DIY Koni Sport Shocks Install

[Annihilator817]

Big-E, wrxracer519, and I installed a set of off the shelf Koni Sport shocks into my 2011 WRX over the weekend.

It seems the biggest reason that people pass over Koni's in favor of cheap knockoff 'coilovers' or inferior plug and play struts is because the Koni's require minimal fabrication. This short write up should put to rest any fears that people might have about the install.

For the rear:


Disconnect the swaybar.




Jack up the car, and remove the rear wheels (use jackstands and wheel chocks!)








Remove all of the interior panels from the trunk.






Remove the OEM coilover shocks. There are two nuts inside of the trunk compartment that hold the top of the shock. And there is one bolt that holds the shock to the control arm. Remove these.





I won't go into detail about how to disassemble the shocks, its pretty straightforward, and there are many writeups all over the interwebs. This is the same process as a simple spring install on the rear.

I will note that although the springs are not under much load, a spring compressor is very handy, and probably an absolute necessity on the rears.

Remove the OEM spring from the OEM shock, and replace it with the new shock from Koni.





Reinstall the coilover shock.



Reconnect the swaybar, put the wheels back on, put the trunk panels back on, and you’re done with the rear.

[Annihilator817]

For the front:


This is a bit more involved, but not hard at all. Disassemble the OEM MacPherson Struts. Again, there are thousands of write-ups on how to do this, so I’m not going into detail. The spring is not under much pressure.


Next, you need to find the center of the bottom of the strut, and drill a small hole to release the gas pressure for safety reasons.



Then, you must cut the top of the strut around the housing so that you can remove the old dampers. You can use anything for this, a pipe cutter, a sawzall, hack saw, cutoff wheel, etc. You don’t need to go all the way through the strut and the shaft, just through the housing.




The OEM damper comes right out.




Clean up the rough cuts or sharp edges left over from the cut.



Next, drill out the whole at the bottom of the strut to spec.




Carefully insert the new damper into the OEM strut housing, and carefully pound it into the housing.





Once it is down far enough for the bolt on the bottom to catch the threads, draw the damper in the rest of the way by tightening that.





And you’re done. Reassemble the Struts and put them back into the car.



We went slow on the first strut because we were double checking our work, but I think the second strut took all of 15 minutes to build. This really is an easy mod, and the end result is a product that wipes the floor with those hack coilovers.


Big thanks to wrxracer519 and to Big-E for all the help with the car!

[mycologist]

Nice write up. I don't know why people are scared of this process - it really doesn't even have to be a nice cut. Just get the whole centered.

Nice you guys don't have to do the rears though.

[commbubba19]

What were the part numbers for the Koni pieces? Were these the adjustable units?

[Annihilator817]

8610-1453SPORT

8010-1055SPORT