KSport Coilovers: All About 'Em

[j.fro]

I had to go with adjustable toe arms, but I also went 1.5" or so lower.

[seningen]

Originally Posted by Jamesp

I'm not so sure. Round holes are much more structually efficient than square due to stress concentrations at the corners of square holes, not to mention the corresponding reduction in material. Bolt holes should have a minimum of 1.5 times bolt diameter to edge distance for similar reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for owner inspired redesign, I've drilled holes in my intermediate shaft, but the modification should take into account engineering principles. So +1 on stepping out and making the mod. Just the same, the big square hole with the limited bolt hole to edge dimension is outside my comfort zone. I do give seningen props for making the mod. I hope it works well.

No props to me - I grabbed the photo from the forums.
A set of camber plates "fell into my lap" -- so that is the route I will be going :-)

Good comments on the square vs round too.

Mike

[j.fro]

All I can offer is my experience. I cut those squares about three years ago. Our AX lot is far from smooth... On Saturday we had to alter the course because a pothole opened up. All that debris on top of the strut came from that event. Nevertheless, after all of the abuse, no cracks. Like I said before, though, I should probably be concerned with how OK I am with using a die grinder on my car, but I'm not. Roll on, little race car!

[insite]

instead of cutting out large pieces like the photos above, i drilled a row of holes over the fasteners. this allows me to change the settings but still leaves the structure largely in tact.

to the guy wanting to lower his car by 1/2" - you will have no problems. no correction arms required.

[Bigsmoothlee]

Originally Posted by j.fro

I had to go with adjustable toe arms, but I also went 1.5" or so lower.

Originally Posted by insite

instead of cutting out large pieces like the photos above, i drilled a row of holes over the fasteners. this allows me to change the settings but still leaves the structure largely in tact.

to the guy wanting to lower his car by 1/2" - you will have no problems. no correction arms required.

Thanks guys. Im running wide wheels with the wrong offset... so I cant exactly go too low.

[Mossburg]

Hello, I just bought a set of kSport coil overs and wanted to know if the instructions that onsite posted is still available? Thanks

[Stroked & Blown]

Here are the guides I used:
Boxster Hacks and Instructions

Changing struts/shocks on a Porsche Boxster - YouTube

For the rear, I marked the eccentric bolts with a sharpie & un-bolted the pickup points at the chasis, which was pretty easy. Bolting it back up, I got the sharpie marks as close as possible and drove straight to an alignment shop.

A couple tips with the k-sports -
* Measure the base to bottom collar distance and set it equally on each. Start high, as the first strut I installed was set to 'slammed'
* Make sure the camber plate bolts are TIGHT. Mine were not.
* I used the out-of-the-box camber plate settings and set the strut top bolts all the way inboard, which was a good starting point & required little adjustment during alignment to get me to 2* of front camber.

[Mossburg]

Thanks for the tips and link,

Can someone clarify by these photo's on what is the best setting before installing them.
Also, is the factory ball pivot settings pre adjusted?

[Bigsmoothlee]

Originally Posted by Mossburg

Thanks for the tips and link,

Can someone clarify by these photo's on what is the best setting before installing them.
Also, is the factory ball pivot settings pre adjusted?

For the rear, make sure you choose the adjustment closest to the center of the car.

As for the front, you need to cut the strut towers open, like J.fro and I have...there are way too many variables to give you a cut and dry answer. All I can tell you is that it needs to be completely accessible for your wheel alignment tech

[The Radium King]

in my case there was absolutely no need to cut any bodywork. first, however, you need to know what alignment setting you are going for. I was looking for max front camber, which with these struts is -2 in the front and achieved with the mounts fully inboard.

I was able to achieve -1.5 in the rear in the middle setting WITH adjustable rear toe control arms. uncertain what the rear setting would be without the added adjustability at the rear. ride height also plays a role.

there is a tool that comes with the coilovers for adjusting the shock settings (a really long thin allan key). it is difficult to get it in to adjust the shocks once installed. if you pull the plastic end off and bend the end of the key you can get it in and out, however.

[RandallNeighbour]

During install on the rear struts, put the adjustment key/knob Radium is talking about and leave it in place. You cannot get it in after they're installed.

Btw, they rattle a bit in place so put a piece of duct tape over them after you set them. They still remain adjustable.

[Mossburg]

"Thank you" everyone for all the help and advise. I've completed this install today.

During reassembly of the passenger rear axle I noticed grease was all over the bolt holes and surrounding connection points. (attached photo) Can someone confirm if this is normal or if I have to now purchase a cv joint replacement kit.

One thing I might add. I've started the car and move it to "D" and now when I put it in park it makes a grinding sound.

[AlanS]

My two cents...
KSport shocks are NOT worth the time or money. I got 8 months on them before one of them crapped out. Strictly road driving, too! What's more, after having them installed, the car never felt predictable or comfortable. Way too much rebound. My mechanic was not impressed either; "Something not right with those" was his description.

Eight months on the car, and I came out to a puddle of fluid and a blown shock. No hard driving, honestly! The overnight temperatures were around 10 degrees, so my guess is there things were never designed for cold temperatures. Very poor design, very poor engineering - whatever, I am not a fan.

Called the company I bought them from, and they were happy to get that shock replaced. (Also said these shocks should last 3 to 4 years... Shouldn't a shock last longer then that?) To their merit, sounds like KSport would warranty them for 1 year. But would you go to the expense to install along with the downtime to remove, ship back and forth, and reinstall? And then expect the same to happen to another one... Not me. Take my loss, and going with PSS10, or something like that.

Spend a little extra, get something with real quality.

[Topless]

FWIW, So far I have been pretty underwhelmed by k-sport equipped Boxsters on the race track. Maybe it was just their setup or alignment settings but they just never felt solid and planted like the M030 and PSS9 cars. One of the reasons owners choose K-sport is low cost so maybe they are reluctant to spend another $600 getting them really set-up and dialed in, corner balanced and aligned. If you are going to use them, I suggest working with an experienced shop to make sure you get the most out of them.

[The Radium King]

I put the street/track version in my car halfway through this past summer and have no issues so far. installed, aligned (-2 front, -1.5 rear camber) and corner balanced by the local race shop, and gt3 front sway/tarett rear sway, pedro bar, front and rear strut braces and topspeed rear toe arms done at the same time. lowered over 1". I run it at 2 clicks from full hard (and getting the tool in is not such a big deal).

fine on the street and solid on the track (3 track days and about 5k kms since install). I have nothing to compare it to, however, and not enough time to comment on longevity. otherwise, with the lowering, some of the tolerances in the back are pretty tight. and bump steer is now an issue (this is not the fault of ksport, but rather a symptom of the new geometry).

less $ than pss9? sure. AND, the built-in camber plate on the front struts allows you to get an aggressive alignment without having to cough-up an additional $500 for camber plates or $750 for adjustable front control arms. more vendors should figure that out.

my street car is pretty much built, and now i'm working on the race car - will I use ksport again? dunno.

[RandallNeighbour]

Well boys, I am going back to stock. I've had my K Sports for what, 4 years? They're amazing at the track, btw. No body roll to speak of.

One of the rear units needs work. It's allowing my subframe to whack my driveshaft and something's not right with it. I only experience this when I go over speed humps or hit potholes, but it needs to be addressed. Must be the shock itself that's gone out.

I'm on the hunt for a good used set of factory struts and springs for a base 97-99 boxster if anyone has them lying around their garage after upgrading to Ksports.

And yes, I'll be happy to sell my K Sports to someone who might want to repair the one that needs work and save some money.

[Bigsmoothlee]

Im pretty happy with my Ksports. No blown shocks so far... and I autoX every weekend possible. If I did have a complaint, it would be the spring rates, which I feel are astronomically high in the rear. I ended up disconnecting the rear sway bar to dial out some oversteer. But again, that could be because im running a square setup.

I wouldnt mind going down 50lbs per inch front and rear.

Some of you guys are crazy, expecting performance you can only get from a $5000 system with remote resevoirs out of a $1400 set of coilovers.

And as The Radium King already mentioned, it comes with camber plates for that price... what a great deal.

[RandallNeighbour]

OK Ksport Kontrol Fans...

I am taking a set of lightly used Ksports off my boxster to sell. They were on the car for four years and 5 DE's in green and blue and about 6k miles in total.

I took someone's excellent advice here and swapped out the factory issued springs for better spring rates for the track, which I cannot remember for the life of me so don't ask.

Just saw a new set on eBay for $1,450... What do you think this set is worth?

I'll back out anything I find on them that needs replacement after removal. I'm looking for what I should sell them for used if they're all in good shape. Ideas?

[steved0x]

Here is the most excellent installation guide by insite, thank you!

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=87DEE47565AEC1EA!6808&authkey=!APAOaRSGAdVXA1E&ithint=file%2czip

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=87DEE47565AEC1EA!6808&authkey=!APAOaRSGAdVXA1E&ithint=file%2czip

If the link doesn't work, holler at me, I am sharing it from my One Drive.

Thanks,

Steve

For the two documents that show a picture of the top plates:

Fronts:

Originally Posted by insite

the drawing below shows the two settings i tried on the front camber plates. the setting on the left is 2/5 of the way between center and the next largest hash mark. the setting on the right is dead center.

the camber range available to me using the FACTORY adjusters with the ksports set as shown are:

Left Drawing
Min Camber = -1.1 deg
Max Camber = -1.9 deg

Right Drawing
Min Camber = -1.8 deg
Max Camber = -2.5 deg

since i track my car, i have set front camber to -1.6. for a street car, i recommend a setting between -0.8 and -1.2. unless you need more than -1.7deg camber up front, leave the KSport camber plates exactly in the middle (factory setting).

Backs:

Originally Posted by insite

usually, lowering the boxster makes it difficult to set proper camber in back and still get a good toe setting. because of this, lowered boxsters usually suffer from excessive rear camber. this is frequently corrected with aftermarket toe links.

ksport tried to provide a remedy for this. i THOUGHT i needed to use the 'less camber' setting (shown on right below) to dial some camber out. i was wrong; either by design or by accident, the center setting is pretty much perfect. i was able to get my toe in spec with as little as -1.5deg camber in back.

here are the camber ranges i could set at the concentrics on the control arms with the KSport plates in the positions shown.

Left Drawing
Min Camber = -1.1 deg
Max Camber = -2.2 deg

Right Drawing
Min Camber = -0.6 deg
Max Camber = -1.3 deg

for street cars and light track duty cars, use the center (left drawing) setting. if your car is strictly track & you use R-Comps and want more than -2.2deg camber in back, then use the third setting that is not shown (slid all the way up in the drawing).