KSport Coilovers: All About 'Em

[insite]

okay, i went out and looked. in the picture below, 'B' will be inboard. you'll want to move the pillow ball to position 'A'.




on another note, i did a little more research into helper / tender springs. first of all, i had the nomenclature wrong. TENDER springs are softer springs that help w/ bumps. HELPER springs keep the main springs seated when the suspension is fully extended. without them, at certain ride heights the main springs might come unseated and make noise.

anyway, TENDER springs are what will improve the ride quality. both Eibach and Hyperco make some that are commercially available. they are 3" in length, so we MIGHT need shorter main springs. i will no more when i actually have my KSports sitting in my lap. TENDER springs can be ordered in various spring rates, usually from about 150lb to 400lb.

i will likely install my KSports with the factory provided tender springs and see how the ride is before i make a decision on tenders.

[j.fro]

With all of the settings/adjustability on these shocks, I'd like to suggest that we post some of our alignment numbers, particularly camber settings. Here goes:
My ride height was set at 1" lower than stock
The front shocks were centered in their camber plate settings; camber came to -1.5 with both pushed as far inboard on the body mounting as they would go.
Toe was 0.04
The rear shocks were also centered in their camber plates; camber was -2.2
The closest I could get to zero rear toe was - 0.31

I'm very curious to know what the camber settings would be in the rear with them at both the next setting and farthest inboard setting.

[RandallNeighbour]

J.fro, this is a good idea.

Kevin, I'm going to post my alignment numbers here later today so you can see my minor subframe damage problems on the driver's side of my car. It may change the advice you are giving me as to how to set up my coilovers prior to installation.

Basically, the numbers are a bit out of range on one side of the car and one of my hopes in installing the adjustable toe arms and making these coilover setups will alleviate the problem.

[RandallNeighbour]

Here's my alignment numbers. This is the best the shop could do to get my factory struts and suspension in alignment:



Kevin, knowing the information above about what I think is minor subframe damage, does this change your recommendation at all about how to set up the coilovers?

BTW, I am now going to do a thorough web search and learn all I can about alignment and finally learn what has always confused me. This should help me a lot.

Oh, and one other thing... kudos to creating a thread that is now on it's FOURTH page! Wahoo!

[insite]

randall -

don't just give them your car and say 'align it'. you have to give them the specs. they have neg camber on the front left and POSITIVE camber on the front right. this is in spec, but not technically correct. they should match (and i promise you your car is not the reason they don't).

in the rear, it looks like they could only get down to -1.9deg camber. what they should have done is match the other side to this setting, not simply leave it alone because the computer said it was okay.

your only real issue is the difference in caster between the front wheels. this is probably due to a bent strut and NOT to subframe damage. this problem will likely not exist when you install the ksports.

when you DO have the ksports installed along with your adjustable toe links, there will be NO excuse for not matching the left and right sides.

give them the alignment settings i posted earlier. tell them to hit them. if they can't, have them explain WHY and then tell them to at least match left and right to the same setting, even if it's not the ideal setting. all four corners on your car are so different that it must handle very badly. wait until you see how it feels when they're spot on.

[RandallNeighbour]

Kevin, thanks so much for the quick response!