Re: KW V1 vs V2 and V3
Racebred;586829 said:
Unless you are tracking your car on a serious level, rebound settings are not very applicable (V3). Good to have the option to change bump settings (V2) though, so you can customise how much damping you really like. Also, I seriously doubt there are more than a handful of people out there who really know how to set rebound settings to your usage optimisation. So I would estimate, 90% of the V3 owners would have paid extra for a setting that nobody knows how to correctly set. Stick to V2, coz thats what I'll go for too. KW makes one of the better coilovers out there with really good high-speed damping (which is for absorbing small bumps on the road). It has okayish low-speed damping, but for most applications, is already very good liao. Many years back, V3 uses better materials for the damper body, which V2 doesnt see. If they are now all from the same construction, then there's really no advantage paying more for something that one doesnt use, or worse still, the installer set wrong rebound setting and royally screws up your ride.
But what I read from the KW manual looks different from what you described -
V2 has rebound adjustments
V3 has rebound and compression adjustments
Rebound is for dampening - Comfort. Adjust it for hard on track. Soft for street.
Compression (low speed) - for handling like oversteer / understeer, steering response & grip.
And you are right about installers doing royal screwups - Discovered it only after the ride feels weird but was told spring settling in etc.
Ignored the installers and checked the settings myself and discovered they set -
Rebound
- 80% hard (FL)
- 20% hard (FR)
- 30% hard (RL)
- 70% hard (RR)
Compression
- 50% hard (FL)
- 70% hard (FR)
- 30% hard (RL)
- 75% hard (RR)
So I adjusted the settings myself according to the principles laid out in the manual and its fine now.
Lesson learnt for myself - check it yourself with the manual in hand and ask the installer to prove to you that the click and turns of the KWs are to your satisfaction. Even if you do not know what is optimal - its better than to have someone screw the settings like the way they did mine - look at those percentages listed - each suspension is totally different for each wheel.
OT - This also reminds me of another installer with a wrong installation of the shims in my brakes resulting in screeching noises for a couple of months. The amount of time I wasted bedding in, changing brake pads - quite a bit.
Finally, I printed out the Brembo schematics and after some research, realised that the shims were installed in the wrong direction - totally dumb. Changed that and it's quiet now.
Nothing like doing it yourself.............
