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| Notice how thin the stock front shocks are. The area of the upright surrounding the shock needed to be modified in order to fit our Konis. |
Thankfully, ProParts USA is a factory authorized KONI service and rebuild center. You supply the damper type, dimensions and spring rates you plan on running, and they build you a race-ready damper ready to be installed. We selected KONI model 3011 shocks for the front, and had ProParts install a KONI wet kit conversion for double adjustability for the rear struts. The 3011 series shocks are steel bodied, external double adjustable with a high-pressure monotube design. These shocks have an extremely broad range of adjustment, allowing us to run a multitude of spring rates on many different tracks – something we have yet to take advantage of.
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| The Koni 3011 shocks with threaded collars were substantially thicker than the OE units. |
Since the front damper has a much smaller range of motion, using a monotube shock was extremely important because of the extremely precise control afforded by this design. The KONI wet kit for the rear struts uses parts similar to their 8611 series inserts but has the added benefit of not wasting space from installing a self-contained damper within the relatively small OEM strut housing. Jeff at ProParts ensured we were happy at all times, and ProParts, unlike other companies we contacted for this job, was the only shop willing to build our custom dampers. Both sets of dampers were built with KONI threaded sleeves already installed on them as well as properly sized spacers to use the spherical bearing installed on the bottom of the front shocks with the stock suspension’s mounting points. We were completely satisfied with their service and product and recommend them to anyone needing a custom set of dampers. Both front and rear dampers were valved digressively.
Our G20 needed a slightly different set of springs than is typically found on B13 chassis cars due to the front suspension’s higher motion ratio. To keep the front to rear wheel rate ratio similar to existing B13 racecars we sampled (600in-lb front, 500in-lb rear), we used 700in-lb springs up front, with a 6” length to clear the front suspension upright. Since the rear of the G20 has a very similar setup to an SE-R, we used the same 500in-lb springs in the rear.
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| Our rear set-up should look eerily familiar to the SE-R brethren. |
