NA Miata Koni shock question

I just picket up a set of used Koni shocks with stock springs that formerly lived under a '96 Miata. They will be going on my '95 M Edition, and it's starting to look like the car may see a track day or two.

Each shock has three grooves where you can install the circlip that locates the lower spring mounting plate. As received, all four are in the highest possible position. I assume this is fairly equivalent to stock ride height with the stock springs. They have to come apart anyway for new Flyin' Miata bumpstops and shock boots so I was wondering about relocating the circlips to lower the car a little, but the grooves are not evenly spaced from front to rear and I don't want the car to sit at some weird angle.

I also have a set of stock NB springs and hardware, so mixing and matching is an option if there is any advantage to it.

Any suggestions?

I installed Koni on my 92 NA with all clips set on lowest position. Car sat level.

I'm sure Keith will chime in, but two things I have picked up in my research for new suspension for my 2003 are:

don't go lower than "normal" ride height with stock springs, and

Koni Sports are valved too tight for stock spring rates. Since you now have a set of Koni Sports, you really ought to ahh, spring for the FM spring set. They will work much better with the Konis.

I would call Lee down at Koni. He is a great guy that has helped me several times over the years with questions. Also get the stops from Koni for them. Lee can help you with that as well.

When I installed them on my 94 I used flyin miata springs and put the clips at the recommended settings which I think was the middle setting.

In reply to WildScotsRacing:

I think I heard the exact opposite, that the Konis are overworked with anything other than the stock springs.

Everybody has heard something different.

-We ran Koni Sports with stock springs for ES autocross. So did hundreds (thousands?) of other people. For years. They are fine for autocross and fine on the street. Run them near full soft on the street.

-When adding stiffer springs, they can handle around 500 lb/in. In fact the common off the shelf STS setup still runs Koni Sports in the rear with 400-450 lb springs. They won't be happy about the 600-800 lbs fronts though so people get custom valving or Koni RACE valved units up front.

I had them on a '90 street-driven Miata for many years. I used stock springs with the spring perch on the middle notch and they were fine. Can't remember the exact setting, but they were set towards the softer side to avoid overdamping.

I've ran them at the lowest setting on my NA Miata and the car sat level. Also, Konis are fine with stiffer springs. I've run them for years with zero problems. I ran them on my ITA MR2 with pretty stiff rates and they worked fine. Not sure where the rumors start.

Not to hijack but I have a question: would setting the perches on the lowest setting with FM springs run the risk of bottoming out?

In reply to Woody:

IIRC somewhere around 600lb springs is about their max limit without revalving.