Strut options with raised Kings

mikesforester

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israel
Back again! after a little hiatus, I am back in the market for a suspension upgrade. I have managed to pick up a set of lightly used raised Kings for a great price and was going to go the KYB route, however the guy I bought them from suggests I explore other options as he was not happy with the setup and in fact bent one of the struts in under a year. What other options are open to me apart from KYB. I have tried looking on the Koni and Bilstein websites and can find no loiusting for Forrie struts. I understand Koni do have an insert but think that may be out of my technical realm as I will be doing the install myself.
Once again thanks in advance for the valuable advice.
Regards Mike
 
I too have bent KYBs in the past. Mine now has custom Liberty / Legacy struts (thicker walls) with Koni inserts, all done by a suspension shop. KYBs have thinner walls than at least some of the OEM struts. There does not seem to be much choice out there.
 
Seems that Sachs makes struts for the Foz.
 
I had a suspension shop put Koni WRX sport inserts (adjustable) into my OEM struts with raised king springs ... equals expensive but absolutely brilliant combination.

It requires custom parts to be made to hold the insert in the strut, I put details into a thread which contains details in the suspension, handling area.
Doug
 
Thanks for the input guys, Will take a close look at your solution Doug, I can get Koni inserts here in Israel. Just have to get my head around the installation process and see if I can do it myself. Pretty good at steelwork (ex blacksmith) If I have a decent guide Im sure I could do it myself. Cheers Mike
 
Ok Doug & Kevin, you guys have got my attention. Good to see the SLS struts can be used as a donor sleeve. Doug, any info on the spacer fitted into the SLS sleeve and how the insert is fastened into the sleeve, or is it just a matter of a hole been drilled through with a bolt keeping the insert in place?
Cheers guys Mike
 
Doug, copied the model number off the pic of your inserts, after a bit of web research they seem to be the front inserts, do you by any chance have the rear model number?
Cheers Mike
 
Gidday Mike

You might be very interested in what Idw found out when he was in Japan recently. He discusses some of it here:

https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showpost.php?p=77920&postcount=87

Particularly:

idw said:
The main point i took out was to maintaining alignment of the whole suspension setup so it runs in the correct arcs and way it's designed to.

Second that raised springs should be avoided without the correct stroke length shock to suit, which i kinda found out the hard way already with the raised kings and kyb shocks.
Click to expand...

I find the first part particularly interesting, as I found out with Roo2 when I first got it. Our Subies seem to be extremely sensitive to any kind of alignment issues.

Roo2 was within spec on all 4 wheels, but all the wheels were pointing in different directions. This caused it to handle like a canal barge ...
 
Is it the fronts or rears that are bending?
 
Rears - but on a trip in 2008 we did have another Foz bend the front RHS. Mind you it was very heavily loaded and pulling a camper.
 
Kevin said:
Rears - but on a trip in 2008 we did have another Foz bend the front RHS. Mind you it was very heavily loaded and pulling a camper.
Click to expand...

There is a current consensus on sf.org that lifting via springs or strut top blocks requires a change in the trailing arm to re-center the rear wheel. This, of course, is accomplished 2 ways: TA spacers, or adjustable TA's. The consensus is that the spacer is preferable due to maintaining the OE geometry and arc of the TA.

Do you know if those bent rears had corrected suspension geometry? Coming from a Jeep background, one of the first changes is usually replacing the stamped suspension arms with sturdier and adjustable kit. Seems like the Subie is more susceptible to geometry, and suspension impact with obstacles is less of a concern.
 
Unfortunately I did not get the rears Konis part number, but would think Koni would set you right on that pretty quick if your ask - it is for the equivalent impreza/WRX as the fronts
Yes the insert is held with a bolt at the bottom, the rear SLS had the external canister cut off to clean up the strut.
There were 2 spacer/cylinder type inserts put into each strut body one at the top and one at the bottom, both were custom made to enable the insert to be held securely within the strut body and to allow the Koni insert to be replaced easily ( that is unscrew the top take bolt off the bottom and out it comes) the intent of making it simple/easy was that almost any mechanic could deal with it).

The cylinder inserts to help hold the shocks in place within the strut body, we're made using a lathe to get a precise fit, theirs also help ensure you get the stroke on the shock right for the spring you are going to use.

The struts after being built had a flogging on Fraser Island last year, and took some large hits with the car laden with 2 daughters, wife, week of gear (probably close to 80 to 90% of maximum GVM) and had no problems. Have now done about 20,000km on and off road, and they act the same as when they first went in.

The only downside to the setup is on my commutes in/out of work when the car is lightly loaded the ride is no longer as plush as OEM springs, this however for my use is far outweighed by improved handling, great touring comfort (no more wallowing) and the certainty the additional underbody clearance provides.

If you can do the work yourself and have time for it you can get a great outcome with the Konis and king springs at a very reasonable price, I handed the thinking, sourcing parts handling etc etc all over to a suspension expert which while costly was my only real option due to personal time constraints (easier to earn the $ than trying to cut costs).

I was tempted to try for a longer stroke in the suspension, but wrote that off as to hard as soon as I started inspecting trailing arm lengths, lateral arm lengths, pivot points, cv range etc - to many things to start to deal with and very difficult/expensive to jump from normal suspension travel range to a longer suspension travel range.

In relation to bent struts, I have not suffered this fate, and reading the varying instances of it makes it very difficult to make a determination on common cause. Needless to say every car has its limits and when loaded you need to be careful, whatever you do be sure to not introduce a weak link - ensure it is equivalent or stronger (stronger can also be a problem as expected flex may induce another part to fail).

Will be keen to read about your solution and how it works out in Israel - my understanding is Israel was one of the early adopters of subaru vehicles and that market helped Fuji heavy industries get subaru on the map.

Doug
 
Wow, great response thanks guys. Doug, thanks for the info. Unfortunately Israel is an extremely expensive country to live in, and to pay a suspension specialist to work out the nitty gritty of such a project would have to entail me selling the dog and the kids! Looking at the Koni site vis a vis inserts it seems fairly straight forward. They make no mention of inserts etc, but will have to research it a little more. The Koni importer seem keen to help on my initial conversation, but are a bit stumpted when I tell them its for a forrie as there is no direct transplant listed for Foresters. I will have to give them the exact part number, again more research from my side. If however you need to pull one of your rear wheels off in the near future please make a note of the part number. I am not rushing into this and will look at all options available to me.
You are correct in Israel being early adopters of Subaru, not sure how influential Israel was in getting Subaru on the map, it is after all a very small market. However at one time every second vehicle on the road was a Scoobie. It was also the only Japanese brand that disregarded the arab embargo and chose to do business in Israel regardless of the arab boycott. For that they are very respected over here and I personally will always own a Scoobie (along with the Ferrari ;-) ) our family have had a whole host of them over the years!!!
 
subigt - my TA spacers went in after bending the KYBs
 
When I used the the term insert, I was meaning the shock as it is what gets inserted into the strut body, hence the phrase insert ( actually meaning shock ).

The Koni importer is correct there is no direct transplant for a forrie, the suspension expert that did mine was not certain they would fit inside until after pulling the struts out and measuring internal strut diameter, and available length, I would suspect the Koni distributed/importer would be able to give you the dimensions of the shocks and then if you have a little time you can pull one from your foz and check the strut to know if the Koni will fit inside.
 
Yes I think the use of struts which are not really suited to the stresses imparted by the raised Kings is what does them in. Unfortunately it seems the widely used KYB's in this combination suffers from the same failings, hence my quest to find a more suitable strut.

Thanks for the input chaps, much appreciated. Still exploring all my options. With regard to the Koni inserts I'm going to have to find some poor sole who is prepared to pull off their rear wheel and make some measurements, for instance from lower mount hole to where the strut was cut to determine where I would have to cut my SLS units.

Doug thanks for the info, I am aware of what you are referring to as inserts. I was referring to the "2 spacer/cylinder type inserts put into each strut body" you mentioned in your previous post. I suspect they are used as "packing" in the bottom of the SLS strut body to allow the insert to protrude more, giving the overall strut more length to accommodate the raised Kings. What are your thoughts on my analogy.
Once again thanks to all for the participation on this thread
 
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