Just a bit of curiosity really, but what do people make of the KW V3 coilovers on the mk2 megane? Are they are worthwhile upgrade? Do you need to rebuild them every X thousand miles?
Anything by kw will be a great product but iirc they don't come with any adjustment in terms of top mounts which is a bit of a bummer. Not sure on spring rates either, Naith has them on his
KW do have a good reputation. Have been thinking about upgrading to the KWs, maybe a second hand set but not sure if a 2nd hand set would really need to be rebuilt.
They are good. For hardcore track work there's better out there (even in the KW range) but for fast road and abit of track they're perfect. Rear spring rates aren't the best either, I want to change mine when I can.
I use the car mostly on the road and try to get in a handful of track days a year, so something that can do both well is what I want. Do you reckon the BCs would be better than a used set of KWs Steve?
I'd go for brand new, I've just bought a set of K-tec used Coilovers for the Clio but only paid £100 for them and they look like new so not much of a loss if there no good and I'll get my money back, go for new mate if you can
Not really apples to apples but i have run a set of BCs on a Mazda MPS and also KW v1s, v3s on various other cars. The dampening quality from BC to KW is night and day... to me at least. If you can stretch go for the KW product. Thats not to say BC isn't a great offering in its own right.
A few cars I know of have a lot of work done by K-tec, they seem very happy with them, they seem to be doing well
Really??? I ran variant 2's at one point on my clio which were great bits of kit and beautifully made but I can't tell the difference between them and my Bc's. Maybe Jason Plato could but...... Little old Daniel from Swadlincote who does a trackday or too a month?????? Nah could he fuck lol
K-tec buy them, rebrand them and sell them on for 3 times the price. They are tripe fella, you'd be better off with fresh dampers and eibach springs. I had h&r's on the clio, now thats a good coilover...
Not sure why... I can, equally, easily tell the difference between the Ohlins R&T and the KW V3 set ups a couple of guys run in their Evo 8s. As i can with the guys who run HSDs and KW V2s on their M3s. I may not be able to say which is which if i was blind folded, but certainly tell you which one feels better to me and most certainly tell that they are completely different. Personally I find nearly all coilovers give a completely different feels due to their valving and spring rates. If you can't fair enough, makes the decision process a lot easier for you.
From a feel point on the road there is differences, if anything I found kw very soft in terms of spring rates to the point I had custom springs for the rear and many lads in here have also said the same. What I'm personally getting at is on track (which is why personally modify my car) I can't see you seeing massive gains from one to the other. I mean if we were talking a 200 quid set of Vmax coilovers and kw's, well that would be another question lol
I raced with a couple of guys in the Porsche Club Championship who ran KW v3 on a 968 CS, they really struggled and TBH despite my feelings that the drivers were not that hot the car just looked way to soft for a race car. ISTR they ran harder springs as well circa 450 lb/inch. My own car (944 S2) has 2-way remote reservoir GAZ coilovers, they are basically just GAZ gold with a reservoir and separate bump rebound control. Not very good quality but they work OK, I run 600 lb/inch up front on an 1120 kg car. The last place I used (NineX) swore by AST 3-way monotubes, they had a relationship with Ian Gardiner (http://www.igracing.co.uk/profile.html) who I also used a couple of times to rebuild the GAZ units. He doesn't have an axe to grind but recommended the ASTs to a couple of the guys as a much cheaper but 99% as good alternative to Ohlins etc. Their experience which I found hard to believe but they were convinced was that the AST 3 ways when properly setup were worth about 2 seconds a lap over the GAZs which in turn seemed to be easily worth a couple or more seconds than KW v3 or Koni (Porsche) M030. It all depends what one is trying to do and how far they are willing to push the performance envelope. My own experience is that by far the most important thing is getting the car 100% right on setup, on the corner weights and damper setup. It made me go from never getting over 1.3g to recording 1.5g at 55mph and 1.63g at 26mph last summer testing, I also earlier went faster through part of Silverstone GP on DZ03g than I did the year before on Pirelli slicks (103 mph into farm pushing 110 mph exit), that was on a Goldtrack day btw so the event is largely irrelevant to how fast one is willing to go. Unfortunately this level of setup just can't be done on a road car IMHE as everything gets knocked out over time. Shame it took my 4 wasted years, 10's of thousands of pounds and a completely lost interest in racing to learn all this stuff. Sorry if this is all seems off topic but I was lucky to be involved with the teams and drivers in one of the UKs most prestigious club championships which uniquely has very open rules in areas such as the suspension. The standard R26 setup seems really good to me I don't think I will be bothering with aftermarket dampers. If the car was a dedicated track car and I really mean 100% dedicated I think I would be saving up for some ASTs I can't really see a lot of point in wasting time and money on the stuff in between. The gains which can be made are huge but IMHE they can't be made at all by half hearted attempts at the job, on some cars with very soft standard suspension stuff like KW will make a big difference but on the R26? Sorry if it offends any of you or is not the sort of stuff you guys wan't to hear but I think a lot of people are potentially wasting their time and money mucking about with the suspension on these cars.
Completely agree from that point of view... subjectively they feel different. I'd also say unless you are already extracting the maximum performance from the standard set up then there is little reason, from a performance POV, to upgrade. Backing up your point that there is probably little difference, in real terms, for most people between BC, KW,Bilstein etc. Personally i'm happy to pay for what suits my driving style/preference. I feel more confident on the track, making it a more enjoyable car. An example is; in my previous car the damping was adaptive, on the same track day i ran soft vs hard damping. Using Harrys Lap timer there was negligible difference, in time, BUT it felt better in hard mode.
On the point of soft spring rates on the V3 is that due to them being a progressive spring? I couldn't find any details on the spring rate range for the Megane V3's. The Clubsports are fixed 70N/mm (approx. 400lb) front and i think the same for rears??
Yeah setup is very personal, I've got a couple of sets of springs now one for wet and one for dry. I tend to time off my video footage off the go pro
Good read. AST's are very popular for M3 and 997 applications also. Never experienced them myself but read a lot of great reviews on the 911 and e90 forums. People that use KW in more serious applications seem to change to custom specified firmer springs, from someone like Swift. Not really related but in terms of gaining time on a track for an occasional track go-er like myself ... tyres tyres tyres
Some really good responses, thanks! I think my motivation to the upgrade was to get a better quality damper that would provide better ride on and off track. The standard setup I have is fine, and I admit I know I wouldn't be touching the (coilover) suspension once I had it setup initially. I doubt I am getting anywhere near the maximum from the car on track as it stands at the moment, so it does seems like a waste of money to upgrade the suspension before maximising the potential from the current setup.
Already have a brand new set of cooksport springs on new R26 dampers! I spotted the KW coilovers on eBay, not sure if it is worth the upgrade though..
