D2 RS/K-Sport Kontrol Pro Coilover Review

[PurpleTerds]

Thanks for the reply

[enjoyminutemaid]

Originally Posted by DarrenDriven

DOCUMENTATION

Remain the Comfort, ftw!

[DarrenDriven]

Yes, much of the manual is poorly translated, but not so much that you can't figure out what they really meant.

There are 36 different damping settings to meet the requirements of customers auto pursuit the speed in the world.

[DarrenDriven]

Added a short review...

Originally Posted by DarrenDriven

DRIVING EXPERIENCE AT 50 MILES:
Well, 50 miles is not a lot of seat time to get to know the personality of my new D2 coilovers, but it's long enough to report that nothing bad has happened yet. I've got the front end dropped pretty low and the rear not as low, so the issues that I am running into have more to do with the low front bumper and lower crossmember making contact with the ground than with anything else. It's nice to know that even though the car is nicely stanced, I still have another INCH that I could drop it on the front! I have the compression settings at full stiffness for now so I can feel the road -- and man can I feel it! The stiffer springs and tight compression have the car a little bouncy at the moment, but when I get a few more miles on the car I am going to adjust the compression to the softest setting so I can compare the two. I have no strange noises, no clunks, no rattles, no rubbing at all... overall I am very happy with the value that this product has provided and as long as there are no annoying hiccups (or catastrophic failures for that matter) I will consider this a succesfull modification.

[Calum]

The adjustable camber at the hub should be used to calibrate the camber adjustment at the camber plate. You set the camber plate to some arbitrary position, say 1 deg negative, and then put the car on an alignment hoist and adjust the camber via the hub until you actually have 1 deg negative camber.

The adjustable length sway bar endlinks allow you to adjust the sway bar, to avoid preloading it, when you corner balance the car.

Nice write up. The car looks great.

[DarrenDriven]

Calum, that's great info... I am going to integrate that info into my review. Thanks!

[jamal]

Originally Posted by Calum

The adjustable camber at the hub should be used to calibrate the camber adjustment at the camber plate. You set the camber plate to some arbitrary position, say 1 deg negative, and then put the car on an alignment hoist and adjust the camber via the hub until you actually have 1 deg negative camber.

No not really.

At the upright you want to dial in as much camber as you can possibly get. Basically whenever you run out of adjustment or the tire hits the suspension.

Then, at the top mount, you want as little camber and as much caster as possible.

The reason for this is what's called the steering axis inclination (SAI). Basically, SAI is the angle of the strut - more camber at the top mount means more SAI. More SAI means more loss of camber as you turn the wheel, and is also can result in a greater roll center propagation. Adding camber with plates adds SAI. You want to try to avoid this.

Ideally what you will do is swap the plates left to right so they are at an angle. Max them out so they are as far back and inward as they can go, and then do your fine camber adjustment at the upright. On my car I have a set of whiteline com-c mounts and an ALK which give me a good amount more caster and a little more camber. Then to get the camber that I want I slotted the lower strut holes. From a geometry point of view it's the ideal way to do it.

[DarrenDriven]

So it appears that the same factory that builds D2 coilovers also produces the K-Sport product, so this topic is being expanded to cover those as well. K-Sport has two part numbers (CSC080 for Scion, CSB200 for Subaru) but they are the exact same product with no differences.

[sdlynx]

About half of my emails would go unanswered, I was overcharged (by $16) for my set and then it took them five weeks to process the refund while telling me that they processed it a long time ago, and now that they have the coilovers in stock they are selling them for $947.32, which is $77 less than the "promotional" price that I negotiated in return for promoting the product and their business.

I've had similar experience with JM Auto Racing. The business is really a small business, so when there's a lot on the owner's plate, some stuff "falls off the radar". Although this is not okay for customer service, I can kinda understand. I don't know what he would want shared, but there has been life-changing event in his life in the past few weeks.

By the way... they still aren't truly in-stock. I got a notice saying they're back ordered and not to expect them until September 18.

[DarrenDriven]

I do appreciate that he pulled some strings to get my coilovers to me before they were available to the public, but still... you gotta under promise and over deliver, not the other way around!

[sdlynx]

Agreed.

BTW, what are the D2 spring ratings that were shipped to you? Joe mentioned that D2 changed the rear spring rate after further testing. I'm curious to see what your kit came with.

[TouchMyHonda]

Where the review too lol.

[Matt Andrews]

Originally Posted by DarrenDriven

What do you get with your coilovers? The KWs came with a small package that contained only the adjustment tools. The D2s come with LOTS of stuff!

You worked hard to give the community as much detail as it seems you knew how. That's great. But I'd urge everyone to not make a product decision based on the nick nacks that come in the box. The KW's are in a completely different league than these 3rd party rebranded units. I'm sure they will get the job done for the average enthusiast. I know not everyone wants to pay $2k for a set of dampers. Just keep in mind that after tires, dampers are the 2nd most impactful thing that can change the way your car works.

Stiff does not equal high performance. grip does. And grip comes from quality damper valving that is matched to a spring rate that allows the tire to stay in contact with the ground as much as possible with as little change in force applied to the tread as possible to keep from shocking it loose.

Good luck in your selection folks. learning what works for ones self is half the fun.

Matt

[chulooz]

Try comparing dyno plots between the D2s and KWs instead of just looking at them.

Streched 19s and slammed Its not a VW, you car actually had decent performance at one point.