Koni vs Bilstein shocks
After seeing how much of an improvement our recently installed Hellwig rear sway bar helped our C, I am now thinking shocks. We get the usual jolts over railroad tracks and potholes plus what I call ...
Forum Discussion
I now have Koni FSD shocks (after studying them for about 3 years while waiting for my stock shocks to wear out) on the rear of our E450 24 foot Class C.
I didn't need to compare the Koni FSD shocks to any other shock through direct usage before buying - I just read about how they worked and it made sense that a variable shock was the ultimate kind of shock design. As I understand it, road racing cars have used variable shocks for years - shocks that adjust themselves to the road surface up to many times per second, as required, in real time ... but of course these high performance racing systems are not available for RV vehicles.
The Koni FSD shock is a very basic attempt at providing real time variability in a shock, as they only have two mechanically sensed and invoked states - a "low frequency" damping reaction and a "high frequency" damping reaction. Low frequency damping is for up-and-down bounce control on bumps, dips, curbs, etc. and for leaning control on curves. High frequency damping is for sharp and rapid small road surface variations such as highway cracks and potholes. I believe that the Koni FSD shocks perform as a stiff shock in the former situations and as a soft shock in the latter situations.
The Koni FSD shocks seem to be doing just that in the rear of our under-loaded E450 chassis supporting only a small Class C. In my situation I especially wanted a soft shock for highway cracks and potholes, but a stiff shock otherwise. For cracks and potholes the under-loaded leaf springs in the rear are all the stiffness I could tolerate back there - no added shock stiffness is needed .... and that's just how the FSD shocks perform.
I didn't need to compare the Koni FSD shocks to any other shock through direct usage before buying - I just read about how they worked and it made sense that a variable shock was the ultimate kind of shock design. As I understand it, road racing cars have used variable shocks for years - shocks that adjust themselves to the road surface up to many times per second, as required, in real time ... but of course these high performance racing systems are not available for RV vehicles.
The Koni FSD shock is a very basic attempt at providing real time variability in a shock, as they only have two mechanically sensed and invoked states - a "low frequency" damping reaction and a "high frequency" damping reaction. Low frequency damping is for up-and-down bounce control on bumps, dips, curbs, etc. and for leaning control on curves. High frequency damping is for sharp and rapid small road surface variations such as highway cracks and potholes. I believe that the Koni FSD shocks perform as a stiff shock in the former situations and as a soft shock in the latter situations.
The Koni FSD shocks seem to be doing just that in the rear of our under-loaded E450 chassis supporting only a small Class C. In my situation I especially wanted a soft shock for highway cracks and potholes, but a stiff shock otherwise. For cracks and potholes the under-loaded leaf springs in the rear are all the stiffness I could tolerate back there - no added shock stiffness is needed .... and that's just how the FSD shocks perform.
