My Koni Coilover Adjustment Procedure

[Moops]

Greetings,

This may help people that are concerned about how hard it is to adjust Koni coilovers UP while they are installed on the car.

Luckily my coilovers were "almost" perfect when we installed them (2" of thread below the perch in the fronts, 1.5" of thread below the perch in the rear). However I wanted to move the fronts up about 1/4" to get my perfect look. I tried to do this twice and couldn't move the perch more than 90 degrees. The problem was the perch would not slide under the spring but it would "twist" the spring making it very difficult to make progress as the spring would just "un-twist" and move the perch back to where I started.

My solution was to relieve the pressure at the point where it was digging into the perch so I could slide the perch under the spring. To do this I bought a small ratchet vinyl strap at Home Depot. I used this to slightly compress the spring where I thought the greatest pressure was. Once I did this I had no problem moving the perch up 4 full turns. Here are some pics:

I tried to get the strap as close to the end of the spring as possible:


Before compressing spring:


After slight compression:

[TheEZest]

cool, so what do you know about adjusting the dampening. i know the coilovers have to be taken off the car but do they need to be taken apart with a spring compressor as well?

[TheEZest]

btw...what did you use to turn the perch? the little tool that koni gives you?

[Moops]

TheEZest,

Rears can be adjusted while on the car *if* you dremel a slot in your rear shock housing so you can access it. A4 in SC has done this. The fronts have to be removed and the spring removed. To adjust the dampening you have to compress the shock fully....

and yes I did use the Koni supplied wrench.

[TheEZest]

damn so even if i remove the whole front coilovers from the car, im still gonna need to use a spring compressor to adjust the dampening on them. damn it!!!

[hotani]

I'm still researching koni coilovers, but from what others have said its best to have the fronts set on about the softest setting, and yeah no way to change it without a re-install. ouch.

This is the first I've heard about a mod to allow adjustment of the rears while they are on the car, that's good to know -- thanks Moops.

[audisnapr]

what is the best way to compress springs when doing a strut replacement? I'm aware of the strut/spring compression tool, but has anyone tried to do this job using the ratchet tie-down straps like moops did for the koni adjustment?

[Starting]

be safe and get something that can hold the pressure. If a spring were to shoot at you when decently compressed it would do a lot of damage. v=1/2kx^2

[littlewhite]

All i know is that it was a bitch to adjust with only 1 wrench tool. They only gave me one.

[Moops]

jwstampfl,

I wouldn't try it. Luckily the more often I have done this to adjust the perch I have found it doesn't take much compression with the strap to be able to turn the perch. When I did use a little more force than needed the strap sounded like a high pitched guitar string when plucked and the spring had just barely compressed not even off the perch. Seems like too much risk for only a little easier job.

I admit I was tempted with using the straps over the bolt style spring compressors, especially when I see straps like these holding cargo on a huge truck all the time but would never do it.

[audispeed]

Originally posted by hotani
I'm still researching koni coilovers, but from what others have said its best to have the fronts set on about the softest setting, and yeah no way to change it without a re-install. ouch.

This is the first I've heard about a mod to allow adjustment of the rears while they are on the car, that's good to know -- thanks Moops.

No. Most people feel that the konis are almost underdamped. Most people run the fronts at around 85% of full rebound dampening and the rears a little less. In a 2.8, its not all that uncommon to see people running the fronts at 95 - 100% of the rebound dampening. Some people even buy sets made for the S4 so that they can find a good setup in the middle of the dampening range. If I were to buy again, would probably do this. I dont like running the shocks at pretty much their full rebound.

[IndieRockSteve]

interesting, I'm looking at getting these.
is the damping something that needs to be changed when the height is adjusted? I really only think I'll adjust them for winter driving (I am in NH), at which point I dunno if adjusting the damping will be worth it since I won't be "performance driving" in the winter...

any thoughts on this?

[audispeed]

Originally posted by IndieRockSteve
interesting, I'm looking at getting these.
is the damping something that needs to be changed when the height is adjusted? I really only think I'll adjust them for winter driving (I am in NH), at which point I dunno if adjusting the damping will be worth it since I won't be "performance driving" in the winter...

any thoughts on this?

i plan on leaving mine the same

[Bondomination]

K, so noob question here. On the actual coilover there's two little dials at the bottom of the spring (or pearch?) But I tried to adjust them down the other day cause mine is all the way up, and the top pearch won't budge. Do the two pearch dial things turn in opposite direction to go down?