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| Easy to reach adjusters mean quick track side tuning of the damping! |
Since the front shock on the 370Z is a coilover, KW addresses some of the issues that coilovers usually have on street cars. Many times the threaded body of the shock corrodes as it’s hard to keep cut threads from rusting, especially where the spring collars are turned on the threads even with rust resisting platings and coatings. Typically the spring seat is made of a different metal than the shock body, usually a reactive metal like aluminum. This causes galvanic corrosion between the seat and the body. Also consider that the shocks on a street car are exposed to the elements and receive very little maintenance. These issues often cause the threaded body to corrode to the spring seat making for a frozen mess. KW addresses this issue by using stainless steel for the shock body. The spring seat is made of a corrosion proof steel reinforced engineering super plastic. This makes for a coilover body that that is always silky smooth in adjustment and will never corrode, even in salty east coast winters!
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| First the rear shock is bolted in place. |
The rear 370Z shocks have an independent spring separate from the shock. Nissan did this to prevent the spring from adding kinking side load to the shocks, giving a smoother ride. KW has a unique rear spring seat that is adjustable for ride height with this independent rear spring. The adjustable seat allows the car to be corner balanced as well. The 370Z V3 suspension has progressive 8.5-10.5 kg front and progressive 4-9 kg rear springs, about twice as stiff as stock.
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| Then the spring and ride height adjuster. |
Since the V3’s are street oriented they are designed to work with the stock upper isolators and spring seats to keep things quiet without a lot of the noise typically associated with coilovers and performance street shocks with pillow ball mounts and camber plates. However we would like pillow ball mounts like used on KW’s Clubsports so we hope these become available later. We adjusted the 370Z 1” lower in the front and rear for now. This gave the car an even stance. We set the damping adjustments in the middle position until we have a chance to do some on track tuning.
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| The rear suspension ready to go! |
With our bars and coilovers, our car’s handling is markedly improved over stock with more firm control and no deterioration of ride quality. Stay tuned, in our upcoming segments of Project 370Z we will add full alignment adjustability to our car’s suspension and put some bigger stickier tires in place to ready it for its first track forays.
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7 comments
Hi Mike and friends,
Great write up on the 370z. I have a 2013 G37s coupe, and am thinking that these KW V3’s are just what I have been looking for, as I don’t want to drop my car much more than an inch. Will I be needing that front A arm to dial in my camber to stock specs, as well as the rear arms? I’m most likely not going to track my car, but who knows,,a guy has to have some fun! I was giving the Bilstein B16 PSS10 kit consideration, but Bilstein said the minimum drop in front was about 2 inches, which might be too low for a street car. How did you access the upper adjusters on the V3’s?
Thanks,
Michael
For an adjustable front arm, I prefer the part made by SPL which was not available when we did this car. If you are not going to track the car, I don’t think its particularly needed. Its good to pick up some negative camber you will get from lowering the car unless maximum tire wear with less performance is important to you. I prefer the KW over the Bilstiens because of their adjustment flexibility.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the reply. Those SPL upper arms are indeed beautiful, but I think they might be overkill for a mostly street driven car. What do you think about the SPC arms, or the Z1? I pretty much nixed the Bilsteins after going around with their tech dept. I really don’t want to drop the car all that much, and they were telling me minimum drop was about 2 inches! I’m pretty sure that I am going to go with KW. Hopefully it won’t be too much trouble dialing in the back, as the upper adjustments seem like they will be very hard to reach,, unless I drill an access hole, and buy an extender knob. I also work on the ground under stands most of the time, and as I age, it doesn’t get easier, but I still enjoy it. Cheers,, Michael
I think you probably don’t need arms for a street car and can just live with the additional negative camber which helps performance.
We drilled holes and used a long 3mm allen wrench but not KW makes optional extended adjusters so I would do that.
Hi Mike,
Did you ever install a set of SPL front upper arms or any other of their products on the 370Z? If so, how much noise and vibration transfers into the car? Do the PTFE lined rod ends last very long? I see on the SPL site that they are “For off road only”. Did you ever lower the Z more than an inch? Did the Kinetic parts with urethane bushings make alot of noise, and what about longevity? I am very much into handling, and ride quality, or I would not be looking at any of this stuff. Tire wear is a consideration, as good tires aren’t cheap. How do you compare the ride feel of the Z on the KW’s to the stock suspension? At a 1 inch drop, did alignment stay in or close to spec?
Thanks, Michael
We didn’t on the 370Z but we have on our Project 350Z and R35 GT-R. It does transfer more noise and vibration into the cabin and if you are concerned about this I don’t recommend it. The Kinetic stuff isn’t that noisy or harsh but for us, you could not get enough negative camber out of the adjustment. The KW’s ride very well, probably better than stock. Any time you do suspension work, you need to realign the car. A 1″ drop isnt very much so the alignment will come back.
Hello Mike and friends, thank you for these great write ups! Wondering if you were able to find the ideal height measurement on this car? (Hub – Fender)