I don't own them but I think so. With the V3s you can adjust low-speed compression damping (hi-speed is preset), they have external resevoirs for greater piston travel, and the pistons look bigger from the pictures. Seems worth it for 2-300 extra.

 

I've always been partial to Ground Controls and Koni Yellows. For my skill (or lack) they've always performed up to snuff.

$399 for the springs and perches,
$6-700 or so for the shocks.

You can talk to them on the phone, tell them what you use the car for and they'll suggest spring rates. A new set of springs is pretty cheap too if you want to tune the suspension yourself. I have a couple boxes of springs here at the house.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can have the Koni's rebuilt for race valving. I haven't needed it so far. I usually run under 550 lbs/in which is the break point for revalving.

Some other people here in the forum are running them too.

They don't compare to the Ohlins and for that matter may not be as good as the KW's but, how good do they have to be? Maybe if I was a real race driver and had to tune the car for every track it would matter.

 

what about h&r's?

 

It would matter. I came from koni yellows and the difference is striking and immediately noticeable not just around the track but around the block. You should get the best you can afford. The difference between a KWv3 and a JRZ or a Koni and an Ohlins is significant enough that you will notice it full-time.

 

Does anyone know how many miles until you have to rebuild the KWs?

 

i think his post was more aimed toward the fact that there are very few s2000 drivers that would take full advantage of the v3's.

our stock suspension is great unless you're on r compounds. .only then can you really find the limits, but you must still be a great driver to find those limits and need a better system.

 

My only complaint about the S2000 suspension right now is the rear seems under-damped. If rear suspension movement was damped more, I wouldn't really consider upgrading. I don't indend to lower the car. Not much anyway maybe 1/2" on the outside. Apparently, you get into front bump steer issues when you lower it.

I'm...skeptical of the improvements claimed by the more expensive shocks. How exactly is it better? You may simply like the higher spring rates. Apparently the KW3's are 515 lb/in front and back and the GC Koni's are 350F,325R. You can easily match the spring rates with the Koni's if you want to.

Sure, price no object I'd love to get a set of ohlins or KW3's but, it's just overkill for most people tracking the car. You'd be better off spending that money on something else. More driving schools or better wheels and tires or something. 99% of the time, tires are far more important than shocks

 

Some of us have already spent the money on better wheels/tires, track days and driving schools. It's a natural to improve the next peice on the car - suspension.

I have no experience with the Koni's but I can tell you why I like the KW's. It has a pretty wide range of damping - you can actually feel the difference between a 1/4 turn in and 1/4 turn out. The knobs actually affect the handling of the car (which may be a bad thing if you don't know what you're doing). For example, last time I was at Laguna, I was getting horrendous turn-in understeer and I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until later in the day that I realized my front compression settings were overly stiff, softening them up got rid of the understeer. The ability to tune the handling of the car through each phase of a turn is pretty cool. In addition to being very competent on the track, you can soften the rebound and compression (though this is a b*tch to do) and the car rides similar to stock on the street. So, IMO it's a very good compromise, giving you a fairly stiff car for the track and still maintaing comfort for the street.

The prevailing thought on this board is to stay stock until you're a good enough driver to actually know what needs to be changed, but people buy and modify things on there car no matter what good advice they get. It may be overkill for many people, but then again the stock performance is overkill for most people. That doesn't stop people from spending their $$$ on more useless things for the car.

Sri

 

I realize what he is saying and I'm saying that he's wrong (or at least I don't agree). I'm saying that you will notice the difference in the shocks all the time whether you are driving 5/10ths or 10/10ths, whether you are going down the street for milk and bread or trying to shave 0.2s off you best lap.

The difference in the performance of the shocks is not something that kicks in above a certain threshold it's there all the time in the level of stability, control and confidence you feel in the car and is most noticeable on bumpier surfaces and when clipping apex burms by how planted and stable the car remains as the surfaces changes.

For example, when I would drive over burms with Konis you could feel the car hop and bounce. It was unsettling to the driver and the car and so you would drive to compensate. With the Ohlins it stays glued to the track. When your suspension can be counted on like that you will naturally turn better times but regardless of that you will definitely notice the difference both in the car and in your driving style.

The stock shocks are good, the Konis better, KWv3s better still and Penske and Ohlins better yet. At the top of the pile you have JRZ, Moton and even Ohlins of you are willing to develop your own kit. I chose to stay with the single adjustable model for now until I learned what compression adjustment would do for me and how I could dial it in without making a complete disaster of it. Too much of a good thing in my case. I'm able to adjust rebound and I now have a pretty good feel for what that does in terms of handling on various tracks. I may choose to go with 3-way shocks when I prep my car for racing later this year. I've had an offer from Ohlins to help develop a new kit for the S2000 with one of their partners and I may take them up on it but that's undecided.

 

I know what you're saying about the adjustment thing. I've heard (and seen shock dyno plots) of Japenese suspensions like the Tiens and the Apexi's that have lots of click in the adjustment but, don't really change the damping any.

Koni's aren't like that. They range from rock hard to about twice the damping of stock. On my track civic (550F/380R) I run full stiff on the front and about 1/2-3/4's in the back. it's an amazingly neutral ride. Now stock, the S2000's almost as good as my civic except for all the undamped motion.

I imagine the Ohlins and KW's are the same way. Distinctive changes in damping with adjustment.

I understand what you're too saying Cthree but, to me that's just butt-dyno without any kind of quantitive measurements. You're not listing the spring rates or anything else to make a 1/2 way valid comparison. What I'm hearing is you had the stiffness set too high on the koni's and/or were running too much spring rate.

Interesting posts with shock-dynos. I haven't found a KW3 shock dyno plot.

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread/1104049

http://www.koni-na.com/presentations/civic/slide2.html