mx5cartalk.com

not sure if this question has been asked or not but im gonna ask it anyway. im really confused weather or whether not to put king springs on stock shocks. some say its fine and some say it will mess up your shocks. im just after a bit more lower than stock, i dont really want to get coilovers because of the $$$. all help much appreciated.

Both are right.

If the shock are moving beyond their intended travel they will wear faster, but it's not going to be a matter of install springs sunday, shocks blown tuesday.
It will be fine, lowered springs like Kings are designed to be used with stock (or equivalent) shocks.


Bear in mind that being an NA the shocks are likely 20years old and have who knows how many km on them, so they're probably getting due for replacement regardless of spring.

hks_kansei wrote:Both are right.

If the shock are moving beyond their intended travel they will wear faster, but it's not going to be a matter of install springs sunday, shocks blown tuesday.
It will be fine, lowered springs like Kings are designed to be used with stock (or equivalent) shocks.


Bear in mind that being an NA the shocks are likely 20years old and have who knows how many km on them, so they're probably getting due for replacement regardless of spring.

thanks for the reply, that seems about right, as for the shocks i will get them checked before i put any king springs on. by the way the odo reads 148xxx and im not sure if the shocks have been changed or not.

A very quick way to test shocks is to push down on each corner a few times then stop.
If the car bounces up and down a little after you stop pushing, the shocks are likely worn.
If it stops bouncing the second you stop, they're ok.

But that only works to tell you if they're 100% dead, or not, it can't really show if they're worn down rather than gone fully.

hks_kansei wrote:A very quick way to test shocks is to push down on each corner a few times then stop.
If the car bounces up and down a little after you stop pushing, the shocks are likely worn.
If it stops bouncing the second you stop, they're ok.

But that only works to tell you if they're 100% dead, or not, it can't really show if they're worn down rather than gone fully.

it stops bouncing as soon as i stop pushing down so i think they're still going pretty hard. thanks for the info man, by the way would u know how long it would take for the shocks to blow from king springs, its my daily so car its gonna be dríven like normal, work, gym, tafe etc.

Let me tell you after the upcoming motorkhana .. I've been running stock equivalent shocks with king ssprings for only a short while.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Akso adding,: If it's daily driving I think it will last for some time.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Artemis wrote: by the way would u know how long it would take for the shocks to blow from king springs, its my daily so car its gonna be dríven like normal, work, gym, tafe etc.

Piece of string.

There's so many variables it's impossible for anybody to say.

I'm running on kings lowered springs for about a month now, they are pretty good in terms of ride height and ride quality, it also dramatically reduced the body roll when i smash through corners, however, the only down side is it makes some squealing noise when my car is going slow.

Im unsure if it's my shocks that making the noise or any other component. but with the price im very happy.

Squealing or Squeaking?

(ie: a constant screech, or just an intermittant noise)


Springs don't often make nosies apart from maybe a few knocks (if they shift a little) and maybe some groans (usually after many, many years)

I would be looking at bushes before anything.

This is going back some time.

I put Kings on my NA6....in 1998. Patchy had less than 100k on it at the time. I recon my shocks were shot withing about 2 months after installing it. the shop I bought them off said they'b be fine.
Mine were the original shock which came with the car in 1989.

I would be really surprisded if your current shocks are the originals after so many years. about 18mths after that i installed the koni set up, which at the time was the bees knees.

There is so many better set ups around now.

Hopefully i'm wrong. And you get to enjoy your NA8 for some time before you need to replace the shocks