Quote:
Originally Posted by silversprint
I think you misunderstood my post regarding the KW. I never said the KW were terrible. I said they are not the best option for autox. Just because people are running them doesn't mean they are the best option. Kw makes a good product.
However give me any off the shelf KW v3 equiped car and I can pretty much guarantee it can be it faster with custom valved ASTs, Ohlins, or even KW. Why because they won't have the compromise of being street coilovers. Very rarely do you encounter high speed bumps in autox.
I have owned several sets of KW v3 and had them all on a shock dyno. I stand by statement that they don't have enough low speed damping.
Since you own the KWs for the FRS why don't you post a shock dyno and disprove my point regarding the valving. I have been known to be wrong before.  |
Well you are entitled to that opinion. Frankly every KW I've ever run (mostly on WRX's and Evo's) that was "custom valved" were pretty damn crappy.
Also I've got lots of experience with lots of custom valved shocks, from Koni's to Penske's to AST's, to KW's (and JRZ's and a few others too).
You absolutely encounter high-speed damping autocrossing. We aren't running on glass smooth tracks. In fact tracks are in general in better shape than what we typically run on. Even where we run Nationals has issues like that (think turn 17 at Sebring, that's old WWII era concrete... just like what we run on, the pads are 25' square, and they aren't all perfectly matched up).
I hate to say it, but I chased my tail, a lot, with some and one in particular brand on your list on a few cars. Also had more failures of that brand than any of the others, combined. Not only that you'll hear lots of conjecture about how this shock is a noodle and that one is better. But you know the funny thing is at one point after 2 years of trying I abandoned the trick shocks for "noodle shocks" and not only went better, but won and I was struggling to do that on the fancy dancy stuff. And I'm not the only one, another National Champion has the same issue with the same brand on the same model car, even after both of us were very specific about what we wanted. What we wanted and what we got were not the same thing. And in fact it got to the point that both of us just said we wanted valving that mimicked a Koni Sport for that particular car. You'd have though we had 3 heads, but we know what worked and what didn't. In fact that same guy is still struggling and we are going to do some shakedown work with him @ solo nationals to see if I can help.
You have to be careful with the notion of "race" parts and "street" parts. See, the car has no idea where you are driving it. Certainly there are things might be able to get away with on a track that you don't want to have, or can't deal with on the street. But the fact of the matter is the car is the car, it has a finite amount of mass and grip. And dampers are pretty ignorant as to where you are/how you are driving. Considering I'm not anywhere near out of adjustment on the high side of my KW's (and for that matter only twice have I ever run a Koni full stiff on my stuff, and both times ended up backing off that). I really don't think you need to go nuts. MHO.