I finally had time this last weekend to install the 4th Gen. Koni adjustable shocks I purchased from Cattman and the H&R springs from the Tire Rack. Thanks to OzziSVT for his help! The entire operation took 6 hours with hand tools and manual spring compressors.

The low down…

Rear Suspension

After we had the car on jack stands and removed the trunk liner we noticed a sheet metal stamping that went around the top of the shock attachment that had a small opening for tool access to the shock retaining bolts. We could not get our ratchet onto one of the bolts. So we put the rear seats down and removed the plastic backing between the seats and sheet metal. Then we saw that the trunk pass through has a large metal stamping around the opening that buts up against the shock tower stampings. After we removed a majority of the bolts on the large stamping we were able to remove the shock tower stampings.

The rear shocks are a direct bolt in with no modifications necessary. The total time was two hours.

Front Suspension

The front struts are easy to remove. Two bolts hold on the shock to the knuckle (they do not have a cam type shoulder for setting the alignment). The shock also has a clip that retains the break line and a grommet and another bolt that retain the ABS wire. Removing the springs is a straightforward process.

Replacing the strut insert took some time. We followed the instructions for draining the shock of its oil. Next, we had the cut the top off the body of the strut. You have to measure down 3/4" for your cut (the instructions say 7mm). This is because the internal portion of the shock is attached to the body for a little over 1/2". The Koni cartridge fit within the modified strut housing.

This is where we had to do some modifications to the strut hat.

The first item is that the threaded stock end of the rod has been machined off on the sides of the treads to allow a hold and drive device to be used on the shock (if you look at the threads from the top it appears that the circle was changed to a rectangle with the short ends are an arc instead of a straight line). This profile is copied onto the strut hat. The Koni's did not have this feature, so we had to take a Dremel tool and open up the hat.

Secondly, the hat has a metal collar that extends down to contact the shoulder of the strut rod. The stock shoulder allows more threads than the Koni units. Therefore we had to remove about 2/3 of the collar to get enough thread to bolt the rod the hat.

Just make sure that you properly align the hat with the spring retainer (the retainer has a marking that specifies "OUT") during reassembly.

The total time was 4 hours.

 

Ahhh... so you took the cutting route for the hats. Congrats on the install!

 

nice writeup.....want to add this to the stickies?

 

Thanks!

I don't know if the 5th and 4th Gen. hat assemblies are interchangeable. But it all worked out in the end!

 

Try it.

 

Looking into getting some Koni struts. I noticed that you put older generation ones onto the 5th gen. Did it work out alright and how much custom work did you have to do? Would a shop have a clue about this or would/should I bring your install instructions with me? Thanks for all feedback.

 

http://www.performanceix.com has pictures with a writeup. The instructions were crap so don't follow those (no words).