Anyone tried the new Koni FSD struts?

[jakeru]

Here is the shock dyno plot for my two rear 986 Koni sports. (I believe set to minimum rebound setting.)


The purpose of the dyno run (performed by Koni) was to verify that both sides matched before they sent my repalcements. This was the replacement set Koni shipped which I still need to install in the car. The set I initially got and returned were quite uneven in low speed compression damping (even without a shock dyno, it was blatantly obvious to me that one side compressed about 3x as fast as the other given an approximately equal force... which is definitely not the hot ticket as on konis only the rebound adjusts so you'd be stuck with screwed up shock valving and poor handling characteristics!)

I'd be interested to hear what the above plots looks like (in terms of the "kinked" shape, etc) for someone really into suspension tuning who is really up in interpreting these things. (Although comparing against similar Koni FSD plots for the 986 rear, if they could be obtained by anyone else somehow, would be very interesting to see!)

I take my suspension setup seriously as I have an interest in autocross racing and any serious competitor there knows the importance of good shocks. (In stock class, shocks are one of the few things that are allowed to be modified.) I trophied at SCCA Solo nationals a few years ago in a "lowly" VW. (But it was rocking custom-valved, double adjustable Konis front and rear.) I hate to say it but the lowly VW can still run circles around my 986 at lower speeds. (At higher speed, the aerodynamics of course favor the Boxster.) So I've got some more work to do on my fairly high-mileage 986 to bring it up to my performance expectations for what a Porsche should do. (The front suspension rebuild was already a huge improvement, but I'm really looking forward to getting the rear Koni spots on there.) For many years, I've admired watching Boxsters with the mesmerizing and amazingly neutral looking handling dynamics dodging autocross course cones at speed.

[911monty]

Jakeru looks like a very well matched set of shocks. I'm certainly no shock expert, those guys are magicians, anyone that can design a suspension for a stadium truck that can launch 20 feet in the air and land on level ground like a butterfly with sore feet really knows their stuff. What I do see from the chart is that these shocks are very linear. The compression is linear in the slow speed until the transition to high speed where it firms up just prior to valve pack opening and is divergent in the high speed circuit. I see what you mean by not being as divergent as one would expect. In fact I would have expected the initial response curve to be much steeper. These are definitely on the full soft setting based on the rebound slope (no knee). It would have been really useful if they had made a few plots with a couple adjustments to the firmness setting. Guess that's for the experts.