I had posted a thought about upgrading to yellow Koni's with these new Eibachs and the only reply I got was.."no need to since these springs are designed with the stock struts in mind."
Anybody know of a reason why Yellow Koni's with their adjustable features couldn't cope with this set of Eibachs..I assume the Koni's have better/higher dampening characteristics compared to the stock FoMoCo's.
ok....
the pro-kit is designed around the stock damper, and as a whole, the pro-kit program is meant to be as easily integrated into the rest of the stock suspension as easily as possible, with the most increase in performance but with the minimum loss of comfort (within reason). alot of manufacturers do not spend the time to take comfort into account, and what they get is the same performance as a pro-kit, but with less comfort, but because the ride is stiffer and more disruptive than the pro-kit in non-performance situations, it's perceived as a better performer. many many times it's not the case at all!
ultimately, if you decide that the dampers need to be upgraded because you feel the damping is not to your taste, then you surely can do it! you can spend the cash and buy the dampers, but what you will probably do, and what normally happens, is trade comfort and performance (which what you paid for in the first place) for "perceived" performance increases and loss of comfort, like what happens with the competition's kits.
this is what's going on in the BMW world right now. the stock dampers for the e90/e92 are very stout from the factory. they work very well with most well engineered street spring upgrades. however, the BMW crowd many times insists on spending money they don't need to spend and then peel away the very benefits they paid for with their spring kits- comfort with performance. it's hilarious because these people with little real suspension experience past bolting pre-made kits on and reading websites/magazines want to change the dynamics of something that was designed by people who know nothing better than suspension. what makes it worse is the shop owners/ website owners need the money, so they certainly will try to spin it in the best way possible to get the sale. i mean, the customer will do what they want, so might as well cash in on that.
that is why many times i recommend that people don't get adjustable dampers and adjustable height coilovers, because 98% of the time they will not set it up for the best handling in situations that they will encounter when they actually drive the car. they set it up for something that is too stiff and too low for anything close to optimum handling. they they get on the 'net and talk about how awesome it is, but they are operating their unbalanced car on the last inch of travel to go to the gym or pick up their kids. that isn't an insult, it's just that a small percentage of people actually know what works best vs. what "feels" best.
to sum it up, the only way to know for sure what works better is to do skidpad testing, track testing and real-world street testing. we can't tell you, which is what you are really asking for. Eibach did that testing with the pro-kit and stock dampers to figure that out. you can do that too- equip the stock car with the pro-kit, measure with tests, then swap out the dampers and see if the numbers improve.
anything less is just hypothesis and conjecture, especially considering the kit is on one person's car at this point. but if that is what you want to do, you are more than welcome to do whatever you want. that is why modifying cars is fun, because it's yours to do what you want. well, except in california ; )
so, that is why i said there isn't a need to change anything, especially just yet. you know for a fact that the pro-kit will work very well with the stock damper, i mean, that is what eibach is known for!
i hope that helps : )
