KONI Front Strut Adjustable Yellow Sport Mustang V6 2015-2017/ EcoBoost/ GT 2015-2025

If you've been around the automotive after-market long enough you learn there are certain brands you can count on for a high quality product and one of those brands is KONI. KONI's been producing high quality suspension for years and if you're into handling at some point in time you've probably owned a KONI Yellow. The Yellows are part of a sports series specifically designed for lowered vehicles. The sports overall are designed for excellent road handling and also an acceptable level of comfort.

Today we're going to install the KONI Yellow shocks and struts on a lowered 2015 Mustang GT. The KONI Yellows again are designed for a lowered vehicle, roughly up to and inch and a half drop, which is perfect for the Ford racing springs on our GT convertible. That's because the Yellows are going to be a direct replacement for the factory shocks and struts with one minor modification required for the rear. They're also rebound adjustable allowing you to really dial in the ride for your particular driving style.

Once the strut's installed on the vehicle adjusting it is easy. You take the tool provided by KONI, you put it on the top here. They're going to come full loose from the factory. To firm them up, you simply just turn.

We'll show you this in detail during the installation, but the one modification required to install these is going to be to the rear shock mounting bracket which mounts to the top of the rear shock. You have to actually open it up to a 12mm hole for the KONI to fit properly, which is no big deal.

For this installation, you need a lift and a pole jack or a jack and jack stands. 3/8" ratchet. 15mm socket. 1/2" impact gun. 18mm socket. 19mm socket. 21mm socket. 22mm socket. 24mm socket. 17mm wrench. Panel removal tool. Hammer. Drill. 15/32" or 12mm drill bit. Spring compressor. And safety glasses.

We're going to start with the front strut. To do that, you've got these three bolts that come through the strut tower. We're going to remove two of the nuts and loosen the third.

Moving down here, we're going to disconnect our sway bar. You're going to put a wrench on the back to hold it and then remove the nut from the front. Now we'll disconnect the ABS line, the plastic clip on the strut, and the one down the spindle.

We need to get the caliper out of the way to access the nuts and bolts to remove the strut. One bolt back here for the caliper, the other one is up top. Just put it back on the K member out of the way.

The caliper out of the way, we're going to pull the rotor off and give us a little more room to work.

Through the spindle from the strut, we've got to remove these two nuts down here. The bolts are splined so they're not going to go anywhere. Simply remove the nut, get it out to the edge, then we'll out the bolts. Keep the nuts in place just so they'll protect the ends of the bolts. You don't want to mushroom the bolts or you'll have a hard time getting it back in. And then hammer the bolts free.

The bolts push through. You can remove them by hand now. Just kind of juggle them out. Now separate the strut from the spindle. The bolt on the left side up here, just lift the strut up, thread that off, and remove the strut.

The next step is going to be to disassemble our existing strut because we need to use the spring, the dust boot, bump-stop, and the strut mount onto our new KONIs. To do that we'll need a spring compressor so we can compress the spring and remove the nut from the top so we can get all these pieces off. Now we're going to remove the nut on the top of the strut to remove our strut mount.

These are the pieces we're going to transfer over. Obviously the spring, and then the boot with the bump-stop, the mount, and the lower isolator. We're going to start with the spring isolator. Put that, it has the same holes as the factory. Pop it right in. The dust boot and bump-stop can go on next. And now our spring. Make sure you line it up on the bottom. Then install the strut mount. Now we'll release tension on the spring. Make sure everything's lined up. Then it's ready to go back on the car.

We can put our assembled strut assembly up into place. Just get one nut hand-tightened to hold it. We've got to make sure now that the sway bar is in the right place, the plastic's on the right side here. We're going to reinstall the spindle to the strut. It's easier to get the lower bolt, then you can sort of pivot it up into place for the upper.

The nuts will pull the bolts through. Give it a couple taps with a hammer just to get the splines started. Install the nuts back on.

Now we can reinstall the rotor and put the caliper back on. Now you can reinstall the M link for the sway bar, install it just link the original. Then we're going to reattach our ABS line.

We're back up in our engine base. We can tighten up the three strut mounting nuts. Repeat the process on the other side and move onto the rears.

The rear you want to start by taking the wheel off and supporting the rear control arm with a jack. After that, we remove the two bolts that hold the factory mount to the chassis. This shock has just two more bolts under the bottom of the control arm. Now we can lower down the jack, decompress the shock. And remove.

We have to transfer the boot, bump-stop, and bracket over to our new KONI. We're going to start by popping the plastic cap off, and remove the nut.

Here's the step that requires the modification. The actual factory bracket, the hole in here is not large enough to fit over the threads on the KONI. This has to be opened up so we can get proper clearance. We open that up to 12mm.

Like I said, we have to drill this out to 12mm. Nobody's going to have a 12mm drill bit. What we found is a 15/32" is going to be right about the same. All you'll want to do is once you drill the hole, just oval it just a hair with the bit and it will fit properly.

Here's the parts we're assembling onto our KONI shock in the order that they're going to go. First there's going to be the plastic spacer, then the boot with the bump-stop. Our mounting bracket. Then the spacer provided by KONI, and the two jam nuts.

We put the assembly back up into place. Push the shock up against the factory mount. Use your jack to lift it up into place. And repeat the process on the other side.

The KONIs are going to ship full soft, so you can adjust them however you want based on your driving style. There's two different adjusters included in the kit. The white adjuster here is going to be for your front struts, and this is for your rear shocks. If you look at this, there's a very small plus and minus with arrows as far as how to adjust it. It's going to be roughly two and a half turns from full soft to full hard. We're going to start right in the middle. Go with probably a turn and a quarter just to get them tightened up a little bit. That's a half. Full turn. And then a quarter.

The same thing on the front. Put the adjuster on the strut. We're going to use this arrow pointing at this bolt hole here as an adjuster. Give it one full turn, then a quarter past. We'll do the same thing on the other side. I do want to mention that on both adjusters, once you adjust the strut and the shock, you want to remove these and throw them in your glove box or center console, wherever you want to keep them.

The KONI Sport Yellow shocks and struts are going to make our 2015 GT convertible a lot more fun to drive. The factory stuff did okay with the lowering springs, but the Yellows, that's what they're built for. The adjustability is going to make them even that much better. I'd say she's pretty straight forward, probably take you two to three hours, be back on the road in no time.