Hey Guys, this is my first time having coilovers installed on my car. Here is what I notice everytime I drive hard my car as mountain ride or something, after awhile I feel the ride becomes very soft and feels like luxury car. It looks like dynamically adjusts to softer dampening rate and I feel the handling is better too, more stick to the ground. But, that sounds not right to me. Why does it change by itself to softer setting?

As far as I understand, once you set it to a certain setting, that's what you get on the road. I am using KW V3 coilovers. This is German made product and not JDM. KW might behave uniquely different than others. I dont know.

For those of you who KW V3 owners might have the answer for me. if you guys have any comments, please let me know.

 

so you set the damping to your desired settings and once your driving for awhile the car feel's as if someone moved those settings softer, correct?

What settings are you using?
Front compression:
Front rebound:
Rear compression:
Rear rebound:

How many miles go by before you notice the change?

Any thing noteworthy of the road conditions?

Do you by change own a pyrometer that you can use to check the temps of the shock bodies?

 

Sounds like your shocks might need a rebuild, how many miles are on them? Although it is kind of odd that they are tight to begin with and then soften up. As asked above, how fast does this happen and what do you consider hard driving? If you leave the car to cool after for a few hours and don't touch the suspension setting, does the ride get stiff again?

 

Hmm it's hard to say and explain. I dont think it needs to be rebuilt since it's relatively new suspensions. I need to have an expert or someone rides my car and take it to the track or mountain road so that he/she can tell me what's going on. When I say soft, I mean the car bounces comfortly.

Maybe it's just me worrying too much. I like the bounce and the grip of my car actually. With stock suspension I have found the car slides on the road surface sometimes, but this aftermarket one is not with the same hard level turn.

I hope everything goes well.

 

The only thing I can add to this is that the oil in shocks thins out when heated up just like nearly any oil. Whether or not it should be noticable during casual driving, who knows. A shock dyno could measure the change in resistance at different temperatures, but I doubt you want to go through that much trouble and expense.

 

The Kw's are a twin tube design (my understanding a licensed Koni design), which being the variant 3 version, have gas canisters welded on. Another thought is with his choosen damping settings, he may be dialed to settings that see the damping blow off rather soon, giving the illusion that things are soft when that's what they are supposed to do at those settings and on the given road condition. Which is why I asked all the question's that I did.

If he can make arrangements to meet me at FatcatMotorsports in San Jose, I will either secure free dyno time or pay for the run's myself. In addition I will do the work of removing one front and rear shock as well as reinstalling them. Edit: Of course I would have to make arrangement with Fatcat in advance.

 

Can you answer as many of these question's as you can?

What settings are you using?
Front compression:
Front rebound:
Rear compression:
Rear rebound:

How many miles go by before you notice the change?

Any thing noteworthy of the road conditions?

And I ment what I said in the above post about offering you free shock dyno services, I will even handle removeing the shocks from the car at the same time.

 

Thank you for helping me on this one Gsedan35. Yeah I couldnt answer the numbers for these 4 questions below because I bought it used and I havent played around with the settings. So it's the same from the previous owner setting. He said to me it's for street setting. How do I know what compression and rebound this case?

What settings are you using?
Front compression:
Front rebound:
Rear compression:
Rear rebound:

How many miles go by before you notice the change? Right after I installed to my car. I would say 0-20 miles.

Any thing noteworthy of the road conditions? No..the road is good. When I drive in the city/freeway, the shocks are stiff. Only when after being driven for awhile in the mountain road, I feel it's absorb more to the ground. It's not bouncing like it needs to be rebuilt.

I can bring it to your shop if you dont mind checking it. I will check it out online for fatcatmotorsport. Btw, the previous owner has used this kw for about 5 months max. I think the suspension is still in good condition.

 

Ah, ok I totally understand.

Even with system's that have a numbered dial on the adjuster, you will usually have to adjust them to find the min and max setting to figure out how they are set now. They adjust rebound from the top of the damper shaft and compression from the bottom of the gas canister. Meaning you would have to pull the rear dampers in order to check or set rear rebound.

When you say you can notice change to softer settings from "0-20 miles", does that mean as soon as you have enough road rises and dips on the mountain roads, you notice the suspension can't seem to keep up? But otherwise it feels firm?

I don't own the shop, but have worked with the owner on my own car. I think he would share my desire to get Kw variant 3's on the dyno, but if he isn't quite their, that's where I would be willing to pay out of my own pocket for the dyno time. In case I wouldn't be able to work on your car at his shop, how far from San Jose are you?

 

the V3's have a sleeve over the bottom compression adjustment too iirc.


could it just be mental? if it's a new suspension he might not be used to it, and maybe the progressive spring rates are being used a lot more at higher speed giving the 'softer' high speed feel he expressed.

 

I think the best way is to have you check out the suspension. What do I get in the suspension dyno? I havent done any suspension dyno before. Is it pretty much like engine dyno?

I live in cupertino, it's not far from san jose. So distance should not be a problem.

I dont want to give you too much trouble here just for checking my suspension.
I mean I am ok with the current setting but I just want to be sure if this is safe and tuned for mountain driving. I think you mentioned that you will help me to do this service as a free dyno shocks? That would be great!

 

I think I'd like to do a drive along first of all. Let drive the car to that place where you get your mixed messages from the suspension and I can offer you a second opinion.

A shock dyno I guess you can say is like a engine dyno. It tells you how the damper is valved, from low piston speed movements to higher piston speed movements. On a double adjustable setup like you have, it is a huge help in allowing you a better understanding of how any changes you might make impact what happens. We can also run in or out how what your feeling may or may not be shock related.

The only issue would be I have to talk to the shop owner and get his ok and you and I would have to work out a date and time. I am usually off work on tue/wed. I will pm you once I get a answer from the owner, he's pretty busy, might take some time.

 

I would def. get it checked. first sign for me that my suspension was shot was 'bounce' and they fact it handedled poorly. was it smooth yes, almost like a cadillac but that's the issue there

 

Thanks for the help guys. I did mountain run again my car for the past 2 days and this time, as it turns out I dont feel any softness at all. The bounces seem pretty consistent and it is smooth. I will try to do it some more and see if any changes.

G35sedan let me know how it goes from your end, I think it's better if I can check my suspension as well.

 

I think I am convinced that my suspension should be ok. I have driven it for awhile and it works very good and I like it. Thank you all for your advices. I love the handling now.

I was just being paranoid I guess.