Lessons learned, ..regarding Koni Sport adjustables... Options

[naro914]

**NOTE: on 3/20 I changed the title of this post because at first I just had a question (this post)...but now I am sharing my experience regarding replacing your 914 suspension with Koni Adjustable shocks because a lot of people asked or seemed interested. Jump to Post 13 for "The rest of the story"....

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It's been a while since I've posted a stupid question - heck I've been so busy lately and not done much with my 914's in months that its been a while since I've posted ANYTHING at all... (Papa Smurf is away at Dawe's Motorsports winter camp spending all our retirement savings and Huey has been sitting patiently in the garage waiting for nice weather...)

So here's my dilemma: I ordered a full set of Koni Sport adjustable shocks for Huey, and I got the coil-over set up from Ground Control for the rear. They came Friday, and I was excited to get working on them Sunday (was busy Saturday).



So...after doing a bunch of things to our other cars that needed the lift, I got Huey up there, took off one of the rear Bilsteins (figured I'd start on the easy end first, easy remove and install right?) and looked at what I had in the new box, and what I had on the old shock. I realized I needed basically all the hardware that goes above the spring hat (washer, threaded collar (Porsche calls it a bushing) and rubber bushing) that was below the hole, and the bushing and washer above. Basically everything above the hat except the top nut (which they give as a lock nut).

This is where the stupid question comes in: Are there different threaded collars (bushings) for Bilstein and Koni? Look at these pictures: First one is the threaded collar, screwed all the way down on the Bilstein as it's supposed to - and the rubber bushing goes over it. The second one is as far as the collar will go...which is not at all because the thread pitch on the Koni is different!! Do I need a special threaded collar for Konis? Did they not send me something I should have? Suspension is something I've honestly never messed with...






I'm going to call Ground Control later today, but thought I would throw this out there to the World braintrust and see what responses I get since I'm SURE some of you have upgraded to Koni adjustables...

Thanks!