What is the lower mount overall width? Part# 8050-1131. Can't find anything on the Koni website

 

It's the same as stock. I just mounted it up and tightened the bolt. No added washers or spacers or anything.

 

Could you measure the stock one for me and tell me the overall width? Researching for my application you are helping me with in my other thread.

 

jhn, I got in touch with the Koni rep for my question. You have helped me so much with my suspension mods I wanted to provide the specs of the Koni's should others on the forum wish to do this mod themselves. He was also able to provide some insight with a shorter overall extended length than OEM shock and the pros/cons, another concern of mine with my modification as well


Koni tech: "The steel bushing sleeve in the lower eye of the Honda Fit rear shock 8050-1131 is 10mm ID and 40mm wide end to end. The body length from the centerline of the bottom bushing to the top of the shock body is 363mm. The maximum extended length of the shock from the centerline of the bottom bushing to the base of the top mounting pin (angled neck from 10 to 12mm rod) is 608 mm and the minimum compressed length is 488 mm giving a full shock stroke of 120mm. The 10mm diameter upper mounting pin is 74mm long of which 43mm is a non-threaded shank at the base of the pin.


I read over the forum thread that you attached but my computer was unable to see the photos posted (probably due to our corporate security settings). Another poster commented that the KONIs were shorter than the newer car’s OE shocks but I don’t recall if he said by how much. There are some potential pitfalls of having a shorter than expected shock on the car like delayed bump rubber contact during compression so it won’t have the stroke limiting or spring rate boosting effect as it was originally designed. These shocks are not position sensitive so there is not specific working height range that they need to be in but a shocks that operates more extended than originally designed can be potentially weaker against the effects of side loading which could risk some premature wear however the Fit’s installation without the spring mounted on the shock absorber reduces the chances of negative side load effects."


Now he did go on to say that these shocks are not officially listed for the 2015 GK, and cautioned on cross platform installations. From the looks of things you seem to no be having adverse issues.


Well, there you have it, directly from the manufacturer themselves. I gotta say that's a reputable upstanding CS on their behalf. Should give Fitfreak members a good informed decision ability for the Koni's.


Cheers.

 

Thanks for that! Great info! I have close to a 1000 miles on this set-up now and love it.

I think he missed that I lowered the car almost 1 1/2" so the bump stop issue is not a problem.

Seriously, I love the Koni/ H&R combo. It has to be one of the best bang for buck performance upgrades available for this car.

 

Thank you for sharing all of your findings!!!

 

No problem.It works great for me. A couple of changes though:

After some time driving with this combo, I don't think I would cut the front bump stops like I did. I originally did it to soften the compression because the stops get preloaded a bit after lowering and can make the car bouncy. With the OEM dampers it worked OK, but the Koni struts have damping that is better suited to the aftermarket springs and have enough rebound damping to handle the bumpers. I didn't cut the rears bumpstops and they're good.

The other issue is the front sway bar. Lowering changes the angle of the swaybar in relation to the the links and leaves less desirable swaybar geometry than OEM ride height. I suspect the obtuse angle between the swaybar and links increases the shearing impact on the swaybar links, swaybar strut mounts, and swaybar pivot bushings. Most likely, I bet I will see increased wear and reduced service life of the links and bushings. Unfortunately I do not see a way to alleviate the issue because any link length adjustment with cause interference/contact between the swaybar and control arm, halfshafts, and/or tie rods.

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve the swaybar geometry on a lowered Fit I welcome the info.

Hopefully, it is nothing. Possibly, it is something. Time will tell.

 

Bumping up the negative camber to - 1.7 degrees. I'm off to the alignment shop tomorrow.

 

Just want to ask before I pull the trigger on these- any issues at all going over speed bumps? Such as scraping the underside of the car.


Also- should I cut the bump stops or not?

Thanks.

 

I haven't found a speed bump that hits. I go really slow over them. Some steep driveways will scrape the rubber skirt in the front. The skirt will hit concrete parking blocks like those in fast food parking lots. Other than that, nothing.


If you go this same combo, I don't think either bumps top should be cut. The orange paper included with H&R springs lists all their springs that require cutting the stops and the part number for these springs was not on the list.


With the Koni shocks I don't think they should be cut.

 

Alright, so I'm almost to the point where I am done messing with it. This is my last step to dial in the suspension changes. I added 1.7 degrees negative camber to the front. I have no issues whatsoever with rubbing and the car handles great.

After alignment, there's a lot of numbers in the red, but that's expected with a custom alignment. The only thing I really expect in the green is the rear camber and toe all the way around. Unfortunately the rear toe is nonadjustable on the Fit's torsion beam rear suspension and it's way out of spec. It can be shimmed, but it takes a bit of work. I have found the rear toe to be out on many torsion beam cars; the reports on the Fit are high, as well as other make/models like Prius, etc. It seems to be high amounts of + toe on the left rear. Anyone know if this is deliberate? It could be compensation for road crown induced pull. Whatever the reason, I'm making plans to shim the hubs to remove the rear +toe (but keep the - camber). I'm going to wait until I've researched it a bit to make sure I'm not fixing something that's not broken. If you have info about the rear toe issue, I welcome your input.

As of now, my plan is to add a couple of metal toe shims between the hub and axle to remove the rear toe once I have calculated the gauge requirements.

Not the best numbers, but good enough for now. I'm very happy with the ride quality at this point:



Edit: the shop never asked or checked the torque specs for the camber bolts. I didn't feel comfortable with that so I pulled the wheels and checked it.

Glad I did!

I'm not a fan of camber bolts, but with this little underpowered car and lack of other options I went with them. I used SPC bolts, and most people don't realize that SPC makes 3 versions of the 81260 bolt. There's a gray 10.9 torque spec 70ft/lbs; black 10.9 77 ft/lbs; and a gray 12.9 97ft/lbs. I've heard stories of these bolts slipping/ breaking, so the higher grade 12.9 is the one I got. The higher torque specs should help prevent slipping.

I'm glad I checked because the camber bolt was only at 65 ft/lbs and the bottom one less. I tightened them up to spec and I feel better

 

Here's a better perspective on the changes. The silver one is completely stock:

 

Wow...really nice looking profile. Thanks for sharing the suspension number data. I know nothing about any of it. Huge learning curve so I'll just keep reading. Glad you are liking your setup.

 

This is a common issue with rear torsion beam axles. Normally the compensation for road crown is done at the front wheels, not the back. Pretty sure on this. The rear wheels are first referenced, then front is aligned. A slight compensation for road crown is added and boom you're done.


For tire wear issues, toe needs to be close to 0 degrees as possible. Camber wear is not as bad as toe wear, which can be extreme. Judging by your numbers, if you left toe the way it is, you are looking at roughly 5-10% less tread life with regular tire rotation intervals (every 8-10k) than if you had a perfect 0 degrees on each tire.


If I had alignment numbers like this for rear toe, absolfrickinglutley you bet I would be adding shims. However my Fit tracks straight, and have noticed no adverse wear patterns of the tires. When I need new tires and do an alignment that's when I'll reassess my thought on this topic.

 

Yeah, I know I'm going to have fix it. It's pretty far out of spec. I took it out on open road yesterday and opened it up to 97mph and it tracks smooth. No pull, no vibration. Steering is pretty quick and requires little input. I can only imagine how much better it will be with better tires.

It really doesn't drive like the cheap little Fit that it is.

I picked up a red EZ shim a few weeks ago. I was going to install it...but nope. No way. I do not trust those plastic shims. There's just not enough surface contact between the hub and hollow axle. I'll use metal "fork" shims or shim washers.

 

I've used EZshim on my first gen FIT. No issues for 55k when I traded it in. To each the preference. Granted they are plastic coated. The geometry lines up, but its advisable to clean the mating surface, and add some grease to prevent any surface corrosion.

Im with you though, if it ain't broken don't fix it. if you can live with 5-10% less tire life its not all that bad with regular tire rotation intervals.

 

If you look at the exploded diagram of the 1st and 3rd gen torsion beams, you'll see the new one has less surface area at the contact point. I've seen some reviews on other brands of similar design that don't work. The fasteners just keep going and the shim distorts and cracks, and the alignment specs worse. If it had a big flat contact area like first gen I might give it a go. This one I think I'll use metal shims.

 

If less surface area may need to get the smaller blue or yellow Ezshim to work with the smaller surface area. Metal shims work too and are best if available for ones application.

 

The more research I do about the rear toe, the less concerned I am about it. Even the amount of + toe my car has shouldn't really increase tire wear significantly.

It's possible rear toe-in might be added to increase understeer and to keep it tracking straight under hard braking for safety reasons. It's definitely a consistent range of toe-in, usually less than .4 degrees on all the GK's that I have seen. It is not only found on other makes of vehicles, but it seems to be an issue on the last two gen Fits as well. With the 100's of thousands of cars made, it would just seem odd that this would keep on happening if it was unintentional or an issue with safety.

I never see toe-out -- that would loosen the handling and create a safety issue. The mfr's would jump on that sh!t with a quickness if a safety issue opened them up to action. A slight amount of toe-in isn't dangerous, and most likely, is safer for the average Joe and Josette.

If you look at it this way, Honda produces the first gen car with hubs that can be shimmed. The next gen this feature is removed by permanently attaching the spindle. Did they do this to prevent people from F'ing with it?

This proves problematic for repair reasons, so the third gen the removable hub is reintroduced, but the surface area between the hub and axle is changed and now unsatisfactory for shimming (maybe possibly).

Another thing to consider: The accumulative deflection of suspension arms, bushings, wheels, tires, spindle, etc will allow enough deflection so that the wheels (all 4 if toe is 0) to toe out under heavy braking (front will toe in under acceleration) and this can create a wandering, squirming effect on handling. Almost all the driving force induces toe-out deflection to the rear wheels -- at least a little -- from their static setting.

I believe a little toe in on the rear of a Fit is good and negative will make the car loose and possible squirrely handling.

Problem: Why does Honda frequently produce a car that is out of spec with their own alignment data sheet? I'm tying really hard to give them the benefit of doubt here that this is not a QC issue for the rear axle makers.

Another theory: The car companies are in cahoots w/ the tire companies and it is a planned obsolescence thing. No, this isn't a foil hat thing - engineering a service life into a product is real. The + toe could be engineered in to deliberately increase tire wear and make people buy tires a little sooner. You know, just a lil' bit out of spec--enough that can't be easily fixed or cheaply corrected. It will just have to force a driver to buy tires a little sooner, that's all.

And another theory: Honda has sloppy QC spanning over 3 generations of cars, as do other manufacturers. I don't believe this is what's happening though. I think the toe is put there for a reason, I'm just not sure why.

Could be a little of all of the above, or it could be something else?

Sorry, no data to back up my thinking, but you know, this is the internet and all. Who needs hard data?

 

I A/X'd it over the weekend. Had a blast!