Project Autocross BRZ – Dialing in the KW Clubsports

Project Autocross BRZ – Dialing in the KW Clubsports

by Bart Hockerman

It's always funny how things work out when you look back. Dialing in ride heights, alignments and suspension settings is really no different. It seems to be a long road where it involves a lot of time tuning everything in to maximize what you can get out of your suspension. Adding more knobs to turn does not make it any easier but it does allow you to fine tune the way your suspension works. Then, when you finally hit that point when it all comes together, it’s amazing. You become one with the car, as it feels like it is an extension of you performing feats that some people can’t comprehend. When you look back at what it took to get there you have to laugh at how you sometimes really need to take the long way there. Chalk it up to character building or the gaining of wisdom.

Since May the BRZ has been back to Lake Country Alignment a couple times to tweak alignment settings. Some things that worked well before didn’t quite work out the same with the new coilovers. The BRZ’s ride height has been lowered significantly since the initial install of the KW Clubsport 3 way suspension. Much of this was not discussed in the initial install of the KW Clubsport 3 ways as I did not want to provide a starting point for folks without actually having really had seat time to shake out the settings.

The initial settings for the the alignment began with the ride height which we set by measuring from the flat surface of the rack on the centerline of the axle to the wheel well cut in the body. Our initial settings for ride height and corner weight (driver included) were:

LF 632 mm, 873 lb
RF 632 mm, 767 lb
LR 633 mm, 728 lb
RR 634 mm, 657 lb
 

The original corner weights with me inside. (Yeah, I am a big dude.)

Here was the initial split cross, left and rear.

Ride height is always fun and games. With the initial setup the KW equipped BRZ was sitting taller than most of the other cars in class.

This alignment did offer a pretty good balance and numbers for the car. The car felt really good but the ride height was significantly higher than most of my other competitors. The physical body roll of the car seemed to be much greater than others also. While my times were close when I was at events I really was not connected with the car. Something was off and things just weren’t quite right.