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| KW Clubsports are an awesome upgrade for any S2000. With stainless steel bodies, pillow ball mounts and double adjustable damping, we feel that they are one of the best streetable but track worthy suspensions for the already good handling S2000. They use higher spring and damping rates than the more street oriented V3’s but still ride better than stock. The Clubsports came fully assembled which is a nice touch. It avoids the worry of tightening the top nut on the shafts and damaging the dampers somehow. |
To adjust the handling back to a more neutral level, we need to adjust the suspension setup. For this project, we’re going with the KW Clubsports suspension versus the more common Variant 3 setup. The Clubsports are a more track oriented setup and have a number of key differences compared to the more street-friendly V3s: stiffer spring rates and matched stronger damping, aluminum unibal top mounts (typically known as pillow ball mounts), and KW high-performance springs.
The KW Clubsports are a gas charged double adjustable twin tube damper. Although FFFs may insist that twin tubes are low end dampers compared to monotubes, the KW’s are a high precision twin tube with the characteristics of a monotube; we will explain why a bit later. Probably the main reason why we like the Clubsports so much is that we believe that independent adjustability of compression and rebound damping is critical to tuning for optimal handling and ride.
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| The stock S2000 shocks look to be pretty trick with remote reservoirs but we feel that they are undersprung with too much mid speed and high speed damping without enough low speed. This results in a pretty stiff ride for stock but not especially good control of body motion. |
The Clubsports have the rod and piston riding in the inner tube with the rebound damping adjuster built into the low speed bleed circuit in the piston. A spring loaded needle valve controls the size of the low speed bleed orifice. The needle valve is attached to a long rod extending to the top of the piston shaft where it can be reached and adjusted with an allen wrench. The rebound adjustment primarily affects the low speed damping–shock piston velocities in the 0-2″ per second range. Low speed damping adjustment affects body motions such as roll and pitch. This is in the area which the driver feels the most when driving fast. The piston also has a conventional deflected disc valve system which blows off and controls damping in the rest of the velocity range.
One of the most compelling reasons to have a twin tube shock is that it is easier to make the compression damping externally adjustable as the foot valve can be accessed from the outside of the shock. The foot valve lives on the bottom of the inner tube and regulates the flow of fluid between the inner and outer tubes. Another spring loaded needle valve controls the size of the low speed compression damping orifice located in the foot valve. The needle valve is adjusted via an allen screw on the bottom of the shock body. Like the rebound, the compression adjuster also mostly influences low speed compression damping, which like rebound is the part of the damping curve that influences body motion.
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| The suspension installation on Project S2K was slightly more involved with the removal of some hard to fiddle with parts needed to remove the stock stuff and install the new parts. It is still well within the skills of most enthusiasts with basic tools. |
