It's not unusual in the E36 community to see track rats installing coilover conversions. A common recipe for the front end is to take top-adjustable Koni cut-a-strut dampers, drain the stock dampers and cut off the tops to make damper housings, and then slide on an adjustable perch for a 2.5 inch spring, like a Ground Control sleeve perch.
Based on some affection around these here parts for Tokicos, and a one-time ability to get a NIB pair of their Illuminas from a dealer for less than $150, I decided to be the guinea pig for using their damper instead. I figured they may not last long but there's only one way to find out . . . .
It all worked out in the end but it took too much time. Before I could put on the spring perch collars/cylinders, I had to hack off the huge welded-on spring perches Tokico puts on for the stock springs, retaining enough material along the weld line to hold up the perch adjustment cylinder. If you're using non-adjustable Konis instead of the cut-a-strut inserts, you can just knock those off with a hammer, and the shock body still has perch points on it.
Then I found out the octagonal shock body cap at the top of the Tokico housing needed to be ground down to the diameter of the shock body. Then I had to find a way to center the perch adjustment collar on the shock housing, because the diameter was small enough to leave too much slop.
They're on the car now with some 300#-ish springs, which they seem to damp just fine even on a soft rebound setting (2 out of 5). I'm hoping that means they will stand up to more spring, like 450#, because the car needs it based on my 2 test days at Summit Main this week. But all said and done I wish I had just paid $185/each for the Koni single-adjustables.
