KW 3-Way Clubsports for the Evo IX. The Ultimate, All Weather, Daily Driving Shocks!

Next, the inner pivot bolts of the lower control arm were removed.  This would allow us to drop the arm so the shock could be removed.

Next, the lower shock mounting bolt was removed.

Now the stock shock can slide right out.

The new KW shocks go right in.  Since we were running the Wisefab suspension with non-standard links, we had to be careful to make sure that none of the links would hit the remote reservoirs when the suspension was stroked.  If you have aftermarket links, this is a very important step.  Contact means you will be having a very bad day!  Contact must be addressed before the car is driven.  One issue we had was the Wisefab rear suspension lowered the back of the car too much.  We had the same problem with our Project FR-S and had to make a spacer for the top shock mount.  You can see what we did here. 

8 comments

  1. Hmmm are these still twin tubes? I’ve seen first hand KW Clubsport twin tube struts fail in <10k miles of road driving. The most common is the shaft guides wear and you end up with a pretty shocking wobble. Beyond that you can even pop the piston out on roads that well tuned OEM suspension can take daily without issue.

    Also those front top mounts from underneath look really spindly (look at the picture at the bottom of page 5). Quite a few of these crack and fail on strut cars.

    1. Every single case that we have seen was caused by air impact guns being used to install or remove the shocks. We have seen the shaft wobble on race cars after a season when they were being removed for rebuilding but a lot of shocks will show this sort of wear after a season of racing. In either case, these shocks have a generous warranty. As for the camber plate being spindly, it looks no weaker than any other camber plate I have ever seen. In fact, since a lot of adjustment is on the bottom, the slot can be smaller actually making the camber plate stronger than many.

      1. I can confirm from a customer that even my “free” dxf I send out for an offset flat plate made in 1/4″ 6061 takes a hit hard enough to buckle the A-pillar to even bend the top hat.

  2. A046s in 2022!

    The stance looks great, and not low at all. What is your recommended ride height for the platform?

  3. so are these basically the same as V3’s with camber plates / top hats and having separate low and high speed compression adjustment? are there technology differences? or just valved differently with the same tech inside the damper?

    Cause at 6k you’re in full race damper territory… I’d wanna know I’m buying more than just a tricked out V3 at double the price… If I’m spending 6k on suspension I want something like an MCS or JRZ or Penske… Monotube dampers. How does the Clubsport 3way compare to those? specifically in terms of damper tech, I know the Clubsport has better street use features like all the stuff being sealed and the corrosion protections.

    1. The compression valves are pretty different, they use turret orifices like Moton for totally linear high-speed compression damping. The low speed uses a washer stack but with a spring-loaded floating needle to blow off to the high-speed circuit with gives pretty good high frequency, low amplitude response, I really like how these shocks work, the adjustments are more linear than KW Motorsports shocks and heck most others. The only shock as good in this respect is Moton.

      1. ok so they really are more special than just V3’s with a couple more features. Thanks for the info!

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