[Mk2] [NA] Rev 5 fast road car - Strut options, konis?

[Big bob]

Hi everyone. I have a rev 5 as a daily driver and it will shortly be V6'd (rx300 vvti engine) by Paul. The look of the car is stock, lovely condition, original wheels etc and I want to keep it that way. The car has done 165k though and will need sorting out in the handling department. Been there and done the coilover thing with an MR2 before and it was rubbish.
Has anyone any experience with a koni sport kit? It looks good value at under 600 quid. I'm not looking to lower the car so I'm hoping the 20mm drop wont have much of an effect to where it is now in relation height of the tired original springs.

Thanks

Rob

[markstevieandmads]

If your not looking to lower it then i would go for standard new kit.

[aussieGT]

I went with Koni yellows and Eibach springs. Really pleased with them, car sit at about standard height.

[Angpozzuto]

I was also looking at these just wondering are they completely new struts or inserts

[Race Idiot]

Konis are inserts and are well worth the money.

[CalMac]

I fitted new Koni's with Eibach springs earlier this year and they're in a completely different league to all of the coilovers I've previously tried.

Don't find the firmness adjustment makes any noticeable difference though tbh, maybe useful on track but on road they're great all round.

Front also sits a little higher than the rear on Eibach springs, which bugs me. Perhaps the Koni springs would sit more evenly.

You'll need rebuildable struts for the Koni inserts, but I think as you have a Rev 5 they might be rebuildable anyway?

[Race Idiot]

I ran a simmilar setup but with TRD springs, made for a very good ride. Although the konis lasted about 60,000 miles before becoming a bit crashy.

Ended up replacing them with some used Bilstein B6, which were allright but I wasnt so fussed as the current 2 doesnt get used daily.

Although i've just got some H&R coilovers over from Germany, these have dampers made by Billstein and also use helper springs to improve the ride. Plus they use standard type topmounts so you dont have added NVH from solid pillowball ones.

I'm hoping that these will be the first set of coilovers that i'll be impressed with. I've had a few in the past and not been impressed, but most of them have been jdm ones or taiwan specials like BC.

[kirk]

How do you rate the H&R's just out of curiosity if you have them on your car already?

[Race Idiot]

I've had them on my car for a little while and they are definitely an improvement over the yellow billies with trd springs. But the yellow billies I had were quite old, so i'd expect the ride to be an improvement.

The ride is a fair bit less crashy than the bc's I had on the car, the low speed ride is pretty good over speedhumps and bad roads. NVH is pretty good too because it uses std style topmounts instead of camber plates, but the top strutbolt is notched so you can add some camber like that if needed.

My car is fairly stiff because I have 22mm arb's and a custom made PW front brace. But the H&R's definitely soaked up the bumps and yumps of my usual B-Road route I like to take.

I'd like to take em on track but I dont think i'll be able too until the weather gets nice again next year

[rev3gtturbo]

Some of the main roads around here are so bad the last time I replaced shocks I got oem all round. Even the newly resurfaced/widened roads are really bumpy. I dont just mean pothole patches, I mean when they do the whole thing as well.
They used to be able to do some really good road surfaces so dont know why it has to be so bad these days.

Oem shocks/springs work really well on twisty country roads assuming you can get a good run at them and the speed limit has not been dropped from 60 to 30!