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I have a set of Koni's and KG/MM Super Sport springs. The springs are mounted on the lower perch. I am on stock wheels. While I do not have the 18's that you are asking for, I think I can offer a bit of insight about my set up. Here are 2 pics.
Stock, there is almost a 4 finger gap. With this set up, I have a 1 finger gap on the back and just under 1 finger on the front. This should equal about 1 1/2 in of drop. My car does not rub. For the person who mentioned that they had KG/MM Race springs and were going to replace them with stock springs and Konis, I might recommend keeping the Race springs and mounting them on the upper perch. This will give you a nice drop with plenty of clearance for 18s and the stiffer springs will make the car much more stable and handle better. If you don't want that much drop, maybe look into a set of KG/MM Super Sports and mount them on the top perch. This should give you about 2/3in. of drop but still make the car handle much better.
I am not a fan of the stock springs and shocks. The springs seem too soft and the compression of the stock shocks seems to be too stiff. With my stiffer springs and the Koni's with a softer compression than stock, the car sticks to the road much better than stock while also having a slightly better ride. Before the swap, I noticed a bit of float over uneven surfaces and the rear tires would tend to skip over rough roads. Now, they just plain stick to the road regardless of how rough it is. I am 100% pleased. If you lived close, I would be happy to take you for a drive to check them out.
You guys have me thinking now. I am going to speak to my mechanic and see what type of solution I can come up with. Perfect wrold, I would like to keep the kg/mm, however, I want to avoid any rubbing. I may talk to him about going with a more aggressive alignment, which should help some rubbing.
Anyhow, I will let you guys know what my outcome is.
BTW, GChambers, are the konis adjustable (the ride setting, not the height) after you install them? Basically, I want to know if I can switch from stiff to soft based on the type of driving I am doing that day. Thanks.
Jut wanted to give you guys an update. I got my Konis put on last Friday. Since I was running the KG/MM race springs before (on stock springs), I decided to keep the kg/mm and combo them with the Konis. In the rear, I kept the Konis at stock height and in the front I used the lower perch. The reason for this is that the rear was sitting lower than front (the rear has a 1 finger gap, the front had a 2 finger gap). I had an alignment done with -2.0 degrees of camber.
After the Konis were installed, I was still having some rubbing issues. I decided to set the shocks to FIRM, to see if that helped. Still rubbed when I hit dips in the road. <please keep in mind, that I have never rubbed while driving the S aggressively, only in straight line driving where there are dips in the road>
So, yesterday, cashout (boardmember) rolled my rear fenders for me. This morning I drove the S, the front rubbed a little, and the rear still had a small amount of rubbing <but less than before so rolling the fenders helped>
This whole rubbing problem has driven me nuts. I am anal about things like this as the average person probably would not care about the small amount of rubbing. So, my solution now is to purchase the kg/mm sport springs (15mm drop) and get rid of the kg/mm race springs (35mm drop). I am hoping this will be the solution to my problems.
If this does not work, I am driving the S into a lake and collecting the insurance $$ (j/k all you insurance adjusters out there)
