what is the point of the adjustability? i hear these struts/shocks are the best- but whats the point? (total noob question i know)

 

WELL WORTH THE MONEY !!!! You will be nothing but happy with the tokico's....they can all be adjusted in less than 5mins, takes more time to find the key to pop open the trunk !! And the adjustability is very wide ranged and makes a huge difference...

well recommended !!

 

You can do all 4 in less than 5 minutes. It's easy.

 

Nice! I need to get some of these after X-mas! How long does the install take for all 4?

 

Adjusting the shock affects both the compression and rebound stroke of the shock. This affects the firmness of your ride. If you are on a road course or autocross or just drving very aggressively, you crank up the firmness (car rides much stiffer, feel more bumps but the handling is better) For day-to-day driving you set them medium - softer ride. For a long hiway trip you might set them soft for a very cushy ride. They are so easy to adjust you could do all of these in one day.

To a weekend mechanic like me, without an extensive tool box, this was not a trivial install, not that its hard, just frustrating. In total my car was up on jackstands for about three days. I had to make three trips to Sears to get tools I didn't have and none of the How-To's I read told me I needed. The rear shocks went in easy enough, took me maybe an hour start to finish. It was the fronts where I got tripped up and like I say, its mainly because I didn't have the right tools. Like here is an example: The stock top nut on the front struts is 21mm. You need a deep well socket or an offset wrench to get to it (neither of which I had)...drive to Sears. Then when re-installing I used J&M Camber Plates in place of the stock throw aways. Low and behold their top nut isn't 21mm...damn thing is 19mm. Back to Sears. Putting the called for Torque on some of the nuts is near impossible without specialized tools. I have a good torque wrench but its 17 inches long and won't fit inside the wheel well to torque the front sway bar end links. So what you end up doing is just snugging the nuts up best you can. If you had a shorty torque wrench then you could do it proper. In the end - my tool chest has expanded, I learned a lot and I have the satisfaction of doing it myselfbut it cost me more money and took more timethan I thought it would.

I know there are guys who will say "easy, takes a couple hours" but I suspect they have more tools and more experience than I.

 

The backs shouldn't take more than an hour and the fronts...If you are putting on new lower ing springs it took me about 45 mins per side ...no big deal. If you are using original springs then you need a spring compresser and it will take a bit longer. Overall, not a hard install at all.

 

Why does everyone on here seem to favor the Tokico's? Does Koni not make a kit for the S197, or is there something I don't know? I had Koni adjustables on my last car, and aside from the [relatively] short life of them, I LOVED what they did to improve the handling..