Project GD STI – Checking Out The Development of KW’s New 3-Way Adjustable Clubsport Coilovers

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When installing the rear shocks we ran into a problem.  We have a very aggressive wheel fitment on our car, stuffing 9.5″ wide wheels into the smallish wheelwells of the STI.  The reservoir of the KW 3-ways are a lot bigger than those found on our older Clubsports and the tires were rubbing on them.  To fix this we had to get some rear camber plates so we could move the struts inboard while reducing the additional camber via the lower eccentrics, the opposite of what we were doing up front!
Race Comp Engineering came to the rescue with a set of their GT Worx rear camber plates.  These plates are low profile, low stack height to preserve travel and have corrosion resistant hardware.  The also have a swiveling upper thrust bearing like the Vorshlag plates.
You can see the articulation of the upper plate here.  This is good stuff, now we will have the adjustment flexibility to move the strut inward while maintaining our camber adjustment.
Darrin Nishimoto of Westend Alignment helped us re-align our car with the new stuff.
We set the front suspension for 7 degrees positive caster and three degrees negative camber with 1/8″ toe out to counteract the drag caused by camber thrust on the tires.  The rear suspension was set at 1.7 degrees negative and zero toe.
 With our rear strut eccentrics, camber plates and Whitelines adjustable lower links, we were able to get  crazy hellaflushness without sacrificing anything.  We have proper alignment and wheel travel as well as geometry.

The 3-way shocks helped us fix some of the inherent annoying things about the GD STI suspension.  One of the things is that the GD has a lot of bind in the suspension, when heavily lowered.  This causes a ramp up in wheel rate as the car moves through the travel, especially in the rear.  Ever notice that GD's sometimes like to step out in mid turn or have an annoying hard to tune out bob movement when the chassis is loaded up hard in a corner?  We call it the GD bounce.  This was largely fixed in the GR STI.

In the future we are going to look for an elegant solution to the problem as it creates tire shock and a loss of grip.  We were however able to tune out the bounce for the time being by adjusting the high speed compression of the KW's, especially in the rear.  By reducing the high speed compression while giving it a touch more low speed compression and rebound, we were able to maintain body control while eliminating the bounce.

We are going to be taking our GD to the track and Autocross events to see how much more we can wring out of it through tuning but we can tell you that this is one of the best handling STI's we have ever driven.  Heck it is one of the best handling cars we have ever driven period!

In the next editions of Project STI, we will be looking to wring more predictable power out of our engine and will probably be going through our engine for better reliability.  We will also be upgrading our clutch to an Exedy unit as our new found power and the no lift shifting of our access port has started to smoke the high mileage stock clutch.  Stay tuned!

Read more about Project GD STI !

Sources

KW Suspension

Vorshlag

Race Comp Engineering

Injector Dynamics

Perrin Performance

Crawford Performance

Fluidampr

Stoptech/Powerslot

Koyo Cooling Systems

HPS Silicone Hose

Cobb Tuning

Cobb Tuning So Cal

Synapse Engineering

Afterhours Automotive

Greddy

Mackin Industries Advan Wheels

Falken Tires

West End Alignment

Whiteline

Technosquare

PLX Devices - Kiwi Bluetooth

Palmer DashCommand

3M Window Films (Renewable Energy Division)
www.3M.com/windowfilm

Frank Garrido – Owner
Tint Factory Solar Concepts Inc – 3M Authorized Dealer
2033 South La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-815-1013
www.tintfactory.net

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