Today was the 2nd day of autocross. I found that I had some rubbing on the front in the wheel well on the front of the liners. The front and rear kept on settling more. The continued front settling created the issue.
At mid day I raised front up about 0.4 inches. At the end of the day it needed to be raised a 1/4 inch again on the front. I didn't touch the rear at all because it seems to be pretty stable right now where I want it. My street ride goal is 1.5 inches of drop. For autocross, I'd probably 1/4-1/2 inch less drop to make sure that the car had all the travel it needed. At least at my current compression settings. I'm hoping that the settling has finished. I'll keep an eye on it and post back.
With the second day I had Shabby with his car (same car forum member) for the course. His is stock for suspension so it gave an interesting comparison. We had a lot of fun and both cars looked great on the course. We rode as a passenger in each others car too.
I highly recommend with the KW's that if you autocross only start wth about a 0.5 inch drop to see where it goes. And in general keep an eye on the settling of the suspension. You may need to readjust it.
Ya it was a good day, your gxp is a cone munching machine and mine likes to pop intercooler pipes it seems.
All of the instructors praised the handling of our cars, especially the turn-in capabilities.
Here's some comparisons of the stock and kw v3 equipped gxp's, this was a 2 inch drop.
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party with everyone. Some of you owe me a beer.
It looks like I need to crank mine down a few threads. It looks very NICE.
Didnt KW give you some specs on where to set it so it will perform its best ?
Thx!
Remember..... My suspension settled a good 0.4 inches, and the kw installation manual notes this. Unless you've driven it a fair amount you may want to wait a bit.
I started with the suggestions on the kw sheets that came with the car. I'll see if they have any more input.
I went and adjusted the compression a little harder on the front. I did this in anticipation of doing an autocross event. The compression was only 3 clicks out from full hard, so I went to 2 clicks out from full hard. Only 1 click of difference and wow, it is noticibly harder. Minor changes to the settings on these coilovers make notable differences.
Very Sweet. I spoke with a KW dealer today and I may order them next week. Just want to take a look around and see what else there is. I thought Eibachs with sport Konis, but want something a bit more adjustable. The KW V3 seems the perfect setup. Would like to talk and get some more info if possible. Thanks and the car looks great.
Thx Howster. I did a lot of research on coilovers. There a few options but you have to go more basic or do a custom order for something to the level of the KW V3's at this time. Post any questions you have. Do a decent alignment too. I recommend looking at the definitive alignment thread for more info.
I am very happy with the set up. The independent adjustability is great, and settings make a big difference in how the car rides. These coilovers aren't overly dumbed down where the adjustability doesn't make much of a difference.
I find the car gets a lot more looks now. And the impact on warranty is minimal. It is a win win situation. I did this as my first mod, and I recommend to everyone that this be their first mod, especially on GXP's where engine mods aren't doing a lot without getting tunes. And even at that the ECM still isn't cracked properly.
I can scare the crap out of passengers with the cornering ability of the car now.
With more seat time I find the car has more road feel. There is a bit more harshness at the beginning of bumps, but if you are on a bumpy street/section the car feels very similar to stock. This is at the recommended KW V3 settings. Backing off the compression will make the car feel more like stock overall too. FYI I'm back to stock KW V3 recomended settings.
I did some more ride height adjustment this morning. It looks likes things have settled making adjustment much easier. And I'm where I want to be for ride height at this time; about 1.4-1.5 inches lower than stock. Note that rear ride height is very dependent on the fuel load.
Corner balancing should be your next step. Because you can with adj.coilovers, plus its ballpark at best just going by ride height alone.
For the rest of us its preloading swaybars with adj. end links or adding ballast.
