Koni FSD shocks installed (updates)
My coach is an 09 Itasca Cambria,30ft. E-450 chassis. Had my Koni's installed yesterday .On the drive home about 7miles I noticed an immediate lack of banging when I drove over RR tracks and expa...
Forum Discussion
I had Koni FSD shocks installed in just the rear of our 24 foot E450 Class C this summer to help take the sting out of highway cracks and ridges. These type road surface imperfections were especially harsh from the E450's rear leaf springs and stock Ford shocks acting in combination, since our E450 chassis is being at least 15% under-loaded by our relatively small Class C.
Qualitatively, the FSD shocks seem to have rounded off/softened the harshness coming from the rear end due to the FSD shocks' high frequency mode behavior of acting like a soft shock when subjected to fast, short jolts. That's the behavior I wanted with cracks and ridges because I did not want shock stiffness added to leaf spring stiffness in these situations ... as all other constant stiffness shock absorbers do - whether they be soft or stiff shock models from competitors of Koni.
However, I have ABSOLUTE PROOF (haha) that the FSD shocks have calmed things down in the rear: Our shower is way in the rear. The accordian shower curtain's plastic lever that keeps the curtain open for storage when the shower is not being used was constantly jumping out of it's clip on one end and allowing the shower curtain to start to close after a few miles of travel (especially on CA highways) ... all due to the sharp jolts in the rear. I now have about 4500 miles on these FSD shocks and this lever has not once jumped out of it's clip!! Short of quantitative accelerometer measurements taken in the rear .... I'm convinced that that these shocks have now proved that they are definitely doing their thing back there.
We have another 5000-6000 miles to go on our current trip through several states and I hope the Konis continue to perform as they have so far.
Qualitatively, the FSD shocks seem to have rounded off/softened the harshness coming from the rear end due to the FSD shocks' high frequency mode behavior of acting like a soft shock when subjected to fast, short jolts. That's the behavior I wanted with cracks and ridges because I did not want shock stiffness added to leaf spring stiffness in these situations ... as all other constant stiffness shock absorbers do - whether they be soft or stiff shock models from competitors of Koni.
However, I have ABSOLUTE PROOF (haha) that the FSD shocks have calmed things down in the rear: Our shower is way in the rear. The accordian shower curtain's plastic lever that keeps the curtain open for storage when the shower is not being used was constantly jumping out of it's clip on one end and allowing the shower curtain to start to close after a few miles of travel (especially on CA highways) ... all due to the sharp jolts in the rear. I now have about 4500 miles on these FSD shocks and this lever has not once jumped out of it's clip!! Short of quantitative accelerometer measurements taken in the rear .... I'm convinced that that these shocks have now proved that they are definitely doing their thing back there.
We have another 5000-6000 miles to go on our current trip through several states and I hope the Konis continue to perform as they have so far.
