[Ant]

I have used Konis and Spax and I think its what you pay for!

What about a good Bilstein shock, I put some custom built shocks on my current car, they have the 14mm shafts and 1/2" spherical bearings for mounting, good German technology, which I guess is similar to the Dutch Koni tech!
I believe a lot has been said about Bilstein on CC regarding a certain car builder who apparently got a package deal on a lower spec duty Bilstein shock and had misalignment issues and then on all manner of problems with light-duty 11mm diameter shafts etc, my recommendation is buy minimum 14mm diameter shaft shocks and a good quality brand. For racing for street and race use QA1 seem to be a good shock, havent heard anything bad about them from the race guys.

I would go for Konis next time mainly for the name, my Bilsteins were over NZ$5k, the almost top of the range double adjustment Koni race shocks were another $800 more which wasnt an issue, but I was talked into getting the Bilsteins due to no external adjustment as they believe if you set them up properly for the car and spring rates then just leave them, but the adjusters dont do any harm sitting there, as you have to go through the sorting process with springs etc on any shock and the fine adjustment probably isnt that important. The driving school here uses Bilstein on the earlier Formula Fords etc with great results, and have Konis on the later cars.

Just a few unqualified thoughts off the top of my head........!