Re: More strut stuff

[Iain Mannix <mannix@privateI.com>]

At 9:33 AM -0600 01/07/1998, Crane, Damien wrote:
>Hi everyone
>
>I have been interestedly reading all of the postings regarding struts
>lately especially since I am very interested in adjustables.  It seems
>that the overwhelming favorite is Koni.

They are very popular among VW owners - they seem to work well, last a long
time, and are not excessively overpriced.

  I am wondering is this due to
>experience with them vs. other adjustable brands or just a personal
>preference.  I never hear anything about GAB, Spax, or Tokico.  Have
>people had bad experiences with these brands?

GAB supposedly makes a very good damper, but no one I know has tried them
on a VW.  I am curious.  They are known to be _stiff_, a friend has a set
for the rear of his DStock Nissan 200SX SE-R, he took them off because they
were too stiff, made the car nervous and unpredictable.  They were/are the
shock to have for the Mazda RX7 twin turbo in SS(SCCA SoloII).  I believe
they are roughly $700/set for a VW, expensive shock, who knows if it really
is better than the Koni.

Spax have been somewhat ignored.  I've seen them on Formula Fords, which
surprised me - until they started advertising in EC and others, I had only
heard of them, knew nothing about them.  When I saw the ads, I assumed they
were just another crappy shock, but seeing them on "real race cars" makes
me wonder.  Don't know much about them, but the British magazines rave
about them.  They are British, are they not?  Patriotic bunch, them Brits,
makes me wonder about biases, but makes me wonder nonetheless.  For what it
is worth, don't flame me for making fun of British people - just stating my
perceptions.  "If its not Scottish, its crap," right?  Sorta a joke, but
seems to hold true - my mother is an import direct from Edinburgh, I've got
a dual citizenship(US/UK), spent(too much) time there, etc.  Stereotype,
sure, and we all know how driven by advertising dollars the US magazines
are.  Just suspicion.

Tokicos have something of a reputation for being unreliable in VW land.  I
know two VW owners with Tokicos, both have had problems of some sort.  Two
people(three shocks) are not enough to make a judgement upon, but the
reputation seems to be something to consider, although they claim to have
"fixed" the problem.  I've talked to a number of people about Tokicos, one
of which was Steve Hoelscher, whose machinist drives/autocrosses a Rabbit.
According to him, the Tokico was the best off the shelf shock they tried.
Something to consider, Hoelscher is no chump when it comes to car setup.
As far as the compression and rebound adjustability, you are right - the
Tokico is the only one which makes both adjustable without special
order(Koni does make double adjustable for a price, as does Carrera, GAB),
but the problem is that the c&r adjustments are not separate on the Tokico
- one adjustment, the shock gets stiffer or softer in both directions.  Not
inherently bad, but I prefer to have adjustable rebound independent of
compression, let the springs do their thing WRT compression.  The Koni is
by no means soft in compression, either - it is fairly firm.  If I could
afford a truly double adjustable shock, I probably would get it, but I
don't consider the Illumina to be truly double adjustable.  Again, not
saying it is bad - had I spoken with Hoelscher before I bought Konis, I
probably would have gotten Tokicos, even against my better judgement from a
durability standpoint.  As far as reliability, they can all go - I've blown
up 4 Bilsteins, seen bad Konis, know a guy whose GABs went bad after a
year.  None are perfect.  I got Konis, and I am very happy with them - good
ride, the adjustable rebound is nice and I'd guess it is sufficient up to
about an 800# spring, mine have been reliable so far, no complaints.

 Also, it seems that the
>Tokico Illumina is the only reasonably priced one that is adjustable for
>both compression and rebound.  Does one gain anything significant by
>having compression adjustability?

I believe that having both is potentially good, but rebound is more
important by far.  I also feel that if I had both, I'd spend too much time
futzing with them to really get them dialed - I simply set my Konis and go,
play with them a bit if the car is handling strange.  I'd consider Tokico,
but I don't know if they are really better than the Koni.  I do know the
Koni is very, very good.  Hope this helps!


I.Mannix


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