My Koni/GC/RRE (DG Style) Install

[VETDRMS]

I have been piecing this together over the last few weeks and thought I would post up a quick overview and some pics for anyone who may want to replicate this.

The install was surprisingly simple and pain free. No fastener issues and the underside of my car is pretty clean/rust free. Especially so for a 170,000 mile chassis.

I sourced the upper spring hats from GC to try to replicate DGs setup without having to source a set of custom machined upper plates. Scott McIntyre was a big help in getting this set up right the first time, thanks.

I went with 500F/350R spring rates as this will be a daily commuter that sees potholes, speed bumps and other obstacles.

I had to have the spacers that came with the RRE plates machined down to 18mm (from 28mm) to (1) move the upper spring hat up closer to the plate without contacting (~1/8" at max angle) and (2) to expose enough threads on the upper shock shaft to fit a pair of jam nuts.

The first issues was finding a solution to running a helper spring with the GC sleeves and upper hat. With the helper spring on the bottom the guide would hit the adjustment ring on the sleeve before the helper spring was fully compressed, which would cause the main spring load to be on the thin guide.

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This was also an issue with the helper spring mounted on the top, but with some modification it worked.

I had to take quite a bit of material off of the spacer and some off the upper hat to keep them from contacting with the helper spring fully compressed. I ended up cutting the guide spacer from 5.5mm to 2.0mm and the upper hat down from 12.6mm to 12.0mm to get ~1mm of clearance with the spring compressed. The total height between perches was 8.75mm and the compressed helper spring was ~9.75mm. I got them surprisingly flat for using a hand file and 80/120 grit sandpaper. It was an iterative process...

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I also had to drill the GC upper hats out to 12mm to fit the Koni shaft.

I cut the stock bump-stop per GCs instructions. The stock struts were in pretty good shape but I had to use some vice grips to keep the rear shafts from spinning as the upper nuts were completely rusted up and took an impact to remove.

Here is a pic of the finished front assembly:

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Here are a couple installed pics:

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I lowered the front by 7/8" and the back by 3/4" so the gap between the outer lip of the front wheel and the edge of the fender well at 12 o'clock was 4.875" front and 4.75" rear, just slightly nose up, stock was 5.75" front and 5.5" rear. I first had the front lowered by 1.25" and it did look nice but I only had about 1/8" of clearance between the exhaust at the lowest point and the entry of the garage (driveway is sloped, I had to build ramps for the vette, but I didn't want to do that for the talon).

Firestone was a mess, took almost 2 hours to get it on the rack. Here are the before and after alignment printouts. The lifetime alignment has so far, paid for its self 2x.

Before:

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After

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With the 500F/350R and the shocks set to full-soft it feels great. Very firm but not bouncy and, WOW, it takes fast corners 10x better than the stock setup with no (or little) under steer and feels really well balanced for what little time I have put on it. I'm very impressed.

Is the final camber ok or should I look into getting a camber correction kit for the front and some longer bolts/washers for the rear? Due to the intended use I don't plan to lower it anymore other than possibly for some pictures this summer.

 

[red_devil]

Front camber is ok. But I would try to get the rear down to -1 or so.

 

[ViciousLord]

Front camber is ok. But I would try to get the rear down to -1 or so.

+1

more front camber will yield better front end traction... but too much rear camber will cause understeer.

I'm still new to the DSM suspension. But in my evo, I found the best settings to be zero toe all the way around, -1.8 camber up front and -1.0 camber in the rear.

I plan on doing something similar on my 2gb GSX. I will also be experimenting with higher rear spring rates, to give me a more neutral feel. We'll see how this works out.

 

[KiNg MaRtY]

Very very nice setup. As far as camber, leave the front alone. Rear isn't too bad

 

[VETDRMS]

Thanks for the comments. I plan to reduce the rear camber by getting some washers and longer bolts.

Other than that I think I am going to flip the bushings in the driver's side compression arm to even out the caster and get front/rear RM sway bars. I am not 100% sold on poly bushings for a car that sees a lot of street duty where some comfort is wanted, although I understand I am reducing the effectiveness of the new parts to do their job. It is all a compromise, I guess.