Does anyone here have KSport coilovers with softer springsthan what they normally have?

I really like my set and the ride height is unbelievably low. I think that they will be awesome for autocrossing and the track, but I have to drive my car on some mildly nasty roads with someone who has neck and spine injuries and cannot handle the horrible ride.

For the record, I can stand the ride, but when the road is mildly bad the ride quality turns to cold diahrea in a Dixie cup. When it is bad, then it is mind boggling awful for people with injuries.

So I need to get softer springs, switch back to my Progress springs, or get a new coilover set completely. Tein SS looks ok for ride quality, but their design of using the spring perches to adjust ride height in the front seems inferior to the KSport design.

Anyway, if you have softer springs with your KSport coilovers, what rates are they and how is the ride quality on crappy streets?

Thanks

 

i just spoke with KSport/Autoline and Element Motorsport.

they can get 4.5 kg/mm springs for the front, but it voids the warranty.
no springs for the rear. they come with the softest that they offer.

the guy at element said that the tein SS have the same ride quality as the ksport on the xB. does anyone know whether that is true?
i have only read people saying that the ksports are rough. i have never read anything about the Tein SS being rough.

 

anyone?
people have actually asked me about it.

 

WTF? Changing the springs to 4.5 kg/mm voids the warranty?! What a load of crap.

They are normally shipped out with 6 kg/mm, correct?

I'm between KSport and D2. Still unsure which ones to go with. =\

 

While I'm not a believer in the ksport or D2 coilovers... I'm convinced that a lot of your problem is ride height.

You are likely hitting hte bumpstops. You have to raise the car... and also check your tire pressures to make sure they compliment the spring rate.

a softer spring at the same height will cause you to hit the bumpstops even sooner.

Soundsl ike a ride height thing more than spring rate.... altho you should adjust the dampers so as to match the springs as well and this can "tame" how the car handles the bumpy stuff quite a bit.

 

i highly doubt that they are hitting the bump stops. the springs are REALLY hard.
adjusting the ride height with the ksports won't do anything about travel because the strut mount is what changes position. the spring is not compressed to lower the height, which means that the amount of suspension travel is the same no matter the height.

the only possibility of hitting would be of the anti-sway bar or drive shaft against the frame. i am 99% certain that that was not happening.

the damper setting did not make a huge difference.

thanks

 

In this thread, 8 mins prior to your reply here you stated:
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...70795&start=20



What are you smoking?

 

i don't have the ksports on my car right now.
i only had them on briefly a couple of months ago.
i did not even own the ksports last year when i spun out.

 

damn, so you put the dampers all the way soft and it still didnt help? this is not an option for me then. im gonna have look into something else

FINALLY someone clarified that, ive been asking everywhere about whether or not these coilovers can be adjusted to be comfortable. thanks


EDIT: i read on a vendor webstie somewhere that the warranty for ksport is only one year anyway. might as well wait a while and then do whatever you please. or, just get new springs regardless, im sure they will last one year.

 

i thought that they were still pretty hard on the softest setting. the dampers can only control how quickly the spring can move. if the springs are so hard that they move very little, then allowing them to move very little faster does not help much.

i have been thinking about buying the softer springs, but i am not sure whether there is enough travel.

a stock front damper has 6.75" of travel minus the bump stop and lowering spring difference.
for example, my gold-line springs drop about 2" after the weight of the car rests on them. without any weight on the spring and the strut assembled, the spring is slightly compressed and the damper is at maximum extension. i have not measured how much the springs compress under the load of the car, but for example's sake, let's say that it compresses 2" for the full lowering effect.

i cut my bump stops down to 2.5".

putting all of these things together:
6.75 - 2 - 2.5 = 2.25" of downward travel
and 2" of upward travel
both from normal suspension positions and normal load.

in the front, the ksports have 3.5" of overall travel including the bump stops. i did not measure how much the springs compress under the weight of the car, but it was very little, which means that they have very little upward travel yet more downward travel than my suspension is currently.

there is also the matter of how low is good for these cars when cornering performance is paramount. i do not yet know how to calculate that.

if i do not sell the ksports by august, i might buy the 4.5kg springs to try it out.

 

by the way, what the ksports lack in comfort they gain in style, design, and value. if i were not interested in optimizing my suspension for racing and HPDE, then i would just buy the 4.5kg springs and ride with them. i suspect that they will provide a reasonable comfort. who knows, maybe that setup will be optimal. i will post back if i do find that it is.

 

Call D2. Stop messing around Ksport. D2 offers springs in whatever spring rate you want. I run 4kg springs on the front of my D2s and the stock 3kg in the rear. D2 doesnt make different springs in the rear.

The front of my car rides fine.

The problem that most people have with the D2s or Ksports is that they arent setup correctly. The main reason the ride is so rough is because when you shorten the struts mount, you also shorten the sag of the suspension. When your car hits a bump, the suspension should have enough sag travel to push itself into the bump and then compress to absorb the change in road level. When your car is hitting a bump with these coilovers, its basically falling into the hole in road like skateboard would. The same can be said when you hit surfaces in the road that are raised up from level, it launches your car upwards and since the coilover has no sag travel, the car almost hops because the dampner isnt slowing the upward travel and on the way down it hits like a rock.

I hope this makes sense to you.

 

^^ it does make sense. that whole dropping into the hole thing is what i was hinting at with the 2" of upward travel, which is basically the sagging and can be called downward depending on how you look at it. basically, the ksport has little of that motion available.

have you done any calculations on optimum riding height, suspension travel, and spring rates?

do the D2 coilovers have the same range of travel in the front? roughly 3.5".

do you tihnk that the 4kg springs in the front are better than 4.5kg?

thanks

 

The D2s are almost exactly the same as Ksports. I have my car set to where it rides alright but Im used to it. Other people notice how stiff it is. It rides better in the rear with weight in it since the shocks that come with D2s are way too short. Im probably going to put my TRD shocks on the rear and see how it rides with them.

I was pretty much the first person to have D2s, or at least on this site. Check out this thread.
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...ight=coilovers

It has pics in it.

 

gonna call D2 tomorrow to get 3.5 or 4.

4Kg is about 220 pounds. I have run springs in the front that are supposedly around 180 pounds (not 100% certain they are linear though). 3.5Kg is about 196 pounds which should be good, but not sure about 4Kg.

i will write back as i get more info. i am somewhat excited now!

brianxb, thanks for the info.