New Coil Over Kit Released Today!!!!!

[vettethret]

Originally Posted by 2003RC51

Are these coilovers still available? Any help would be great.

Thanks.

Yes they are. I got mine through apex motorsports in az. You can get them directly through the manufacturer as well. All my tires are tucked and the ride is STILL better than stock. I am very happy with these. In my opionion though, stiffer springs are a must.

[SPRCOBRA]

Still happy with mine no complaints here.. I had my fenders rolled though.. I can carry 4 people slammed with no rubbing at all. It may all change this week though as the new wheels go on Friday

[jerrycecco]

I found this Ksport coilover thread, thought I'd bring the thread back to life.
Anyone in Dallas area have them? love it/hate it? who installed the system?

[bpitas]

I've got Vette Threat's old set. I basically got them in the mail and installed them on the car with no further adjustment.

I had one blow out after a short time, due to being misadjusted (completely my fault - I didn't have the directions, and so didn't know the piston wasn't 1/3 into the shock body at rest). K-sport was awesome actually, and rebuilt them for $100.

As for how they work, decent ride quality, but if you crank the shocks stiff enough to eliminate body roll, it's pretty harsh on broken pavement. Of course the roads around here are worse than Bagdad, so if the roads were smooth I'd probably never notice the stiffness.

My only complaint:
They seem to squat alot under acceleration. Not just leaving the line, but under acceleration too. That's kinda scary when you're doing a 4th gear pull and when you stomp on it the rear end squats and changes the suspension geometry enough to make the car squirrelly. If I had to guess, I'd say they need a touch more nitrogen pressure, since when you compress them by hand they don't spring back all that quickly.

[jerrycecco]

bpitas, thanks for the reply.
Do you know the spring rates you have on yours?
.....I see from posting and KSPort web site, there was some choices...

jerrycecco@tx.rr.com

[bpitas]

I have never looked up the Eibach numbers to confirm, but a few posts up in this thread Vette Thread said: "I upgraded the rears to 650lb eibachs ", so I'm working under that assumption. :-)

[thebigjimsho]

Originally Posted by Dreamin

Kit is installed, setup, and dialed-in.

I am running K-sport front kit w/their 560lbs springs. And K-sport shocks in the rear, with 550lbs GC springs in the rear. (Sorry, didn’t install the K-sport rear springs, which are 420lbs). I’m running 1” drop front and rear. This is a pic with the GC kit, but it’s identical with the K-sport setup.



Summary:
Love it, very happy with the kit. Works exactly as advertised... lots of height adjustments, good amount of stiffness adjustment, very balanced handling, no weird noises.

Height Adjustments:
You can drop from 0.75" to probably 2.5" (but you'll be rubbing all over the place that low).

Stiffness Adjustments:
The range is not from Lincoln Town Car to Z06 or Porch GT3... It's more like a little softer than FE4 to a little stiffer than FG2. Shocks have 6 full turns of adjustment (1-softest, 7-firmest). 7 is pretty firm, but not harsh… you can easily run 7 all the time, but I don’t see the point… save that for the track. I’m running 4 all around and it’s a little stiffer than the FE4. 3 is very close to FE4. I’d say 5 or 6 is FG2 (having driven WW's car a few times) 7 is definitely stiffer than FG2. I’m going to drive Calicadi’s or WW’s car in the next week… so will compare FG2s to these shocks back-to-back.

Handling:
VERY balanced… I’m very impressed with this car and the shocks… Caddy really has this suspension sorted out, you can go pretty stiff and not screw up the handling. At 4 or 5 you get basically 4-wheel drift…with just a hair of understeer, easily correctable with a little throttle. At 7 you get more understeer, but it’s still manageable with throttle (or run 6F and 7R)

Issues:
* Install is a pain. Not difficult, just tedious. Lots of raising, adjusting, and lowering the car to get everything setup at the right height.
* To adjust rear shock stiffness, you have to remove rear seat (8 bolts, not to bad, but still a pain)
* Can’t use Hotchkiss sway-bar.
* Some rear squat on hard acceleration, I think the FG2 load-leveling helped control this.
* I don’t think you can use Eibach race springs in the front, K-sport would have to change the top mount, and maybe the spring perch.
* Car could use much stiffer shocks for track use.

Answers to previous questions:
* Drag racers: No change in wheel hop
* Luna: No, this kit wont let you use 1st gear... give up that silly notion until you get the mini-tubs and put 315s or 335s in the rear.
* Urb: Yes, you can lower the car 0.75"

...will post install steps / tips in a couple days...

A couple of things that I have concerns about is highlighted above. bpitas, I need to ride in your V sometime soon. But it seems that the rear springs have been upgraded to 560 to match the front. And is the built in camber plates new? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere...

[bpitas]

Originally Posted by thebigjimsho

A couple of things that I have concerns about is highlighted above. bpitas, I need to ride in your V sometime soon. But it seems that the rear springs have been upgraded to 560 to match the front. And is the built in camber plates new? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere...

Sure we can go for a ride anytime.
Two things to caution you about:

1. Mine probably is TOO low for where we live and should be raised maybe .25-.5". It bottoms out the travel of the suspension (not the shock, but the actual bump stop) in the front sometimes
2. I have something loose under my car that Olsen doesn't seem to be able to find. When I asked them (shortly after my factory warranty ended) they said it was the shocks, which I knew it wasn't but wanted to change anyway so I didn't make a big deal about it. They probably said it cuz that's not covered under extended warranty. It sounds like a swaybar or steering linkage loose and rattling around, but it makes the car completely sound like a hooptie. I was hoping to take a look underneath and whack some things when I go to put the new clutch and flywheel in.

[thebigjimsho]

Originally Posted by bpitas

I was hoping to take a look underneath and whack some things....

Why wait?

[bpitas]

I'd have to get it jacked up enough to get completely under it with my trusty plastic mallet, and that's a pain in the ass now that it's lowered. Plus my garage is a bit tight so it's a major production to actually work on the car like that - I have to move crap around, and with the snow, I really don't want to move my bike outside like I do in the summer. :-) Know anyone with a lift I could borrow for a bit?

[jerrycecco]

Does anyone have installation instruction on the Ksport coilovers?

If yes, please email at:
jerrycecco@tx.rr.com

[SkullV]

Has anyone else installed these and confirmed that a Hotchkis sway bar can't be used? I am very interested in this kit, but with the fact that you have to remove the rear seat to adjust the rear shocks, and the inability to use a hotchkis sway bar I'm swaying back to the QA1/GC setup.

[bpitas]

I was going to take some pictures for Jerry this weekend, but I think I might have talked him OUT of going with the k-sports, so I'll take the pictures for you instead. BTW - you do NOT have to remove the rear seats, but you do have to have small hands. :-) I can adjust mine by putting the seat backs down, pulling back the trunk liner a bit (and you have to leave one plastic plug out when you install the shocks, and leave the adjusting hex-head in them all the time) and pull some sound deadener back. It's easy enough. I don't know how ANY kit would be adjustable without having to put the seatback down unless it had remote controls - the top of the rear shock is behind the trunk liner no matter what, and I don't think I've ever seen a design that adjusts outside the shock except for the remote-resevoir models like the KWs.

[bpitas]

A few points here. I spent a while chatting with Jerry this morning and based on that discussion, Jerry suggested I post here to save other people the trouble.
So here's the deal - I bought VetteThret's original set of these "coilovers". Coilovers is in quotes because they aren't really coilovers at all in the rear, just an adjustable spring perch and an adjustable shock. I didn't get installation instructions. (more on that later)
I was supposed to get them with the springs they come with (stock rate, just shorter) and then VetteThret had bought a set of Eibach 650lb (I think) for the rears. I think during shipping, one of the rear 540lb springs busted out of the box, so I only really got the Eibachs. That's was fine, I don't think I would have used the stock-rate rears anyway...

The feature I liked most about the shocks before I got them is that they are effectively a threaded shock body threaded into a mount, so you can adjust the height of the shock body to match the height of the car and maintain the "sweet spot" of the shock regardless of the ride-height you choose. In practice, the fronts work perfectly, but the shock body for the rears are too long, and bottom out in the mount, so you can't go quite as low as I would prefer. I don't know the "official" way to measure ride height, but since I was just trying to make my car level, what I did was measure from the ground to the highest point of the wheel well, and right now if memory serves I'm at 26.5". I think it was around 28" stock, maybe 27.75".

So since I didn't have any instructions, but they had been installed on VetteThret's car previously, I just literally put everything in the way it arrived - same shock settings, same spring heights, everything. I think my car was at around 26.25" at that point. That was a mistake - I'm not sure if VetteThret actually ran them that way with no problem (we have tons of potholes around here) or they changed settings in transit, but either way, those settings weren't right for my car. Turns out that the instructions clearly tell you that the shock body should be set up such that 1/3rd of the travel of the piston is inside the shock body at rest. I didn't know this, though, and in fact there was more than 1/2 of the travel inside the shock, effectively limiting the amount of travel the shocks have before they bottom out. This resulted in me blowing out my left rear shock relatively quickly, at a very easy take-off from a light. I put everything back to stock FE4 (big pain in the ass) and then sent it back to k-sport for rebuilding. They were super helpful, and sent me the instructions. The rebuild was $100 plus shipping. My fault for not making sure they were set up right - I made an assumption that they were already set up right and that assumption was wrong.

So when I got it back and put everything back in, I went up to 26.5" ride height, and that's still a little over 1/3rd of the piston in the shock body, but the guys from k-sport said it should be fine. They also said that the shock was brand-new, they had obsoleted the design I had originally and this was the new design.

Then about a month ago, the other rear shock went. k-sport was great and sent me a new one for another $100 plus shipping, and this time didn't even ask for the core back. So now I have two new design rear shocks...

So how happy am I with the setup?

Well, there are a couple of things:

1) it's NOT a true coilover - it's the stock configuration in the rear, just with a height-adjustable spring perch
2) I don't know if you can fit the hotchkis sways in the front with these but I'll take some pics and post them this weekend so you guys can make your own guess.
3) It might just be me, but I don't think the shocks have enough of a nitrogen charge. If you push it down by hand, it comes up pretty slowly, and I wonder if that's where some of the acceleration squat comes from. Our Nivomat stock shocks would resist squat like that, so maybe I'm just spoiled, but it seems to squat too much on acceleration, which messes up the rear alignment and makes the car feel a bit squirrelly.
4) I don't know if I have them set up right in terms of front-to-back damping, etc, but it's very possible that some of the issues I feel are due to me just setting them up wrong. Does anyone know of a good free guide to setting up damping?

Anyway, I figured I'd throw out my experiences with these, since it seems there's been renewed interest in them lately. If anyone has specific questions or wants pics or anything let me know.

-B

[atdeneve]

Just an FYI, all of the coilover options out there are not 'true' coilovers in the rear.

Although, last time I was under a Mallet V, I don't quite recall seeing a coil on shock design, some have indicated the Penske system Mallet offers are, indeed, 'true' coilovers, in which case, the Penskes would be the only exception.