Dennisrh
True Classic
My 1986 X 1/9 was pretty clean when I got it, but it needed a little work to make it the way I wanted it.
As I posted in part I, my X got damaged on its truck ride to me. I recieved the insurance money and took my car to the bodyshop for the repairs. While the X was at the body shop and paint needed to be mixed, I decieded to have a few other things fixed as well. The first thing I did was remove the two windshield pillar antennae. I am not sure why there were two antennae, neither of which were connected or seemed to work. There was also a hole in the left rear fender for an antenna as well. I like the look of the 1987 wing and had brought one to the body shop to be painted and installed as well. Because the wing interfers with the rear antenna, I had the shop weld the rear antenna hole up too. The car was painted in the areas that were repaired and then all of the paint was buffed until it shined like new. Also had them paint a spare roof and engine cover I had as well to match the body color like the 1987 paint scheme.
I chose to go with the Ksport coilover kit because of the adjustability of the design. Here is a copy of a previous post I wrote about them and a pic of my shock mount fix. The orange mount is the one that came with the struts. As you can see the slot for camber adjustment is angled which effects Caster.
"I have a set of K-Sports I installed about 4 months ago. I purchased them from Ebay for about $1250 with $75 shipping from a place in Arizona.
The Good
1. K-Sport shock design is great. You can raise or lower the car without decreasing spring travel or worrying about not having any preload on the spring.
2. They will go very low. I have mine lowered about 1 1/2 inches and they could go way lower, both in the front and rear.
3. The camber is adjustable on the top mount as well as the bottom, so you can push the strut in at the top and then adjust the camber on the bottom. This will give you additional room for larger tires. I run 205/50/15s in the rear and 195/45/15s in the front with no rubbing anywhere.
4. They come with 280# front and 400# rear springs.
5. They perform very well on smooth track like conditions.
6. Easy to install and adjust.
7. Last off, they look pretty.
The Bad
1. As the previous forum thread stated, the camber adjustment on the top mount is angled slightly, so adjusting camber also changes caster. I had a couple custom mounts made to fix this problem. They are different then the ones in the previuos thread. Unless you leave the camber/caster adjustment perfectly neutral, you will most likely want to change the top mount as well.
2. They are single adjustment. There is no rebound adjustment and I feel that the rebound is too loose. The car tends to feel bouncy over big bumps or dips. Normal street driving is fine, but I slow way down every time I see a big pothole or bump I can't avoid (my neigborhood is seriously infected with giant speed bumps and I have to go very slow over them).
3. The dampener adjustment has 36 positions, 30 of which are pretty useless. The softest positions are way too soft and you will bottom out the front shocks over mild bumps. My suspension felt too soft all the way up to level 26. At about level 30 they felt a bit better and each level from 30-36 is a much bigger difference then from 1-30.
4. The shock travel range is only 3 inches. Stock shocks, by my measurements have somewhere around 5.5 inches of travel. This contributes to the K-Sports bottoming out if you leave the dampener too soft. On harder settings they don't bottom out unless you hit something real hard.
The Verdict
I love the design and flexibility of the K-Sport shock. I haven't tried the Koni shocks Midwest-bayless sells, so can't say better or worse. However, I do have a set of orange adjustable Konis that I used for years. I like the Koni's dampening and rebound characteristics more, but with stiffer springs they made my car ride way too high. The perfect solution - I think I will try and put Koni inserts in my K-Sport housings someday."
Here is what my X looks like now. Pics taken at Cars and Coffee Austin. Rick and Ed came too, but I didn't think to take pics until after Ed left. It was quite a sight all three of our red X's together.
Ricks X in the background.
Pic in front of my house, my parts car and my Wrangler in the background.
Part I of the Restomod is here http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/22951
Part II of the Restomod is here http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23070
As I posted in part I, my X got damaged on its truck ride to me. I recieved the insurance money and took my car to the bodyshop for the repairs. While the X was at the body shop and paint needed to be mixed, I decieded to have a few other things fixed as well. The first thing I did was remove the two windshield pillar antennae. I am not sure why there were two antennae, neither of which were connected or seemed to work. There was also a hole in the left rear fender for an antenna as well. I like the look of the 1987 wing and had brought one to the body shop to be painted and installed as well. Because the wing interfers with the rear antenna, I had the shop weld the rear antenna hole up too. The car was painted in the areas that were repaired and then all of the paint was buffed until it shined like new. Also had them paint a spare roof and engine cover I had as well to match the body color like the 1987 paint scheme.
I chose to go with the Ksport coilover kit because of the adjustability of the design. Here is a copy of a previous post I wrote about them and a pic of my shock mount fix. The orange mount is the one that came with the struts. As you can see the slot for camber adjustment is angled which effects Caster.
"I have a set of K-Sports I installed about 4 months ago. I purchased them from Ebay for about $1250 with $75 shipping from a place in Arizona.
The Good
1. K-Sport shock design is great. You can raise or lower the car without decreasing spring travel or worrying about not having any preload on the spring.
2. They will go very low. I have mine lowered about 1 1/2 inches and they could go way lower, both in the front and rear.
3. The camber is adjustable on the top mount as well as the bottom, so you can push the strut in at the top and then adjust the camber on the bottom. This will give you additional room for larger tires. I run 205/50/15s in the rear and 195/45/15s in the front with no rubbing anywhere.
4. They come with 280# front and 400# rear springs.
5. They perform very well on smooth track like conditions.
6. Easy to install and adjust.
7. Last off, they look pretty.
The Bad
1. As the previous forum thread stated, the camber adjustment on the top mount is angled slightly, so adjusting camber also changes caster. I had a couple custom mounts made to fix this problem. They are different then the ones in the previuos thread. Unless you leave the camber/caster adjustment perfectly neutral, you will most likely want to change the top mount as well.
2. They are single adjustment. There is no rebound adjustment and I feel that the rebound is too loose. The car tends to feel bouncy over big bumps or dips. Normal street driving is fine, but I slow way down every time I see a big pothole or bump I can't avoid (my neigborhood is seriously infected with giant speed bumps and I have to go very slow over them).
3. The dampener adjustment has 36 positions, 30 of which are pretty useless. The softest positions are way too soft and you will bottom out the front shocks over mild bumps. My suspension felt too soft all the way up to level 26. At about level 30 they felt a bit better and each level from 30-36 is a much bigger difference then from 1-30.
4. The shock travel range is only 3 inches. Stock shocks, by my measurements have somewhere around 5.5 inches of travel. This contributes to the K-Sports bottoming out if you leave the dampener too soft. On harder settings they don't bottom out unless you hit something real hard.
The Verdict
I love the design and flexibility of the K-Sport shock. I haven't tried the Koni shocks Midwest-bayless sells, so can't say better or worse. However, I do have a set of orange adjustable Konis that I used for years. I like the Koni's dampening and rebound characteristics more, but with stiffer springs they made my car ride way too high. The perfect solution - I think I will try and put Koni inserts in my K-Sport housings someday."
Here is what my X looks like now. Pics taken at Cars and Coffee Austin. Rick and Ed came too, but I didn't think to take pics until after Ed left. It was quite a sight all three of our red X's together.
Ricks X in the background.
Pic in front of my house, my parts car and my Wrangler in the background.
Part I of the Restomod is here http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/22951
Part II of the Restomod is here http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23070
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