EDIT


I sorted the handling problem,

It seems at the last track day or I made some bump adjustments, I must have gotten the right/left adjustments mixed up and they were all off.

I was chasing this with rebound adjustments and had the car really out of whack.

This is why you need more that 3-4 hours sleep before a track event


This is hard to explain, but my suspension has not felt that great lately.

I have put the street tires back on and have set the shocks back to the KW standard settings.

The car feels bouncy in places and this is really weird but at slow speeds (30-50MPH) on mildly bumpy back roads I am getting a weird kind of oscillation and wiggle, it's real subtle and doesn't seem to do it on the highway and when pushing the car in some corners.

I have noticed a whoosing sound at the rear if you push the rear of the car up and down. Would a blown shock make this noise? It seems to be from the drivers side rear.

At the last track event the car was having some trouble with slow right hand corners (wanted to spin) My right rear caliper seems to have been dragging a little and I am replacing that soon (then the part comes in)

Is there anything else I should be looking at?

I recently replaced the front sway bar bushings and all 4 Mcmcaster end links so they should be tight.

Thanks for any advice

George

 

I have KW3's.. and when set up even for the street.. I can't actually push the car significantly down on it's springs when it's stationary.. be careful you can push the panel in if you try too hard.

when setup stiff for the track.. and then drive on bumpy street.. the rears do seem to make some kind of whoosh noise when hitting something hard.

I backed off the stiffness for street..and the noise went away.

Mine are brand new.

 

George, if you determine that it is indeed a shock, KW will replace it under the lifetime warranty. Let me know if you need help contacting them.

Typically a blown shock manifests itself with a fluid leak.

 

Thanks JP,

There doesn't seem to be any fluid present, and I have been under the car enough recently. I did clean the under carriage with a carwash pressure washer this winter though (gently).

I am trying to avoid pulling the shocks at this time.

George

 

Mine have been on for a month, using KW's Compression/rebound specs. In compression you can hear a light "swoosh" at low speed going over speed bumps. They've made this sound from day 1.

It has none of the other wierd oscilations or wiggles. I'd do a thorough suspension check, including some known trouble spots, (upper control arm mounts, lower control arm bushings.

I drove my car (back and forth to work 11 miles) for a few days when setting the ride height, without aligning. The car drove awful with the toe and camber settings wacked out. It followed ruts in the road, unstable at highway speeds etc. etc.

A new alignment after the ride height was set completely transformed the car.

 

Well I do need to get the car re-aligned this season.

 

Back off the rebound a little and see if that helps the wiggle. Whoose sounds are pretty common with coilovers, wiggles are not.

Check you A-arm mounting points as well.

Havn't you been having this issue for a while (originally thought it was a bad wheel/tire). You could have a shop with a Hunter Roadforce machine check the runout on the wheels/tires to eliminat that variable.

Try setting all seetting to full soft, drive and than igradually increase comp and rebound to see if that has some effect.



I am having MAJOR noise issues (squeaks/clanks) with KW V3 on our Subaru STI on the rear. I posted this on a Suby board and all of a sudden more people with KW V3 and STIs are coming forward with noise complaints. I have already re-installed the rear units twice, I am pretty sure it is not an "install error" (and my install helper is an engineeer). KW is "looking in to it" but in the mean time our car sounds like a race car. KW does not have any fix at this point.

This week a company also sent me the wrong rollcage although they were very cool about it and are sending me a replacement.

I'm so freaking sick of cars right now....

 

My race tires have massive vibrations at anything over 70MPH, the car is smooth with street tires so thats not it.

I am sure Barrie is happy with the Race car clunks on her new car...

FYI I emailed someone about a 94 Miata with a hardtop..maybe I need a new project to tinker with?

George

 

Good News

The left rear shock is NOT blown, there was a puddle of fluid in the inside of the wheel and on the tire.

It is brake fluid, just turned brown from the dirt

Yay it's only the brakes.

 

I'd swap the OEM's back on the car and hit the Dragon.

Driving with the blown shock can lead to some unpredictable handling, as well as nasty cupping of the tire. Not something you want on US129.