Koni Special Active Damper Vs. Sport, 986s Edition

My buddy is selling his 2002 Boxster S soon-ish and has promised me "a good deal." So obviously I'm parts shopping for it, in true GRM fashion. The car needs shocks and I'm looking at getting Konis for it. I've never used them before and I figure it's time. Thing is, I'm not sure if I'd be happier with the Special Active Dampers or the Sports. I'm planning on leaving this car mostly stock (famous last words) so figure I'll be running either shock with the stock S springs. I might do a track day or two at PIR and/or a couple autocrosses for fun. Nothing serious though. The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is having a decent Sunday driver and weekend getaway machine. 

What do y'all think is the right shock for me?

I have a 986s, and used the Koni Special Active with stock springs with 1/4 coil cut from them.  It's great.  Good ride, limited body roll, looks good.   For a sporty daily driver would totally do that again.  I run Sports on cars that see more track, but our Mazda3 lemons car still has Special Active as we are on our third set of warranty replacements as we bought them long ago when it was a street car with 70k miles, now has 262k (11k track in retirement from street car duties) 

Special Actives live and die by suspension travel. If the chassis has decent travel, they're a good option. If it doesn't, the Sport is likely a better option. The Sports also give you more upgrade potential in the future but you'll have to decide how important that is.

They both have the lifetime warranty for the original purchaser. Sonic, how did yours fail? Leaks at the shaft?

Most of our failures were rust related, as it was on a daily driven commuter in PA for 14 years and 250k miles (180k with Konis). The top blew off of one rear from corrosion, and the front spring perches started to sag from it as well. They replaced them in pairs for those as the other side was close behind.  

 One time was a shaft leak and once we just lost dampening, those were not rust related.  once you do your first warranty claim with them to get the paperwork in order, the rest are super quick and easy.  

When I got my 2002 Boxster, the suspension was shot after 145K miles. It had never been refreshed, so I installed Bilstien B6s (the sport version strut) and new Porsche M030 sport ROW (rest of world) version springs. That change really was worth it! The springs are slightly shorter and firmer than stock, and the car handled even better (Boxsters have fantastic handling anway). For track days I added a stock Cayman rear bar and the balance was perfect, allowing drop throttle rotation on corner entry, without making the car loose in any other situation. I believe I got all the parts from ECS Tuning, and while the Bilsteins weren't cheap, the springs were pretty reasonable.

Something to consider...

Wow, blowing the top off from corrosion! I didn't think the SA had been around long enough for things to get that bad. Well done.

Well, they used to be called FSD and were gold, and that's what we had then. 

I had FSDs on a 135i that also blew the top off the rear due to rust.  Replaced them with yellow sports, now the bottoms of those front shocks are getting trashed by rust.  Lousy prep, lousy paint or lousy application, but Koni definitely has a rust problem that simply does not happen with other brands. 

Keith Tanner said:

Special Actives live and die by suspension travel. If the chassis has decent travel, they're a good option. If it doesn't, the Sport is likely a better option. The Sports also give you more upgrade potential in the future but you'll have to decide how important that is.

They both have the lifetime warranty for the original purchaser. Sonic, how did yours fail? Leaks at the shaft?

I saw you mention the suspension travel thing in a different thread here, which is what got me considering them for use with stock springs. I have no idea how much suspension travel boxsters have, I'm just trusting that Mr. Porsche designed in the correct amount. 

I guess I should also be asking how the sports ride on full soft. I'd honestly have just gone straight there if the Special Actives didn't exist. I'm hoping Javelin checks in here, if he's still on the boards. He was running the sports on his Boxster a couple of years ago but his thread is all about autocross performance instead of ride quality...

Not quite a 986 but similar -- currently I have Cayman R springs (-20mm from stock) and Koni Sports full soft and ride quality is excellent.

And on my daily E90 with sports suspension I have Koni SA's and been impressed with the ride comfort on those as well.