, we can say that the Koni is less linear, but that difference could be in Octillionth units of fracking-tiny :)

if you want absolute performance on the track you'd go re-valved billies with linear coilovers. where is on the street, touring roads, rally you need non-linear so you recover from bounces faster. the back roads around here have holes that could swallow my mother. and if you run linear you bounce in and out of them. and it's quite scary

by hard surfaces do you mean just road? or do you mean smooth?

Quite right. I suppose I mean smooth, but a hard surface with a hole in it has air and is no longer hard ;)

[Cabriolet]

lb vs in/s

Koni SA Front


Koni SA Rear