john banks

As topic.

Apple

quick answer - Tein do an impreza setup to adjust bump / rebound AFAIK but not cheap by a long shot - have a look round US sites for info...

Apple

Dougster

Ask Andy at JVS. They had a mental yellow type-r with a fully adjustable in car suspespension set-up.

dowser

Off Topic: T-UK - depends on what the car is mainly used for I guess. I could cover bumpy b-roads quicker with the Koni/Eibachs than with my KW, but they were just too soft on track. Everything's a compromise.

Richard

JIM THEO

John, before few months I asked Ohlins about suspension for my old MY00 and they told me that they'll have soonly an in-cabin adjustable suspension kit for Imprezas, not sure wich model for.
But I am sure that they have this kit already available for Volvos.
JIM

Pete Croney

John

Leda developed a system for the East Anglia Ambulance Trust. They bought a job lot of the US ambulances which were great for ferrying back injury patients, but death traps at anything over 40 mph.

The system worked well but required frequent maintenance as the adjuster motors were prone to clogging with road grime, even with a serious housing/protection system.

The driver had three settings and a stepper motor rotated to the desired damping. A dash display showed what setting was currecntly being used.

Lambo's have an in car adjustable system that has manual or auto mode. In auto, it is speed sensitive and gets stiffer, the faster you go.

T-uk

dowser,

did you have pillowball mounts fitted with the konis?.

I bought a set to fit with the KW's but due to a few fitting issues could not get them fitted, I am surprised how much the standards flex when bouncing the car.

how do you rate the KW's to Leda on track?,as nice a kit as the KW's are on road I am not convinced they are a track kit after feeling how much stiffer the ledas go.

JB,just get off yer 4rse and adjust them

T-uk

Everything's a compromise

this is why I am swaying to the eibach/koni and PBM's. I think the konis set soft with the progressive springs will be good on road, while on track the firmer setting with the PBM's tightening up the strut,should be fairly close to the coilovers just without the option of height adjustment.

perhaps if I could have got the pillowballs fitted I would think a bit more of the KW's.

do not think JB will mind this getting discussed as I do not think any in car kit would ever offer enough adjustment to be a worth while consideration. also the fitting of motors,wiring and possibly ecu's would put me off on a car we like to keep the weight down with. not a problem on a lardy BMW though

dowser

I'm running the KW's with STi heavy-duty mounts - I don't like the crash-bang pillow-ball feature

You have the v3 too? I find my v3 kit (18-24 months old) too hard for B-roads (doesn't go soft enough) but perfect for track work - you find it the other way around?

On track with normal road tyres I make it full hard, with P-Zero's half a turn softer (bump & rebound), and with slicks a full turn softer (generalisation - also depends on track). Otherwise the car starts to skip.

A friend with Leda's swapped to KW before I had a chance to try them, but I guess any decent coil-over kit will provide 'similar' performance. Don't forget other suspension componentry and geometry too. What ARB's are you running? I've got a photo of me on a wet track, suspension on softest and entering a corner with the rear inside wheel just starting to lift off the ground....there's still not much roll!

JB: back on topic - inflateable air-bags packed inside your springs, air-compressor and toggle switch in car...sorted

Richard

T-uk

perhaps I am needing to look at sti heavy duty mounts to tighten things up. with my weight bouncing on the car the standard top mounts look very unsupportive and soft,will have to check if I am picking up on this flex and tyre flex and thinking it is damper movement in the workshop . as said it is early days and I have to admit that I have not done much playing yet due to one reason or another.

I wonder if you have heavier springs or a different valve in the KW's as JB can tell you that my KW's on the softest setting are not too unlike standard. possibly my valves are a bit sticky too as you can adjust the top valve 3 turns and get nothing and then 1/4 a turn and they are firm and get stiffer for the remaining, the same for softening them from max hard, very sensitive for the first turn and then they do not get much softer for the last 3,this is all struts not just one or two.

my car has ALK,solid drop links,whiteline rear ARB(centre hole but going to soften it more) also heavy duty rear ARB mount and bushes with front upper and rear upper strut braces,lower 4 point front to be fitted.-1.5degree camber front with square tracking and -1deg camber rear toed in 1mm. on the road the cars front end is on rails and I have lost all understeer but the rear on the limit in the dry keeps kicking out and in the wet is very tail happy. I have played around with heights and damper settings but now think it is either the cr4p fulda tyres on the rear with good years on the front or just having the rear arb to stiff.

POC

Pete you have such a way with words

Back to the thread

john banks

At T-uk's today fitted the ALK and front drop links to add to the existing front and rear braces, rear uprated ARB, rear drop links, Eibachs, standard dampers, bumpsteer.

It still understeers but it feels about right to me. The problem which seems worse after the anti-lift/pro-dive kit is the dive under braking is horrendous and the back end skips around when braking. Under acceleration at only one bar the front end lifts considerably.

I'm really not happy about the idea of pillowball mounts for harshness to be honest because of crashiness and NVH.

I am considering Koni adjustable dampers inside my Eibachs, or P1 dampers with the Eibachs.

Suggestions? How much of the dive under braking and acceleration is related to the dampers? They have to fight AP 4 pots and approaching 400 lbft.

Denmark

iTrader: (2)

I used to have a H&R coilover kit on my my99 and i really loved it,i think it was just right for my driving.
The H&R kit is completly neutral when cornering with a very fast turn in.

I have now changed to a KW V3,becourse i had a problem when it was under -5`c ,one off the back dampers froose.

I really think that on the KW v3 the spring are to soft....even for fast road use.¨

The turn in is not anywhere near as good .....

I would really like to have stronger springs on the KW,and i too think that Richard´s older model KW have stronger springs on it.

Skassa

AJbaseBloke

John,

I had the same handling traits when I did not have the front ARB upgraded (was waiting for Whiteline to develop the B4 one). On track the thing was bloody nervous under heavy braking

Once the front ARB went in the whole thing suddenly felt very much more "together" I've also got the STi grp N top mounts - those got rid of quite a bit of bounce...

I tried a Rex with Tein EDFC and the toy was nice changing the settings on the fly, but those top mounts are unbearable on anything but billiard flat stuff IMHO (admittedly this car was the loudest I've ever heard, and was a bare bones STi 7 spec C). Sounded like some wood peckers had taken a fancy to the suspension towers

T-uk

Skassa,

do you have uprated top mounts on your car?,obviously if you have made no other suspension changes between the H&R kit and the KW's you are in the best position to know which are best.

I actually have a bit more respect for the KW's. after we had been out in JB's car yesterday he asked for a run in mine and the way it was soaking up some of the bumps in the road was great. I never really bought them for fast road use(more track use) but for anyone wanting "road friendly" coilovers these have to be considered,like skassa I am not convinced they are a track/road hooligan kit yet, especially on standard top mounts but perhaps this will make them the best all-round compromise. at one point the car tried to take off at a known hump and it just kept nice and controlled, unlike JB's which was unsettled for around 20yards after it. I did feel the back starting to go again at a sharp corner but I am now convinced after being in john's car with good years all-round, that it is my mix of good year fronts with fulda rears. I was going to soften the rear arb but in john's car I would have tried stiffening it, so I am going to stick the fuldas on the front.

I'm really not happy about the idea of pillowball mounts for harshness to be honest because of crashiness and NVH.
I would like to know how bad these things really are, or if it is just another "scoobynet myth". sure they will be noisier and firmer since they are rigid but I really cannot see them being that bad. with adjustable dampers and playing with tyre pressures in road use and progressive springs the "harshness/crashiness" should be controllable, providing the damper does not bottom out as they are working harder. as for noise, if they are that bad could a 2/3mm rubber gasket type cushion not be made up and inserted between the mount and strut top?,this would be sandwiched tight and would not flex but should absorb some of the noise.

madou

Have KW ever published spring rates ? Don't see them on their website, and the GC8 TUV certificate seems concerned with ride heights and wheel size, not spring rates

http://www.kw-suspension.de/kw_uploa...01-murd-n1.pdf

"anti-lift/pro-dive" came up before, as per Whiteline response, they paid for this study "Effect of Anti-Lift Kit (ALK)"

http://www.whiteline.com.au/docs/art...f_WL_ALK_a.pdf

Can we get "sticky" topics, or FAQ on this board ???

Good damper article in June Racecar Engineering magazine

T-uk

page 3 and 4 on the above KW site show what numbers are stamped on the springs.

KW 20-60-80 KW 60-170
KW 20-60-80 KW 40-200

anyone got the info on that site in english?, the same came with my kit and I do not have a clue what is says

madou

"Kennzeichung" means product code, I've had a ( non car nut ) German native speaker go over the it, we think you just have the product code stamped on the spring

john banks

So the extra dive and lift I get is a "feature" and desirable? Is the "anti-lift" kit making the front end dive too much during braking to change the car into a nightmare? If so I think I'll remove it as it was OK before.

madou

As per paper, because ALK zeroes % Dive / Lift, springs now take more load, so a given set of springs will deflect more, you could up spring rate if you want to retain the geometry change, going too hard would again reduce front end grip, and re-inject understeer

john banks

Going to get the geometry set, and if the horrible dive remains the ALK comes off. It was better without it.

dowser

I'll need to check - but the guy I bought my KW from (2nd hand) specified his own spring rates. When I returned them to KW for a rebuild they mentioned that they could also swap springs to something stronger and more track biased....but when I confirmed my actual rates he said they were fine. From memory, 120 front and 75 rear.

I'd drop an email to the UK importer, copying in KW, asking what springs are available.

I ran odd winter tyres front/rear last winter....never again

Pillow ***** crash badly over ruts - all shock is transmitted to the shell.....which maybe OK for it when it's fully seam welded..but it would do my head in

I have a similar set-up to yours, but with a Whiteline front ARB too (and rear on hardest) - I only fitted it to fix a problem on track where front outside tyre was overheating, it handles worse on road...

I run -4 front with 1mm toe-out, -3 rear and 1mm toe-in. I'm very pleased with the set-up and can't wait for my Quaife diff'ed gearbox to be rebuilt so I can complete the package (and maybe remove the front toe).

JB: the Konis/Eibachs were, IMO, a very good road set-up. Ride quality better than stock, and much, much better control.

Richard

Pavlo

I got my ledas for £700ish S/H and compared to 4 new konis and 1 set Eibachs I would do the same again.

T-uk

KW 20-60-80 KW 60-170
KW 20-60-80 KW 40-200

I seem to recall the higher number is free spring length.

so if the helper springs are rate 20N/mm, travel 60mm, free length 80mm and the mainsprings are 60N/mm(335.28lbs/in) and 40N/mm(223.52lbs/in) how do these rates compare to Leda?.

[Edited by T-uk - 5/13/2003 4:43:57 PM]

madou

T-uk

I think my Leda B springs are the ScoobySport default 350 lb/in front, 275 lb/in rear

I do not have any of the issues JB has described, I have Whiteline rear swaybar on middle setting, rear droplinks, front strut brace, all geometry set post fitting the Whiteline parts. Reluctant to say so because I know he has done so much good development work, and didn't think he would miss out full alignment post fitting something which changes geometry

Will try to help if you are stuck with KW German text

Pity I missed the chance to sell Leda B secondhand to Pavlo for GBP 700 ish ...

[Edited by madou - 5/13/2003 10:01:13 PM]

john banks

Getting the geometry set on Thursday, will report back. Was always intended, I just don't have the kit, but I know a man that does I am interested in either P1 dampers/springs as I like the P1 setup a lot on the road (don't know if it will tolerate 400 lbft though) or Konis with the Eibachs. Please bear with me, I am alright with ECUs, but clueless with suspension.

Andy.F

Want to try my Leda's on the front when we set the alignment ?

T-uk

I ran odd winter tyres front/rear last winter....never again

looks like that has been my rear end problem, swapped the fuldas to the front and now have understeer very similar to JB's car actually.

[Edited by T-uk - 5/17/2003 12:58:16 PM]

T-uk

john,

although I have never been convinced by eibachs on later UK cars I now think that eibachs with koni adjustable dampers and pillowball mounts would be better value than coilovers.

I have been playing with the KW's again and while leaving the bump and rebound rates sensible for road use I cannot really get a huge drop without fouling the arches. upping the rates does hold the car flatter and stop this to a degree but it starts to skip around a bit on bumpier roads. on track I would guess putting the rates to almost full and dropping it 10mm would be the only real advantage over the konis.

it is early days and I may change my mind with more power and a few track days done but I would consider the koni/pillowball route.



[Edited by T-uk - 5/8/2003 5:49:25 PM]

T-uk

JB,

without a doubt removing the ALK would be a huge backward step on your car. your car was turning in sharper and the understeer was reduced,I would like you to stiffen the rear ARB to see if it reduced it a bit more still. you even stated that it was the most confident you had ever felt with the car, after the sixth time round the round-a-bout screeching the tyres .

I think you just need to accept that with all the other suspension mods done, you have just highlighted that the standard dampers are now too pushed, for **** sake they have done 30k miles (mostly getting driven hard testing some valve,map,turbo,or 101 other bits................ )

[Edited by T-uk - 5/12/2003 11:52:43 AM]