RobPhoboS

In super short - Frigging awesome

Yes - I shall be taking better photo's


If you want to read the long winded bit...

A tiny bit on the background:
My car was on Bilstein B6 shocks, with Tein S springs which I installed back in February 2015, along with the Eibach ARB's, and since then the car has done around 12k miles.
At that point I had some poly bushings and OEM rubber bushings, the B6's were replacing the completely worn out OEM suspension. It was a big difference, a little firmer at low speed but far more controlled over 40mph without feeling crashy at all. So I was happy, although I felt the steering response could be sharper.
About a year later this led me to SPL bushings, which are metal and really suited for track work. I had installed camber arms and a number of SPL bushings which removed the slack and sticktion from the polys in several key areas.
This improved the steering response vastly but of course increased the NVH dramatically, whilst that didn't worry me too much it wasn't a good combination with the B6's sadly. They seem to have an initial firm response, due to high gas pressure in the strut – better explained here (from 1min 25s onwards):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y3D...utu.be&t=1m25s

So for a while it didn't bother me but started to become tiresome trying to dodge every single bit of rough road, drain cover or pot hole. This makes for tiring journeys at town/city speeds but as mentioned fine at higher speeds, as I guess the undulations are making the shocks work already, they felt good.

During the winter months in 2016 I started thinking and researching about going to coilovers, the KW v3's were at the top of my list, initially.
I have to say I was hesitant about coilovers from a previous experience on my old MR2. I had installed new BC 'BR' series, which unbeknownst to me had the hard spring option supplied. They were very crashy and I couldn't find a setting that I liked for the road. The build quality was good during my time with them but didn't suit our roads.

I made a post to get some feedback on options:
http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/113506-...ers-kw-v3-etc/

I have absolutely no doubt about how good the v3's are but after devouring many videos from the Suspension Truth youtube channels, you can pick up a few clues that he's sometimes critical of how the KW's are valved and that they are twintube, although I imagine the top kind you can find off the shelf.
Once again, it's NOT to say they are bad just that it may not suit my particular needs.
I also didn't want rebound and compression dials unless I was absolutely confident in how to set them properly, for both road and track.
I prefer to just have one dial that goes from soft-hard but ideally one that does something meaningful as long as it measured/matched out properly.
Remember that most of the cars I've read about are on rubber or poly bushings, so I had to be wary of any coilovers not providing enough comfort for most of my road driving.

I will say right now that I was positively impressed with how Jerrick from Meister R had given some pretty detailed information on that thread, and on other posts as well as plenty of other forums.
The usual thing happens were people are cynical, nothing wrong with that, it's good to get into a debate but this is the internet, so it usually deteriorates into stubbornness, even if it's well intentioned.
I thought these were both good reviews and helped put me in the GT1 camp:

https://my350z.com/forum/brakes-and-...coilovers.html

http://civictype-r.co.uk/forum/viewt...?f=30&t=287495

(if you look at the 4th post down, he had an issue that was quickly resolved)
http://civictype-r.co.uk/forum/viewt...7539&start=380

He's pretty nifty at the ring too:


So I emailed Jerrick, I can only say that the way he dealt with me was mightily impressive, especially considering the time of year, on new years eve for heavens sake ! :blush: (apologies about that!)
We exchanged many emails over the last couple of weeks and I can't thank him enough for how good the experience has been.
Yes obviously they want to sell products, I'm well aware of that but there wasn't any pressure pre-sale, and really helpful post-sale when I had a couple of technical-ish questions (and what they were are described below).

Installation:
I was hoping to get some help here, not for the physical procedure but so that I had some decent photo's to share of the process, unfortunately my friend was working.
I can only apologise but the day I went to install them I did it by myself, and it had turned from rain to snow, so time fairly critical.





Packaged very securely, you get the suspension, rear adjustment extenders and the custom C-spanners for the locking collars. These are unique from other ones I've seen, you have to slide them down/up over the teeth but they lock in tightly so they don't slip. Extra kudos for this design.





If you don't have an impact wrench at home, just spend the £180 and get yourself a Keilder and impact sockets ! (or equivalent in your country)
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/kiel...18v-brushless/

Taking the B6's off is simple, there are enough videos on youtube showing how to do it, this being one of the more concise ones:

I just unbolted the droplinks at the front to give me a bit more movement.
And with the rear spring bucket, I only unbolted the outer bolt, you get enough clearance with some pushing to wiggle the spring and rubber cones out. The inner bolt adjusts the toe (iirc), so I'd rather leave it alone.

I checked that both front GT1's were the same height, you can use a micrometer/tape measure for this. It's pointless comparing against the old shocks as they'll be different due to the springs etc, plus you'll have to adjust the height regardless.

Installing the new suspension is very easy, they have clear instructions with them too, so ensure you read that. I cleaned and wire brushed the surface where the top mounts meet the body of the car as a bit of crud had collected up there.
Obviously with the rear, open the boot, and remove the plastic covering on the brace, I took the top edge pieces off for the extender cable to go through. I ended up using the hole for one of the plastic popper fittings, and drilled a hole through this one, saved time having to work out any measurements.










Once the plastic covers are back on the strut, I was left with quite a length piece of extender cable which I chopped down.
A little tip here, after chopping to the correct length, it wont fit straight into the adjuster dial, so just unwind 4-6 of the individual wires and snip them off. With the rubber covered coiled sheath, I found I couldn't quite cut them but you can bend it whilst in the jaws of cutters and it'll just snap at a certain angle. Then it'll be thin enough to then securely get the dial back on.

Ok, so its' on the car but now you've got the quite time consuming task of getting the ride height to how you want it.
The process is simple, as outlined here:

I'm pretty sure the ride height can go just above stock if you needed it !
I spent some time getting them as evenly matched as I could, and one thing to bare in mind that it'll settle down a little lower too.
I just measured from the arch to the ground before it settled, once happy, drove it around for a few mins and checked again in the same spot as before for consistency.
Yes, this took several hundred attempts


Time for a drive:

For me this is the scary bit, did I make a good decision and will they do what I was looking for ???
Namely, remove the harshness for normal low speed driving, retain controlled driving for higher speed stuff, and when needed perform positively at the track (coming soon-ish).

I have initially set it to this but I'll continue to play around and see how it goes.
-17 front
-15 rear

Thank f$%k for that

Immediately a gigantic improvement at low speed, all of the sharpness has vanished, the steering feels good and the body is not wobbling or floating.
Bonza !
Yes, the SPL bushings occasionally still rattle depending on the surface at LOW speed but by enlarge that is heard, not felt as it was before.
It really is a remarkable difference, as it feels like they are working in comparison to the B6's.
Moving on to motorway roads, it feels planted, the joints you sometimes get on them don't give the car any problems, and nor does it feel like it's wallowing with the undulations.
Onto quiet back roads they just soak up our lovely (not) condition surfaces giving a greater sense of comfort and handling.
Obviously I shall play around with the settings more, and I'd really like to see how it feels with the settings going towards 'hard', simply to feel what it does.

I'll also try to measure the F/R frequency (approximately) and get it to what Shaikh calls 'flat ride' – not to be confused with ride height.

I'm not claiming to be a suspension guru of course but I'm enthusiastic about learning more, and the technical aspects of it in order to take advantage for use in my own car.
The GT1's have delivered, put a smile on my face and stopped me wincing driving on our crumbling infrastructure of roads.

It's very early days yet, I've covered about 100 miles, and I'll be updating this post as time and experience moves on, I'm very much looking forward to track time with them.

A big thank you to the people at Meister R and Black Art Designs, I think you've done great work

terrasmak

iTrader: (8)

I love their how to adjust coilovers, simple and leads to screwed up handling.

MicVelo

Great review, Rob. Thanks to you and Nocturnal, now two good reviews.

Will it make me go and buy a set? No, but if I ever buy another toy Z car like another Z34, maybe give 'em a try. For now, I still bleed yellow..... Bilstein or Koni, that is. Laff....

Something I didn't pay attention to previously, these are rear shock/independent spring like OEM, not full coilover. That's a plus for me. I like Nissan's engineering. Were I building a track car, might be different.

Thanks!

EDIT: One thought..... both you and Nocturnal both "cursed" the extra length of the adjuster cable..... is it actually long enough to maybe install in the rear bulkhead between the seats? On-the-fly cockpit adjustability!! I feel like Nico!! HAR!

RobPhoboS

I've not installed coilovers before with the adjuster cable, so for the first few mins I thought, uh oh, these are going to be tricky but when you get down to it, very easy just a bit fiddly.
Hah, technically you could put a very long cable for in drivers seat adjusters

Yep, retaining the spring bucket was a plus for me as well. Sure if it was an out and out track car I'd possibly look into 'true' coilovers, however I've no idea yet how these perform on track. Very much looking forward to booking a day in the near future !

I like their channel, funny and reminds me to have a laugh sometimes when working on cars

MicVelo

EVERY TIME I do something boneheaded whilst working on car (or driving), I have to laugh. Not as often anymore but lawdy, when I was a kid, it seemed like it was every automotive endeavor was the source of a chuckle. Not at the moment but retrospectively.

If ya can't laugh at yourself....

The Swede

Thanks for another great review of these!

Drop another line in a couple weeks when you have some miles on them and let us know how you feel about them then.

RobPhoboS

I've got some random misfire woes continuing at the moment (actually, probably for years!) and I'm seemingly making a mess of things.

So once these gremlins are sorted, yep, I'll be back with more thoughts