When I purchased my Mazda MX5 it came fitted with Koni Sport shocks which were set to their lowest setting. These particular shock absorbers have three different adjustments for height based on a sliding spring seat and a circlip. Whilst they are a very popular replacement shock absorber for many different vehicles the best guides I’ve seen for adjusting the suspension height refer to ‘compress the spring and then move the circlip to the next slotted position but without any photographs describing exactly what that is.
I thought having recently raised my MX5 from the lowest setting to the middle setting I would give back to the Koni Sport owning community with some photos of exactly what the circlip system looks like.
First step is to compress the spring to take the load off the spring seat.
I purchased the spring compressors from a generic autoparts store locally. They were pretty cheaply made but more than adequate for the job. Unfortunately they seem to have an extremely long thread which made them awkward to work with in the small space available to me around the MX5 rear suspension. I have considered cutting them down but I managed to get it to work ok.
Lifting the spring seat to show the next circlip slot.
Once the spring tension has been eased you can lift the spring seat up to expose the middle circlip slot. I just used a flatbladed screwdriver to lift the circlip from the low slot and slide it up into the middle position. After I had ensured that the circlip was securely placed I lowered the seat and released the spring tension.
The circlip and seat in the middle position.