robrob

That shock is at least 7 years old (I bought them used) with no rebuild. KW made the V3 for street use so they do seem to be very durable.

JJ7

I'm a novice at this stuff, but it seems your rebound is progressive and I've always thought you ideally want it to digress somewhere after 1-3" per sec. Maybe my expectations are too high for this level shock? What do you guys (TWF and Robrob) think about the dyno results?

berny2435

I currently run 750/650 rates on my clubsports. 5.5" 60mm Hyperco springs. I cut out about an inch of front bump stop and run about 1/2" rear bump stop just in case but will bottom out my rear springs before the shock will bottom out anyways. I haven't bottomed out the springs yet.

I can take nearly all on the rebound out of my shocks and they don't feel too bouncy which might go to show that they likely have significantly more rebound built into them than the V3s. I typically run the fronts in the 9-12 click range though and don't feel the need to go lower than 9 on the front or lower than 6 rear. Turning both the compression and rebound knobs does make a difference on my car. Going from 11 of 12 clicks of compression front to 6 front made a noticable increase in front traction as my Hankook RS3s get older. (temps and surface held constant). Going to 10 compression rear and the car gets loose. I definitely feel like they were worth the purchase, used, for $2,200 with only not many track days and under 5,000 miles on them. Probably about 13,000 miles and over 350 autoX runs on them at the moment. I definitely want to see another year out of them before a rebuild.

TWF

Personally I think it needs more rebound but we will see, one step at the time. We run a lot more on bikes and we also like linear. I heard car guys like digressive but have also seen dyno graphs that are similar to my bike. There was thread here with some graphs, can't find it now. Anybody have link for it?

Here is what my bike looks like, funny running same spring rate like on my s2k
This is Penske shock, btw.

TWF

But in good shape, your oil still looked good, not dirty. Shaft looked good also, did not show any binding or wear. I did polish it again. Seals will last forever if you don't get any dirt in it or rock nicks on shaft itself. Those two are enemies for seals.

TWF

On bikes we go through seals on regular bases due to tire been right behind and in line with shock and throwing dirt and rocks on it. Than we lube chains and that gets thrown on the shock and all dirt sticks to it. I rebuild my shock every season, forks twice due to internal springs and oil contamination. Cars seem to hold much better.

robrob

We've heard two stories from KW USA about the ClubSports. They're valved the same as the V3 and they are valved 15% stiffer, so I really wouldn't call 15% "significantly more rebound."

robrob

Yea, it looks like compression is slightly digressive and rebound is progressive. I would prefer slightly digressive for both but the bottom line is the V3 works well on track and hopefully will work better for me once revalved for 700lb springs.

robrob

Here's another update on the KW V3 revalve project. TWF ran my unmodified right front KW V3 and the revalved left front on the shock dyno. We're only trying to increase high speed rebound damping because low speed rebound is controlled with a tapered needle valve that will completely close so no adjustment is needed there. As you add more spring rate your shocks need more rebound damping.

Compression damping typically doesn't need to be increased when stiffer springs are used and the V3 has a pretty wide range of adjustment there anyway. Click on the image to see the more readable full size image.




You can see we have about 180 to 210 lbs more high speed rebound damping with the revalved shock. TWF plans to bump the oil viscosity up a little to try to gain some low speed damping.

berny2435

Awesome! Good to know. If one of my shocks let loose, would be awesome to see my clubsports take up to 900# springs. I'd likely run 850front/750 rear. now at 750 front/650rear