Here's a great damper tuning guide I've been using for a while with my 2 way dampers. I use the balance adjustment matrix to help me adjust my dampers to track conditions.

Shock Absorber Tuning

Neil Roberts Article on Shock Tuning

It's a great read!

Here's a another good read by Neil Roberts.
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fast-Rac.../dp/1451558759

 

If you drive a lot and serious about it once a year. Otherwise they can go 2-3 years on same oil.

 

Very helpful thread, thanks for this guide. I'm hoping to install my KWV3's this weekend (weather permitting it's not too damn cold), and only question I have for you guys is how low a lot of you are? Several people said you get the best handling 3/4-1" lower than stock, is this due to the lower center of gravity? Also, if lowered 3/4", I'd guess that cutting the bumpstops is unnecessary, it's only needed for people that lower >1"?

Also, alignment for a largely street driven car, does anyone have any recommendations? Just OEM alignment? Thanks.

 

Finally got around to installing the suspension this weekend and a couple questions I have for folks about the height settings. I measured all four corners before installing the coilovers, and was sort of surprised to see how the four corners sit at different heights. Is it done this way from the factory to more evenly distribute the weight on each corner?

When setting ride height, people say to set the height by making the left and right height adjustment the same on the coilovers, rather than by trying to get the actual height of the car at each corner the same for left and right. Is that because the car is "corner balanced" to a degree from the factory, which is why the different sides sit at different heights? The driver's side front measured a full 1/2" lower than the passenger side. I thought that it might have perhaps been the driver's side settling more than the passenger side, but after installing the new coilovers, it's the same, the driver's side is a full 1/2" lower. Is this completely normal? Just trying to make sense of it. Thanks.

 

If you ever see a car that's perfectly corner balanced you'll find that typically the ride heights appear to be all over the place. The closer it is to 50:50 the closer they usually are to more even but rarely the same. I think by setting the left and right sides to equal heights on the actual shocks you'll get closer to corner balanced than by actually make the ride heights equal.

 

Thanks that makes sense. After installing the coilovers with just ~1/2" drop in the front, there's only about a 1+ finger gap between the tire and fender for the front driver's side. I don't think my oem suspension had really settled much, but it makes me wonder..? Seeing as how I only lowered the front about a 1/2", I don't know how people lower the car more than one inch without rubbing. Anyone have any oem height measurements for their AP2? If I recall correctly, the driver's side measured from the ground to the edge of the fender measured 25 & 9/16". Passenger side was 26" even. I have OEM 215/45/17's in the front.

 

Did you unbolt the upper a-arm when you did the install. If so, did you properly preload the bushings during re-installation? This could affect the ride height.

But yes, the car is pretty balanced from the factory, so you don't want to try and change the balance without using scales.

 

I did unbolt the a-arm, but no I didn't preload the bushings when reinstalling the coilovers. Hmm.. If anything I would think it would cause the car to sit higher rather than lower as the bushings would be resisting the suspension compressing. While preloading the bushings can't hurt, I wonder how much it really helps, especially for the a-arm bushings.

The left-right relative height differences were the same before and after lowering the car (I set the coilover perch height to the identical height left and right), so I don't think the a-arms are affecting the ride height.

 

Oh, I missed the part that it was like that before as well. But preload of those bushings can definitely affect ride height. I would suggest you go back and do that because it will also cause them to wear out faster.

 

Ok thanks I guess I'll spend the time and do that next time I jack up the car. I guess this applies to any bolts that have bushings, like the lower bolt for the shock mount as well?