Has anyone done this and can comment on the differences? Any regrets?

 

Coilover too stiff for you?

 

Its borderline. I'm really on the fence!

 

You have Megans?

I have some older Koni Coilovers that are basically a Koni Yellow with adustable perches. I have Eibach lowering springs on the front and ASTs on the back. Does it ride like a Cadillac? No, but is not I what I consider bone jarring either. I just got back from MOTD and quite happy with the set up. Front is about 1" lower and the back is 3/4" although I do have the driver rear adjusted up just over 1/4" higher than the passenger side as with the steering wheel and my butt, the back will drop down to an inch when the the top is down or the trunk is loaded.

The Eibachs came with the Koni package and were made for a R53 that is heavier in the front than the R52. AST is the only company that makes lowering springs specifically for a R52. A R53 rear lowering spring just cannot take the extra weight and you are riding on the bump stop just about all the time. The AST fronts will drop about 1 1/4" but I did not want to go that far, hence the Eibach that with the lighter front end of the R52 only drop an inch.

I think the ASTs are 270 lbs.

 

Thanks for the info.

Im tryig to order fsd but they are out of stock a lot of places.. waiting on one vendor now. Are they being replaced soon, or going out of production?

 

I did. The only time I regret it is when I'm driving REALLY hard up in the mountains, which isn't very frequent. The trade off of course is a much more livable daily drive. No regrets overall.

 

I have coilovers on my track car and FSD with red springs on my JCW.

I just replaced the FSD with koni yellows, much better but it is a stiffer ride. The FSD were great on good roads but we do not have good roads here and they would bottom out onto the jounce bumper too much. The yellows have stiffer high speed so they do not bottom out anywhere near as much

 

FSD are now going nla. Koni is coming out with something new to replace them so hold tight. Only thing we have left in stock is the F55+ FSD's. It will be sometime in June when the new ones come out.

 

Per our Koni Rep they are still going to make FSDs but going to change the color and make customers buy them individually instead of as a set.

We actually have the FSD sets in stock and ready to ship for all years.
https://www.waymotorworks.com/koni-fsd-shocks.html

 

Yes, the FSD technology is being carried over but the actual shock will be called a new name. The old FSD golds are going away. Koni just told me.

They have a great video and info here:

https://www.koni.com/en-US/Cars/Prod...pecial-Active/

 

So the fsd tech is just being relabeled/remarketed, not improved upon?

 

I suspect that your FSD's bottomed out because you ran them with a shorter spring. The FSD's are designed to be used with the original spring only on the MINI's. I've not run into that problem much at all with the original springs.

 

I was wondering about that too.. I heard that even with the slightly shorter jcw springs, the fsd will fail, and they'd definitely be more prone to bottoming then.

 

They have not failed but they lack stiff enough high speed damping for bad roads in my opinion

 

Koni was here and they stated they are improved upon and should have a longer life /durability.

 

Don’t buy FSD’s if your not running stock basic springs period, they will fail.

If you have coilovers and the shocks are not bad buy new SWIFT springs for your coilovers. The difference is night and day.

I had KW springs on my custom KW v2 and they started to fail after a year. I was going to buy Ohlins or AST’S but my friend said to upgrade the silly soft KW springs with SWIFT springs first and that was the trick. They are still on the car years later and still feel and ride great.

 

Welp my order arrived yesterday, openend the box and they are the red special actives, so it looks like they are starting to ship! That was a nice surprise. I got them on today, and they feel pretty good, complaint and soft but little body roll. Turn in and corner stability is not as good as the megans though, even though I went back to my ie -1deg camber plates and went to full hard on my 25mm rear bar.

The wife prefers these.. My megans are up for sale!

 

That's great, you are like the first MINI to have these in the states, congrats.

 

 

Those look great, let me know how the ride feels to you.

 

What springs are you using with the new Koni actives? I'm wondering if the stock JCW spring or the TSW spring Way sells will work with them, or does the Koni actives have the same spring restriction the older FSD's had.

 

Yes, like the FSD, you are supposed to retain stock ride height. I am using the stock R52 jcw springs. You need to go to yellows to go lower.

 

So the FSDs are the softest for lumps but also good for performance street driving?? Thank you in advance!!

 

Just put the Special Actives on and man, what an improvement over a sport suspension with 50K mi.. Tossing the runflats was also a great mod, for me at least,