**review of KW variant 3 coilovers for LCR **

[GREY 225]

You will Bret, like willie says, on a public road you cant come anywere near pushing the handling to its true capacity.On a track ill happily go up against anything else.There is so much more confidence and feel.
Nice one to both of you, when you see some pics of before and after you dont realise just how high the LCR seems to sit as standard, when i bought mine 3 years ago i always thought it looked low,after lowering it though i now look and think god that looks so much better, how it should have looked from factory.Makes all the difference.
Get the ARBS Bret, it will put your LCR into another level.

 

[DOLBY]

cheers jim,
ir really need to adjust the rear, but have absolutely no time to do this...totally understand about how high the standard car sits, now it looks perfect, and it looks subtle too. to the untrained eye it looks like the suspension hasnt been changed.

anyway, the arbs are on the shopping list, along with the front mount and exhaust.

 

[Willie]

Bret, if you can hold off on fitting the ARB's till after the SCN meet it would be interesting to compare the two cars to see just how much or little difference the ARB's make.
If your iching to get these on its fair enough.
After driving my car you might change your mind

 

[George 3G]

Hi Dolby, how are you getting on with these? How many miles have you put on them so far? Especially how have the threads help up over the last 18 months? Some photos of them would be fantastic

Thanks!

George

 

[jc_boc]

Very interesting read. I am looking at getting these done but will have it done with VW Racing as I am stupid with things like this. Saving hard is it is the better part of £1500.00 for this little mod but the boc should handle roads much better.

 

[DOLBY]

Ok a small update.

Took the car to Revo today to completely re-do my KWV3s, as they were getting on the side of being 'oh my god a small hole in the road...CRAACK!) I think it is safe to say the ride quality has been bad for quite some time but i never had the time or patience to go and get them sorted properly, as it seems most roadsport places avoid them as they are tricky to set up correctly.

Anyways, the plan for the day was for Revo to completely strip the struts and springs and re-fit them again. After 15 minutes, Ben comes out and tells me that the fitting of the coilovers are in a "terrible state" and imo i knew it deep down. Dont want to cause grief on a public forum but when i bought the coilovers they came with free fitting...hence the dodgy fitting. Anyone who knows me on this forum, knows where i got them from, and if i am honest it shocks and angers me.

Ben and the suspension guy trusted to do the work for me both explained about the front bump stops being in a weird position causing the cars suspension travel to be nearly non existant. They ddnt go into too much detail, but apparantly they never see anything like that before.

I had an image of how i wanted the car to look and ride....i wanted the rear lower than the front, and the car to be sporty but as tolerable as possible. After 45 minutes the car was ready for a road test, and instantly i fell back in love with her (not that i fell out of love lol) but the car now looked even more better. Previous height settings were around 20mm all round. Now they were 25mm front and 30mm rear and boy does it look aggressive.

The car can now determine its stiffness/hardness by the adjustable top mounts as this is what the suspension guru told me. 2 clicks left is softer and 2 clicks right harder. This i may have fun with, as if i ever need to go on a track day i can do it all by myself...and im a suspension noob.

First things first i get in the car, and it feels so much smoother, Ben had explained to me that KW are one of the best, if not, THE best manufacturer for these cars as they cut out all the choppiness of the standard shocks. Im not saying the car glides over surfaces now because that would be fairytale stuff but yeah, it it ten times more comfy than standard and twice as better than the original settings.

The rear bound is now 1.5 clicks clockwise from closed and rebound is 2 clicks CW which is about hald stiff. The front bound is now 1.5 clicks CW from closed and rebound the same. Adjustments can be made from the top mounts in future.

At high speed i have noticed you still get a kind of bouncy ride, but im willing to live with this for the time being. I must add that i was very happy with the settings at this point, until i went to get my car alligned. While watching the guy undoing and doing something up underneath the car (do they check the suspension this thorough with allignments?) I had a strange sinking feeling incase he may of been doing something...maybe im paranoid or something but after the allignment the car doesnt feel as smooth any more....i may have to give the suspension some adjustments tomorrow.

Regarding the allignment results it seems i have 2.5mm on half of the front tyres left. So a couple of Continental sportContact3s will be on order. Apparantly the toe was so out it was laughable. The car is now set up for the "best angles possible for a road going car without being ridiculous".

A couple of pics from the allignment results

For those that cannot see, recommended for fast road use are....

* Left front CAMBER -1 degree08
* Left front CASTOR 7 degree47 (cant adjust)
* Left front TOE -0 degree01

* Left rear CAMBER -1 degree33
* Left rear TOE 0 degree17

* Right front CAMBER -1 degree12
* Right front CASTOR 8 degree01
* Right front TOE 0 degree00

* Right rear CAMBER -1 degree24
* Right rear TOE 0 degree19


* Front total TOE -1 degree01
* Rear total TOE 0 degree36

* Steer ahead -0 degree01
* Thrust angle -01 degree01

 

[Willie]

Brett, great to hear things were as suspected, not right.
Also settings look fair and good that you know how to stiffen things up should you need to.
With better tyres you'll notice a big difference.
Now your getting to see a little of what KWV3's can do, there's so much more to then though

 

[DOLBY]

Cheers Will,
cant understand how the ride felt different after the allignment. They dont do anything to the suspension do they? I know they do a check.

Thing is, i needed these to be as comfy as they can be on the road (of course i can revert back for track use) and how they were: I could of bought some crappy £200 off ebay if i wanted the slammed look, but i wanted low and a reasonable amount of handling for the road, but good comfort levels...i think the compromise was attainable and realistic.

How could the original fitters bodged the struts up so much i will never understand

 

[Willie]

If you were running a lot of toe out for a while this would have made you turn i very sharp but affected straight lie handling.
Now it will be the opposite

 

[DOLBY]

Tried to adjust the top mounts today, a few clicks anti clockwise= no difference. Afew clicks clockwise and no difference.....what am i doing wrong here?

 

[Willie]

How did you check for 'difference' ?

 

[DOLBY]

basically i drove around an industrial estate that was empty. The guy at Revo said you can adjust the hardness and softness at the top mount, and i never noticed any difference whatsoever.

 

[Willie]

You will need to try out a course where you can get the car to slip/slide/understeer.
Then adjust and repeat to prove/disprove benefits

 

[DOLBY]

so am i correct that anti clockwise is softer, and clockwise is firmer?

Honestly Willie i was pushing her quite a bit, no notice at slow speed or hounding into corners. Maybe someone has confused me on what the top mounts adjustment actually does? What does it do?

 

[Willie]

http://www.kw-suspension.com/us/kw_valve_technology.php

http://www.kw-suspension.com/pdf/Einstellanleitung_2-fach_Competition.pdf

 

[imperial2005]

Track lcr

Hi , I just ordered mine today £1255 From demon tweekes can't wait to get them on my car.
Currently my car has been fully stripped out and ready for me to try and fit/bolt/weld in my cage!!! Any help.
All suspension is off and I have had both lower arms hubs and rear beam powder coated ( there green and lush )
Then on with new bearings sensors , poly bush kit , track arms ball joints and drop links, nothing can go on down there until my v3's turn up then I will have it set up for track only, if anyone can advise settings prior please let me know...my car has got to be ready for last august weekend as of to the ring!!

 

[DOLBY]

Have adjusted these again. Was getting tired of the 'high speed bounce' on motorways and the general 'hard as nails' around town...

Admittedly the car is very very low. Have recently been told it is/was 40mm lower than standard!!! Took the car to Alex at AKS Tuning and he adjusted them for me. I must stress this is like the third time I have had to pay someone to sort the ride quality out! Was gettin disheartened to say the least. I mean, if I wanted to make the drive unbearable I would of bought some shitty ones off eBay!

Ok so Alex had a look and the damping on the front was at FULL HARD and rebound 2 clicks off of fully soft! The rear was half soft and half soft rebound...but wtf kind of settings are they? The result now is front damping 3 clicks off of full soft and rebound 3 clicks off full hard. Rear is slightly softer but rebound a bit higher.

Have to say it rides great now. Thanks to Alex. Go check him out. He will be fitting my exhaust when it comes too.

Cheers


Sent from my iPhone when I should be working....

 

[DOLBY]

Oh and 10mm higher!!


Sent from my iPhone when I should be working....

 

[ReDBull]

You've had them on for a while what kind of condition do they look in? With this being the third time you've had the adjusted have they been poorly set up in the past or have they deteriorated?

 

[DOLBY]

Still look fine tbh.

The first time AmD screwed up cos when they fitted them the rebound was on like zero!!! Bouncy bouncy bouncy. Then Revo done them, rode better round town but still bouncy bouncy.

This time Alex at AKS Tuning took the job on. He sat in the car beforehand and he said it was very bouncy too. I'm unsure why it was bouncy for soooo long but tbh I never used the motorway so never really noticed. All fixed now though. Rides great.


Sent from my iPhone when I should be working....