Lets Talk Shocks

I am putting a 1997 Corolla on the road and one of the upgrades I will be making is installing new/better shocks. The car is ot worth Koni's but I would like to upgrade to something better.

What is the conciseness on middle of the road shocks and struts these days. I have had good luck with KYB in the past what else should I be looking at?

What I am looking for is to firm up the ride making it a tighter giving it more road feel to the driver. This is a street car so I guess I am looking to be on the firm side of street if there is such a thing.

For reference My 924s has Koni's in it and I run it on the street set at full hard (the race setup) all the way around. For the street it is a bit much but it is a fun car for short blasts. I would definitely not want that kind of ride in the corolla. Maybe 3/4 of that would be just fine.

Side question. If you make that much of a chock change should I be planning on upgrading the springs as well so they work with the shocks/struts?

Ok so i go looking and I can get Koni's for this car for short $$$$ (less than 1/2 the price of my Porsche) I just think it is like gilding a terd but then again the point is to make this a fun car and this sure would do that.

Look at the Koni STR-T if it's available for your platform. Basically a Sport set on full soft and built in Argentina, they're usually a good stock replacement. Lifetime warranty. Koni's got their 20% sale on right now.

I've found you can't generalize brands across platforms. Brand X might have an excellent valving setup for one car and completely botch it for another. Bilstein will always have the jiggle, though

Bilstein FTW

H&R Sports with KYB AGX should give you what you are looking for, if both are available.

Edit: AGX are nla. In that case, I'm with Keith on the STR/T with H&R Sport Springs.

Like I said, platform dependent Do that on a Miata and you'll be quite unhappy with the result.

Keith Tanner wrote: Like I said, platform dependent Do that on a Miata and you'll be quite unhappy with the result.

True and true. That combo seems to work very well for Mazda/Ford BG chassis cars, however, from my own experience with a 323 and an Escort.

I had really good luck with stagg from ebay. Firms have and cheap. This was on a protege5. I have never liked kyb.

I hated the agxs on the z28. Ive got to the point for a perormance car ill only look at billies and konis for an aftermarket shock on a performance car.

Konia transformed the Z28.

I think yearly koni does a big sale starting in march or may where they makr them down quite a bit, the sale pretty much paid for my springs on the z28.

If konis arent stupod high id get them during a sale.

If its got struts i dont know a good cheap option. Bilstein seems to be real high for struts on the few cars ive shopped for them

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Ive often wondered about those..

Personally or a CHEAP new budget shock i always spring for gabriel ultras, nice, firm, and cheap. But i usually slap used bilsteins on everything, good for what they are but have their drawbacks. Obviously koni is amazing but i never keep a car long enough or have the coin for them.

Stagg had a bunch of bad reviews when they first came out, shafts and brackets breaking, but havent seen much bad since.

They were about a fourth to a fifth the price of a good shock spring setup on the 4th gen fbodies, so quite a few pwople bought them. Never heard anything bad on fbodies but never really heard, but most of it was just, they drive great (on the street)

If anything, they were valued at little too stiff. Stock springs, ride really firmed up. Made the car handle and turn in much better, put 60k on them so far with no complaints.