glgorman

I am about to upgrade my suspention this springs and shocks.
But there is one question that needs to be answered.

Where can you get koni shocks for the s197 stang?

if any one can help me out with this along with the price i would be very greatfull.

thanks Glenn

RodeoFlyer

You can't get Koni shocks for these cars yet. The jerks over in Holland are dragging their asses. I've had a few conversations with people at Koni. They've been telling me " a month or two" for over a year.

You can get Koni's through Ground Control with their coilover conversion kit. These are Koni's that they have modified to work. I'm not sure how I feel about that. You can also get them with Grigg's kits, assuming you have thousands of dollars.

Until then - buy Tokico's or sit on your thumbs like me. I have Bilsteins now and can't complain.

steelcomp

RF is right, except that GC does not modify Koni's. Koni builds the shocks for GC to their specs. For the fronts, GC builds their own strut housing, and they use a Koni cartridge, made by Koni. The rears are just Koni shocks, with seperate adjustable springs.

glgorman

called koni and about 3 other koni distributors they all said mid to end of july.

so now do i wait to get them or just get tokicos?

F1Fan

LOL! Both Bilstien and Konihave been saying that to mefor 2 years! When Bilstien finally released a damper line for the S197 chassis they screwed the performance orienteddrivers bygiving usthe low-end "HD" struts and rear dampers for the S197 chassis. The Bilstien HD line ofdampers are great fora soft riding DD street car but BilstienHD's arestuck in permanent comfort modeand lack exterenally adjustable dampingthough thedamper piston's valve stack is speed sensitive as are all Bilstien gas dampers. The Bilstien HD'sarenot a performance design, they are an OE replacement damper theyare not designed or built with shorter damper shafts for lower ride height sportsprings as they should be asareBilstien's Sportdampers.The real bummer isthere are no plans to offer the good stuff (Bilstien Sports), for the S197! [sm=boosign.gif]

The only reason youcouldpossibly want to keep waiting for Koni to release struts and dampers for the S197 chassis is if Koni is going to releasea Koni Sport lineadjustable gas damper for the S197 chassis. Otherwise you are going to be waitng for a damper line that is just like the "HD" from Bilstien and of no value for the sport oriented driver. AFAIK Koni has not commitedin the press or even to me (orANY of the distributors that I have talked to), to releasing a Koni Sport damper set for the S197 chassis. If and when Koni did release a Koni Sport class damper set I would buy them in a second and sellmy Tokico D-Spec dampers. Koni Sport dampers historically always been tremendous quality and have very sport oriented damping rates and bounce/jouncedamper ratios. As good as the Tokico D-Spec dampers are when compared to the stockFord struts and dampers the Koni Sports should make the same amount of difference in adjustability andcontrol.

If you are interested in highperformance handling and interested in a good driving decent ridingroad car and go to open track eventsseveral times a year the D-Specs are more than you need. If you are a road course fanatic and have an interest in getting on the track or dodging conesin parking lots on a very regular basis Buy D-Specs now and rplace themif and when Koni releases theKoni Sport dampersfor the S197 chassis ORhave a set of Penskedampers build up for you if you have a spare $8-10K you want to burn on a really good set of struts and dampers.

HTH!

RodeoFlyer

Koni has part #'s assigned for their FSD's, which are similar to the Bilstein's, and the yellows. They didn't assign part #'s until about 2 months ago. I only got the Bilsteins because I got a screamin deal and wasn't thrilled with Tokico's because of their reputation in the past. The D-Speca have really proven themselves. I keep waiting and waiting because it's Murphy's law that when I buy them Koni's will be released the mext day lol.

F1Fan

RF,

Murphy was too smart for hisown good!I thoughtKoni was going todo that to me so I justbought theD-Specs and waited to see what happend. Well I've been driving on them for going on2 years now is what happened! Of course I had a lot of fun in the mean time playing and driving on the D-Specs! Don't get your hopes up and maybe we'll get lucky.

Cheers!

glgorman

One of the tech guys call me back later in the day, i talk to him for almost an hour about shocks.

The main thing I got out of it was that they have been fine tuning the compression damping since they are only signaladjustable. They should be coming mid to later July, with double adjustable coming 6 to 12 months later, these will be truly independent adjustable shocks, not the half *** d-spec style of adjusting, designed for road-racing and open track companions.

So I think I am going to get a set of d-specs for now then next summer hopefully, cross my fingers, I will by a set of these double adjustable koni’s.

P.S. the sport shocks should run 5-6 hundred and the doubles about 1000.

RodeoFlyer

Yeah we know lol. I'm not being a dick i've just been there done thatas far as talking to Koni. The SA are the yellows and the DA are the reds. I was told they're having issues on the reds as far as being able to adjust the reds without removing the wheels. Adjusting them on Fox/SN-95's was a bitch.

Even if they have the yellows available by July (believe me I hope they do), they will be back-ordered for a while because all of us want them. I'm aggravated with Maximum too. I was told they would have stuff available months ago.

carockwell

What is so great about Koni's? I have been working on performance cars for over 25 years and IMHO Koni's are a mediocre shock at a high price. In particular the Koni struts never seem to last more than 30,000 miles. The single shocks, like what you would put on the rear, are fine. Bilstein, Tockico,and KYB are better. I used to have nothing but trouble with Tockico but I guess times have changed.