Project V8 E46 M3 Racecar: Adding KW Motorsport Suspension and StopTech Trophy Big Brakes!

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For coilovers, we used KW Motorsports 3-way adjustable dampers. The damping is independently adjustable for rebound and high and low-speed compression. We have a lot of experience with these particular dampers in all sorts of Motorsports from Formula Drift to Road Racing and have found them to work exceptionally well.

The rear coilovers have a lightweight alloy body that is hard anodized for external corrosion and internal wear resistance. The end eyes are spherical bearings for positive coupling to the chassis.

The compression damping adjustment is this screw near the lower mounting eye. It is relatively easy to get to it. The spherical bearing can be adjusted for minor corner weight adjustment and ride height independently from the spring preload as well.

 

The high and low-speed compression damping adjustment is found in the remote reservoir canister.

The valves that control these damping circuits are located here as well. KW’s run at a fairly low canister pressure of 100-150 psi so that air can be used to pressurize the canister. We usually use a bicycle pump to do it at the track.

 

The KW Motorsports front struts are an inverted design for maximum stiffness. This means the strut cartridge is upside down in the strut body and what looks like the shaft is actually the outside of the cartridge. The real shaft is inside the body and attaches at the bottom of it.

This sort of construction is much stiffer and stronger as the shaft is supported at the bottom of the body as well as the middle of it. One disadvantage of the inverted design is that it has a lot more friction as the cartridge is also a rubbing and moving surface as well as the internals of the cartridge, the rod, and piston.

KW has eliminated much of this additional friction by adding linear ball bearings in the strut body which gives the cartridge very free up and down movement.  No other inverted shaft strut uses these to our knowledge.

 

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