The front shock is much shorter than the original, and is extremely easy to install. It’s important to make sure that rebound adjustment ‘window’ faces outward so it can be adjusted.
With the suspension installed, we put the wheels back on and put the car on the ground. We are extremely happy with the lower stance the coilovers give the Viper.
The proportions of the car are significantly better, now that the massive fender gap is reduced.
The Viper has large wheel wells and will never be able to ‘tuck’ or get close to tucking the tire inside the fender, but reducing the massive gap makes a big visual difference in addition to lowering the car’s center of gravity. Even though there is still a decent size gap between the top of the tire and the fender, if you look at the front bumper just in front of the tire, this air deflector sits extremely low and is now 2 inches off the ground. Reducing the ride height further will cause the side skirts to scrape over speed bumps and this front air deflector will get destroyed. Since we didn’t want either of these, we didn’t lower the car too much.
The rear proportions now look much better. Even though it looks like there is a lot of room between the front of the rear tire and the rear fender, the tire itself is actually really close to the inner fender liner and chassis. The overall diameter can’t be much larger to try to fill out that wheel well. It’s unfortunate that American designers in the 90’s didn’t make the fender arch just 1 inch smaller in diameter, which would have made a significant visual improvement. Despite this, I still feel it’s a gorgeous and timeless design.
With the new KW Variant-2 Coilovers installed, the car looks significantly better with an athletic stance that better suits the car, rather than the awkward stock ride height.
We are really happy with the more aggressive look of our Viper and can’t wait to try it out on track!
SOURCES:
BILLY JOHNSON RACING
KW Suspension
7 comments
I love this series. 2nd gen Vipers are my favorite. I can’t wait for the next one!
I’m glad to hear it. They are my favorite generation as well.
Ill help you with that.. “All cars need lowered” 😉
Looks like the shocks and springs are significantly lighter. Did you do a weight comparison?
Unfortunately I did not. But yes, the entire KW coilover is significantly lighter than stock.
Billy, what size tires do you have on this Gen 2 viper? I just want to see if the OD of the tires you have are larger than OEM which helps “fill out” those fenders.
Thanks!
Pete
Check out Part 16 of the series for the wheel and tire article. They are 285/35-18 & 345/30-19