I'll contact Outmotoring on Monday, but beforehand, I hope some of you guys can shed some light with their "custom made" Koni (Outmotoring) coilovers. Are these better than H&R and Koni Coilovers? And how is the ride quality?

 

I've wondered about these too. I haven't heard of anyone using these either.

 

Looks like ground controls and koni yellows. This is a great setup on almost every application I have seen it with. I had them on my cavalier before I sold it and loved them. I put over 60K on them and they were still going!

 

They look nice. I wonder what their overall damper travel is and if the damper bodies are any shorter than stock. What I'm getting at is; how much of a lower ride height are these designed for. It's basically unheard of that manufacturers actually give any good data like that.

 

CHKMINI has them on his MINI...I'm sure he will eventually post on here once he sees the thread.

 

I think the problem with the Mini is that the swaybar tab is mounted so high up on the shock body that you can't do any meaningful shortening of the damper body.

What I wonder about is if a manufacturer could mount the swaybar bracket a little lower on the strut body (this is obviously not something a guy in his garage can do), and get shorter end links for the swaybar. Maybe something is in the way of doing that, my memory isn't photographic enough

But anyhow, I did some quick measurements on my struts, and there is precious little room for lowering. And Ryephile, I thought I saw a post by you where you calculated that your R56 was on the bumpstops pretty much always.

But anyhow, the point of coilovers is to allow for corner balancing, so in that regard, the Outmotoring units should work just fine.

 

in that case it might be nice if they throw in adjustable endlinks in the
"kit."

 

those outmotoring coil-overs look quite different from the "standard" Koni coil-overs on my car. The outmotoring version has:
- linear springs (vs. progressive on the standard coil-overs)
- different struts (body, threads & adjustment rings look totally different)

that makes me wonder about the internals...

 

Your setup is going to be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT form these. For starters, you have the complete Koni coilover, right? These are knoi yellows with ground control sleeve-over adjustable springs. The full level of adjustability is what makes it a "coilover" as you know it. I would say the Koni setup is better for the street, but this will ride VERY FIRM and should be used for the track. At least, with my cavalier, that was the case. My ground controls and koni yellows were STIFF, whereas my K-Sport coilovers rode very smooth for the street.

I vote for the regular Koni setup over these for the street.

 

Dumb question - Could Outmotoring convert a set of Koni Yellows to these at a lower price point?

 

UPDATE...

According to Outmotoring...

These coilovers were noted as "custom made" because it was designed to be able to inter-change the spring rates, unlike other coilovers for MINIs you can not change at all. The shocks are yellow Koni's, and springs are available in H&R or Eibach (linear springs only). Customer has the option to chose spring rates as soft as 280 or stiff as 375 as well.

How does dampening work? The same way as standard Koni coilovers. Fronts adjust by turning a ****, and the rears adjust by removing shock assembly. OM suggested if you do not plan to track your car, set dampers to soft prior to installation (for rear only).

How about adjusting the ride height? Same as standard Koni coilovers, use the Koni tool (provided) you can go low or high.

Now how is the ride? Same as any coilovers, maybe even better! This all depends with your setup. You want a soft ride for daily driving, order soft springs (300 ), a harder ride, order stiffer springs (375) and there are no extra charge with spring rates you order.

Lastly, these coilovers were designed to accommodate wider tires (as wide as 235s) and come with life time warranty.

 

Thats just not true. TSW will work with you on spring rates for their AST/Swift Spring setup. Cross also offers different spring rates. Thats off the top of my head. Other coilovers may offer the ability to change rates too best to check with the vendor of the brand you are interested in.

 

Gnatster - you are correct, it is not true for most "progressive" springs, but with linear springs/coilovers, you are able to inter-change the rates, well for now I know you can with these Koni's. But like you said, do check with the vendor/manufacturer first if you are looking at different brand.

Regardless of spring rates, I think the beauty of this specific suspension, it's cheaper than most linear coilovers, but yet packs a lot of good quality (it is made by Koni and only carries OM name). So IMO if I decide to by Koni's, I will buy these custom made Konis over the standard Koni coilovers. I believe the price difference is around $200.00.

 

Yes, stock R53 and R56 dampers are highly bumpstop active. Lowering springs majorly kill compression travel, making the ride too harsh for most sensitive booty's.

The other point of coilovers is to lower the car without killing compression travel {I call it uptravel}. A shorter shock body while keeping stroke lets you lower the ride height and maintain the uptravel to droop travel ratio similar to stock. The corner balancing is secondary [IMO] on a street-driven coilover setup.

 

I've had a set of these on my MINI for a little over 20K miles and so far they have been great! I have them set on the softest setting with H&R 375 springs on the front and 300 on the rear. The ride is comparable to all other coilover set-ups I've had on other cars. I also have an Alta 22mm rear bar set on the middle adjustment with Alta control arms. I drive pretty aggressively on twisty roads 110 miles a day to work and back...great set-up and as always, Aaron's customer service at Outmotoring was second to none.

 

Thanks for the info. Have you had the car on the track at all.

 

No, but the handling is so much better I'm looking forward to the first track day this spring.

 

Please let us know what you think about them on the track.
Thanks

 

Anybody else have input on these as a track car coilover?

It sounds like a reasonably good deal. Koni struts are a known commodity, and linear rate springs are also good. As is the small barrel diameter so we can get that beautiful camber up front.

Are the struts short enough that there is still some travel left in the suspension? I don't care if the travel is gone when the suspension is "slammed", but when set ~1" below stock - or whatever the "optimal track ride height" is - how much suspension travel is there to work with?

 

Does anybody know where i can get the sleeves and spring perches to convert my Konis to sth like that?

 

I only have a personal squabble with these. They use progressive rates. Not my cup o' tea.

That's NOT to say they aren't great quality. Outmotoring is the shizzle.

 

As previously posted, I had these on my R53 and they were great. I just recently got an '09 JCW without the suspension package because I am going to this set-up again.

 

Try Ground control, they do it for just about every other car.

Or try Outmotoring.

The Outmotoring Koni coilovers use linear springs. The Koni brand coilovers use progressives.

My guess is they are standard Mini Koni yellows (not really a bad thing, they would rock with 300 lbs/in rate).

- Andrew

 

Truechoice in Ohio made those for Outmotoring. They are the Koni kings in that area.

 

The Koni + Ground Control coilover combo has proven to be a great setup on various cars - Mustangs, BMWs etc etc. I use a similar Koni + GC setup on my RX7.

The Koni shocks provide a good combination of street quality ride and trackable performance and the GC kit allows you to select the spring rate that you want and corner balance the car.